Dark Warden

Deception of a UP Professor

University of the Philippines, Diliman Campus (UP Diliman) is a university unlike any other. It is known for its quality education, its unending protests, its alumni, and its reputation of being the breeding ground for activists. This is the place where you will be able experience happiness, sadness, excitement, boredom, hardship, anger, love, and every other emotion that can possibly be felt. But I am going to concentrate only on the most terrible hardship that I have experienced in UP Diliman. Among all the hardships I had, this experience stands out and it has become my most memorable experience in UP Diliman.

Last June 15, 2006, I woke up at around 4 o’clock in the morning in order to get a class through the teacher’s prerogative. The teacher’s prerogative, also known as prerog, is the act of pleading in front of a professor in order to be admitted in his/her class if you are not able to do so during the enrollment. Upon my arrival at the Palma Hall, a building in UP Diliman, I went to one of the rooms to try the teacher’s prerogative but unfortunately, the professor in that class did not arrive. I went to the fourth floor of Palma Hall to check out another room. I was able to find a room where I saw a professor discussing her requirements in her class. She was able to make me believe that she was kind for she kept on smiling and cracking jokes to her students. After her class, I approached her and asked her if she would allow me to be admitted in her class. She told me that the slots were already full for that class, but she told that she has another class in the afternoon and she will gladly accommodate me in that class if I returned. I was so happy for my worries had finally ended. When I came back, she told me that she no longer have any vacant slots in any of her classes. I felt my world crumbling down on me. I felt like committing suicide at that very moment for everything seemed to go wrong. I wanted to curse her. I wanted to tell her how evil she is. I felt anger, frustration, and helplessness at the same time. I wanted to shout at her. Since I was not that evil, I just left the class and wondered what awaits me in the future. Upon arriving at home, I did not commit suicide. Instead, I slept. I slept all my worries away thinking that there is something good that awaits me in the future. It was a good thing for me that the following day I was able to be accommodated in another class where the professor was really kind. I really don’t know if she really was kind for it might be that that professor is deceiving me as well.

I learned from this experience that I should never put down your defense when everything seems to go right because that is the time I am most vulnerable. In that situation, I became secured and reckless for I was given an assurance of getting a slot in the class of that professor. I never thought that something might go wrong. When it did, I felt so much pain, and frustration. I even lost my will to live. Another lesson that may have been instilled in me is that, I should not easily trust people, especially UP professors, who look so kind and thoughtful because their looks might be deceiving me.