My first semester as a novice college instructor here at the university is already rolling away to a close with more than just a month to go before I toss off of my students' egos with the grades they deserve (hehehe).

However, it sure isn't going to be a walk in the park (I bet my ass) considering the boulders of workload I have to hurdle before enjoying what I hope is a sanctifying semestral break. It's a mudslide of chores for me - from daily course preparations to assigning and checking student class works, from formulating exams and supervising student theses to accomplishing my teaching portfolio, and down to cleaning up my desk.

Apart from the normal teaching load (four courses, three preparations), I'm tasked with a heavy line up of extension work on campus journalism around the Cordilleras, side by side with my hardworking colleagues, come september till october. Hitch on this a good amount of pressure for the upcoming Dulaang UPB season which I am spearheading.

But I ain't complaining. Teaching is a wonderful experience and I've always regarded it as a very noble profession. Frankly I can say that I feel a lot better with what I am being paid for now than before. There's no longer that guilty feel of being compensated doing nothing much. When I considered this job three months ago, it wasn't as if I expected landing on the best ass-kicking job in the world. It was more like the right opportunity for me to consider back then. And I'm certainly happy that I did hop into this rewarding chance.

But satisfaction is a different thing. I believe it's a deeper, more elusive degree of happiness. Somehow, in spite of the "little trinkets of joy" that I heap from my present job, I still feel quite a few wanting. And it could be due to some recurring "what ifs" that boggle me these days.

What if I've actually pursued working in the mainstream media? What if I've tried out being a news reporter, or a copywriter in an ad agency? What if I didn't get intimidated by the guiles of the system and just went for my goals?

Everytime I get to meet with my college friends who are equally struggling to make manna out of their creative juices as writers, producers, and newsmen, I'm curious to see happiness painted on their faces. I'm eager to know how much satisfaction has being media practitioners brought them. But I could only wonder and surmise so much. They could fake it like I could, really. Nevertheless I'm sincerely proud of them for going for their passion.

Some of us who earned our degrees in broadcasting took the waysides and went for other career alternatives. A couple of stunningly beautiful faces in our batch charmed their way up to the clouds, literally, as flight attendants of international airlines. Another gorgeous binibini in the lot strutted her stuff at the Miss U pageant and went home proud enough with a Miss Photogenic title. Others engaged in the notoriously high-paying call center jobs. Few braved their way to find luck overseas.

Where is the promise of a good life, if not a good work after college education?

There's actually no concrete promise in this world, is there? We went to school hoping of turning out to be someone we dreamed ourselves to be back when we looked at the vanilla sky. And then just when we thought we finally knew it all, we realized there's more to learn in this world that books alone don't teach us. And then, as if inevitably, we now go through that dooming part when we no longer knew what we're good at.

My former boss told me that a person will at least have three jobs before he finds the gold mine. I'm with my second, so that leaves me with one more cruising. After this academic year, if things don't work out the way they should do in my favor, then I could only hope I'm just a step closer to what could be my ultimate career break yet.

True enough, finding one's place in the sun is a crazy roller-coaster episode in life. Go figure.

I woke up to another chilly and immensely foggy morning here in Baguio City. It was just 6:45 when I started scurrying towards my first class at the university. Suprisingly, I could hardly see where I was heading to the moment I stepped out of the house. Everything was silhouette to the naked eye, as if heaven had decended and cloaked every abode, street lamp, tree and all in view with its majestic white cloud. The ground was drenched from what had been an overnight heavy downpour. There was slight sting in every kiss of the howling amihan on my bare cheeks.

It has been like it since the last typhoon swished over this gorgeous mountain-top city. Now that super typhoon is close at making landfall in Luzon, albeit not directly hitting Baguio, the weather condition has gone even more berserk. Strong winds teasingly brush people off their catwalks. The thick and blinding fog makes pathways a mystery to traverse. The intermittent rain patters on the rooftops like playful children banging spoons against their empty bowls.

Yet somehow, despite the unfriendly weather, the sun still sheds its shy light so you don't lose sight of the city's one of a kind beauty - its winding roads and alleys, sweet scent of its pine trees, grand mountainscape of the Cordilleras, and colorful sights and sounds that never fail to enthrall visitors and natives alike. Baguio is very alluring, even on a day like this. :)