For a million bucks, I'm more than happy to stand in for Grigory
The very elusive mathematician Grigory Perelman, who by all rigorous indications has solved the Poincaré Conjecture four years ago has been tipped as this year's Fields medalist. Taking an extreme anti-pageantry and anti-idolatry stance, he has said many times in the past that he will not take part in any awards ceremony nor will he take the million dollar prize for breaking one of the seven classical mathematics puzzles 'remaining'.
Hmm, one million George Washingtons seems like an awful lot of moolah to ignore but in principle, I totally understand and appreciate his stance. Here's a shot of Vodka!
Before I go any further, let me emphasize that by NO stretch of the imagination am I even half the calibre of someone like Perelman.
Personal accolades embarrass me.
In my last quarter as an undergraduate I was summoned by the Dean because the school wanted to nominate me for one of those 'Outstanding Students eklat' award. I was handed a form to sign and it took me no less than five minutes to say "No thanks, not really interested". The word 'outstanding' really turned me off. Outstanding achievements are everywhere but to attribute one as the handiwork of only one person feels kinda wrong to me. If I was going to get such award, I felt that the banana-q vendor in New Lucban ought to get one too because I wouldn't have done as well had I not had some of her soul food which provided me energy. Let's not forget the jeepney drivers....the xerox lady....the cute girl from humanities who taught me carnal pleasures, etc..etc...In the web of life, no one node can claim to be more outstanding than the others.
Plus there were lots of commitments such as writing essays of self promotion for the judges to read, sitting at boring interviews, and having your mugshot appear in the weekend papers. Time better spent drinking myself silly with my best mates that finally 5 years of hell are over. (No one told me there was a P25,000 prize money but hey, if I were to prostitute myself I'm going to ask for waaaaay more than that.) Plus, being one of the "x most outstanding students of so and so" was not really going to improve my street cred in the mean streets of Baguio.
My beloved Las Islas Filipinas is probably one of the few places where titles are extremely coveted and over valued - Engr, Atty, Arch, Dr., Dra. ,Supreme Ruler of H World, etc....etc....Politicians of course get to affix cough cough 'Honorable' before their name. The sad part is, many individuals from these professions get offended if you don't address them with the proper apellation. (Hell has to freeze over before I call any politician 'Honorable'.)
My mother sent me a text today reminding me that my PRC license has expired and that I should renew it. I said "Nah, I don't need it any time soon". I have never really actively affixed 'Engr.' before my name. It's a very weird and awkward title. It feels good that with my expired license, I'm currently not entitled to use 'Engr'. I only took the Board Exams to appease my father. Well, it was my gift to him. After all, he paid for everything I needed.
The board exams are a sick and tragic joke anyway and the conduct of the PRC boards is under fire because of leakages in the Nursing exam.
I don't know the format of the nursing exams but the Engineering exams are a total wtf is this tosh waste of time. It's a set of three multiple exam questions asking trivial stuff - ie. What was Graham Bell's dog eating when he invented the telephone? Ok that's an exaggeration but the exams were not really designed to test comprehension and knowledge of the subject matter. And this is very very bad because I've seen some technically competent batchmates fail. The same batchmates who could build a class-h amplifier before you can finish humming to the MacGyver theme. Why should they, and we, have to memorise what exact time Shockley went to the toilet after he co-invented the transistor?
Some of the questions during my board exams were so riddled with typos, they did not make sense at all. Which is why if you want to pass the PRC boards, you need to go to a review centre - because the twisted and lazy Board Examiners who can't even proofread their exam questions have a stake in these review centres! It's worth asking why after 5 years of Engineering (or 4 years of Nursing) one still needs to go for overpriced board review classes - one needs the inside information to decipher those ridiculous trivia questions that pop up.
As a very tragic result, most Schools have revamped their curricula to be board exam-centric. So after five/four years of expensive education, a new horde of automatons swamp the labour market with no skills or competencies save for answering pop quizzes.
Following the noble example of the Honorable President (or whatever he is) of the Philippine Nursing Association who allegedly paid the Honorable board examiners for leakages, I will also post here exam questions for the Archeology finals. Please someone deposit P7M in my account soon...
(Yes, for all the moral blah blah preachiness of this blogdiary post, I'm also shallow sometimes and will lower my standards for the right price...I need the money to buy me a new Dunhill leather bag that can pass airport security....and I need a new haircut.....and to buy a diamond ring to win back my wtf was I thingking why-did-I-ever-break-up-with-her Argentinian ex-girlfriend...waitaminute, I think I prefer the Aston Martin V8 Vantage...)
Ok, here's the leak.....
Heto, siguradong lalalabas ang mga tanong na ito.....garantisado....(This are real test papers from Middle Earth University)
And here are the texts you have to decode.
Ok, some smart alecky biatch will point out that these papers are from 2000. Hell, PRC board exam questions are recycled from years previous anyway. So what's stopping Middle Earth university from following our lead?
Like this pest of a grey squirrel who short circuited the grid and fried himself in the process.....
...I hope something similar happens to everyone complicit in this leakage scam. They cheated the students and their parents from getting real and honest satisfaction after years of hard work.
(PS. The squirrel article is on the right. That picture of Mick Jagger refers to the Rolling Stones cancelling their Portugal gig because Mick lost his voice. Besides, even if Mick did short circuit two electric wires, it's unlikely he will get killed. He'll live for another hundred years.)