A Plan...

I used to have a strong disliking towards Civics/Social Studies classes when I was still in elementary and high school. Though, I must say, it wasn’t the subject matter that I hated but rather the manner by which it was taught and, along with that, the manner by which we, as students, have “programmed” ourselves to “learn” it.

However, for me, this was not limited to Social Studies classes as most of the teachers that I had had the same teaching method. I just mentioned Social Studies here because it’s one of those subjects that had me robotically memorizing an unending list of names and dates (much of which I end up forgetting after the quarterly exams). Next on my list would be Science classes.

I remember when I was taking up Biology in second year high school, I was not able to understand much of anything my teacher talked about for the entire school year. It was only after reading various articles and watching a lot of Discovery channel’s programs when I truly learned what I was supposed to (and should) have learned during that year.

As an addition to non-textbook sources, I believe I’ve learned more from stories I heard from elderly people than I had from all the classes that I have attended in my entire academic life. That is, of course, with the exception of mathematics and other subjects that involved mathematical formulas and calculations. I have yet to meet a person who can present mathematical calculations and formulations in such a way that will make it all seem trivial.

Moving forward…

As I’ve mentioned many times in this blog, I’ve been interested in old things for as long as I can remember and, I strongly believe that this contributes largely to my interest in history. Yes, I love learning about history.

History to me is very much like a can of Pringles, especially if it involves people, places, and things that I’m familiar with. Why Pringles you ask?

Well, once I “pop” I can’t stop.

I’ve been bitten by the history bug again early this week, quite by accident, and I’ve been thinking of taking on a really cool project to “scratch the itch”, so to speak. I’m not going to say YET what it is but I’m hoping that I’ll be able to go about it starting tomorrow.

Nobody knows about the details of it yet except for my wife and my friend, Arnel.

It’s only the weather I’m really worrying about now as that is the only thing I can see that has the capability of ruining my plans.

It’s nothing new or revolutionary, really… I know of people who’s done it in the past, and I know of one major broadsheet that did it in 1998 as part of the Philippine independence’s centennial celebration). It’s just that, for me, to be able to experience it first hand seems like a lot of fun.

If everything should go according to plan, I’ll be posting something about it here come Monday (September 29, 2008). However, I’ll be posting the “fruits” of my labor on my other blog.