Cachalot

cach-a-lot - [kash-uh-lot, -loh] n. Any of several large, toothed whales of the family Physeteridae, especially Physeter catodon or P. macrocephalus, of tropical and temperate oceans, whose massive head has a cavity containing sperm oil and spermaceti and whose long intestines often contain ambergris.

I stayed up late watching the replay of the 2007 Spelling Bee Competition shown at ESPN. Cachalot is one of the words that caught my fancy and caused one of the contestant to be eliminated. I cannot help but marvel at the abilities of these kids to spell. You see I am very terrible when it comes to spelling..... well actually I am not very good with languages. If you'll continue reading this entry you'll definitely realize that. As a nursing student I am having difficulty remembering the correct spelling of those pesky scientific and medical terminologies. In my examinations I usually struggle with spellings and more often than not my incorrect answers are because of incorrect spellings.... sometimes I protest and tell my professor... isn't it that the thought that counts? ;-)

I am not a smart or intelligent student or a person at that if you must insist. I knew about this early on in life..... that is probably one of the reason why I usually stay quiet in one corner most of the time....especially when I was a young kid. I learned to hang around smart people and keep quiet and just listen to what they have to say. I learned a lot of things by doing that ;-) Also, if you stay quiet you'll get to know the person better.... actually because of my being meek and silent I've learned to discern if the person is just a smart aleck or really intelligent.

In my previous job of 9 years in an IT company... I had the opportunity of working with so many people of various academic, social , and sometimes racial background. Some of my colleagues are really smart and there were also quite a number of pretentious pompous smart a**. My immediate boss is a magna cum laude Creative Writing graduate from UP...imagine how long it takes for me to reply from her e-mails...bwahahahahahaha. My best friends from this IT company were my former supervisor Cat who later on decided to teach English in China, my former HR manager jtt who is now a very successful HR practitioner and have worked in various multinational companies.... and yeah she is 2 years my junior and she now owns a 3.4 M house, 2 cars, have obtained 2 masters degree one from DLSU and one from UP, and 2 laptops...bwahahahaha and my other close friend there was Yul who finished his Economics degree in UP in 3 1/2 years and later on went to speak in front of statisticians from around the globe in Germany where his masters degree paper was chosen in this convention .

Close to home I have a niece who just recently graduated from UC Berkely with a degree in Biology and another niece who early on was handpicked by Che Che Lazaro to host the now defunct children show 5 and Up... graduated from Philippine Science High School and went back to UP to study Biology. Being around these people have made me realize my place under the sun.... where I stand in the general scheme of things.

I have always been good in drawing... in pre-school..... I remember that aside from coloring my coloring books I also take joy in drawing the pictures in the coloring book.... I dont trace...I draw the pictures. When I was in my pre-teens my dad would like me to be tutored by his painter/ fine arts professor friend. It never materialized because I already have my piano lessons to keep me busy then. I am also an above average student in math... I am pretty good in imagining things and I used it to understand mathematics :-) But I suck in memorization... I cannot even remember the names of people... and to make things worst... my mom is also extremely forgetful...My genes are working against me :-(

One of my problem as a student and a person is my complacency. I also do not have any sense of competitiveness. I just always wing it in school and work. I have simple dreams and very happy with my anonymous existence. I even find it extremely absurd with the amount of energy and emotional stress my former co-workers put into their work and upon themselves just to be noticed by the powers that be. I hope by now they have realized that it was not that worth it at all. Some relationships were even strained just because of the slightest typos or stupid words.

Next year hopefully I shall be graduating from Nursing School. This is why I am now a bit worried because with graduation includes the impending School Qualifying Exam, Local Board Exam, CGFNS, and NCLEX that I will have to take. I am not very good with memorizing hence my general plan is to start reading all my books beginning next month. I am hoping to read all my books at least 3 times. This mean that I will cut down or altogether stop reading non academic related books :-( Wish me luck ....

By the way, Evan O'Dorney, a 13-year-old California eighth grader, was the Spelling Bee winner. The winning word was....

serre·fine [sâr-fn, sr-] n. A small forceps for clamping blood vessel.