Exam week

If you are a mother juggling work, husband, children and graduate school, I hereby confer you the title “Goddess of Everything-Impossible-Of-Which-No-Mortal-Being-Can-Dare-To-Accomplish-Because-You-Are-Made-Of-Much-Stronger-Stuff.”

I am scheduled to take an exam for one of my courses in graduate school, and I do not know why in the world I am doing this.

I asked myself this question towards the end of every semester since I ventured into further education in 2014.

I have grand plans in my head with interests in communication, investigative journalism, corporate-community partnerships, development work, international affairs, education and … tea.

I love school and would like to believe that school loves me back.

Except that going to school when you are working and raising a family is not an easy endeavor. I wish to talk face-to-face with my 17-year-old self and tell her to stop complaining about the gravity of assignments and research work she had to do at the University of the Philippines (UP).

“Cris Evert,” I would tell her, “there is no task more challenging than taking a final exam with a screaming baby beside you or finishing a paper when you are on labor or working on a lesson plan three days after giving birth.”

I want to castigate myself for not giving enough credit to working students back in my college days when they deserve all the cheers and claps in the world. I have not fully appreciated the amount of work and dedication that working students put in to school until I became a mother.

My decision to pursue graduate school came seven years after I obtained my undergraduate degree in Mass Communication. I did not see the need to earn another degree. As far as I can remember, my parents told me I only need one to get a job so I was content with one.

I ventured in a non-degree program mainly on Chinese Language and Culture from 2009 to 2010 under a scholarship with the Gokongwei Brothers Foundation China Scholarship Program, which took me to the Confucius Institute at the Ateneo De Manila University and Fudan University in Shanghai, China.

That formed my love for China’s culture and heritage and tea. Learning the language was difficult but it was a lot of fun! A tonal language like Mandarin is music to my ears.

I carved my own destiny when I chose to quit my job as a full-time reporter to pursue Chinese studies. It eventually led me to my husband, Jeff Ruffolo, who works for a Chinese airline and serves as a senior expert for the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee.

I enrolled at the Cebu Normal University (CNU) sometime in 2012 to earn a diploma in professional education. I have always wanted to become a teacher but I was pressured to take up something that will lead me to the path of medicine or law. They seemed like the coolest professions on earth.

I eventually found out that there is more to society than doctors and lawyers.

I knew I was pregnant when I was staring at my kind professor with the rage of the Incredible Hulk. I left CNU with an Awol status. I hope to eventually come back soon when I am done with Dev. Comm.

I felt the need to study language and literacy education when I moved to Guangzhou, China, with seven-month-old twins. I felt that I should be my children’s first teacher and I should be in my best form when I do that. My children became my guinea pigs in understanding twin language development and second language learning. That degree was accomplished in 2016.

This third degree, which I am hurdling now, is undertaken to strategically contribute in my involvements with development organizations. Passion drives you to do what you do but you also need knowledge and skills to ensure that your projects are effective and efficient.

I also run personal campaigns and initiatives to promote love of heritage, culture, reading and books and I see the need to improve my skills in crafting projects which help build communities.

I am not collecting diplomas. If that was the case, I would have enrolled in schools which hand diplomas like its tempura and kwek-kwek sold on the streets.

But UP is not a diploma mill.

It makes you work hard, gives you headaches, tests your inner core and questions your beliefs. It is a tough place for learning, but it is not UP without the toughness. This is why every UP diploma is more than just a paper; it is a testament of dedication, perseverance and commitment.

So here I am on a Saturday trying to make sense of the world from the perspective of communication which brings about social change.

I hope to earn another diploma in a year, that is, if I pass this grueling two-hour exam armed with what I read in the past three months and what I learned in the past 30 years.

Wish me luck!