The New Library Hall and Kinks about it.

First Pacific Hall of the Rizal Library at the Ateneo de Manila University

a. It's ironic that the supposed "hall" houses most of the library.�

b. It's annoying in some way that they named the building after First Pacific. Again. That makes the First Pacific Center for Biological Sciences, the First Pacific Lecture Hall, and the First Pacific Hall of the Rizal Library. I think we should start calling ourselves "The First Pacific run Jesuit Ateneo de Manila University" (images used copyright of the First Pacific Company Limited and the Ateneo de Manila University)

c. The place is supposedly energy efficient, with the structure itself built to minimize heat retention and maximize cooling, but there are�air conditioning�units 2.5 meters away from each other all around the perimeter of the circulation and computer areas.

d. It's funny that the open access computer laboratory is on the fourth floor, and the open reading area is on the fifth floor. They're basically saying, "hey computer geeks and netizens,�since only your hands and fingers get exercise, we've decided to give you a cardio workout�every time�you feel like using the open access lab. Same goes for you bookworms and sleepyheads. Since you get even less exercise than the computer geeks, you have to climb one more staircase!"�

e. The bathrooms are in the hallways now, so no more kinky time stories I hope.�

f. It's great that we have a new library though. That makes 2 library buildings aside from the collection within departments. I am, albeit it showing otherwise in this post, thankful to Mr. Pangilinan and First Pacific for investing in the Ateneo, and the trust of a solid, well rounded, liberal arts based Ateneo education. I am also thankful to Dr. David of the Library administration. She has undoubtedly improved to great ends (using merely small means) the library system. Multitudes of online journal sources added, a new library building, and vastly improved library facilities. Hats off madam. You are a miracle worker.

Rebuilding Me

Ketsana, that great bitch, destroyed the Michael Cabauatan Library main collection which is, sans the vanity title, basically 98% of the books which I owned that I gave a crap about. Everything from all my college text books to my philosophy-theology collection, the books of my favorite fiction authors (Kundera, Murakami, Kafka, Amis, and Gaiman) and my complete collection of the written works of David Sedaris. I am of course devastated. That is tens of thousands of pesos in bound investments down the drain. That is also most of who I am as a person. These books were what defined me. That's why they were in a separate shelf away from my other books. They in one way or another challenged my understanding of self and reality.�

Anyway, what's gone is gone. I can't look back at their contents to see if I've deviated from their ideals. The reference to who I am is officially gone. For the record, only Foucault and Plato were saved (the Fr. David SJ readings). The beautiful thing about life and humanity though, is that the definition still exists in me, and that I am an ever changing individual. I may not be able to go back to Marcel, Hobbes, Vatican II, or any of the other lost books to revisit their impact on my psyche, but I guess the best thing to do is move forward. I can either look for the lost books (again) which are hard to find in bookstores in my little slice of 3rd world metropolis, or I can rebuild by reading new books and see if they affect my self and my reality.�

So: step 1. I bought Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness, and Cohen's Humanistic Psychology. That's one lost book and one new book. Let's see where I go from there...

Rebuilding Me

Ketsana, that great bitch, destroyed the Michael Cabauatan Library main collection which is, sans the vanity title, basically 98% of the books which I owned that I gave a crap about. Everything from all my college text books to my philosophy-theology collection, the books of my favorite fiction authors (Kundera, Murakami, Kafka, Amis, and Gaiman) and my complete collection of the written works of David Sedaris. I am of course devastated. That is tens of thousands of pesos in bound investments down the drain. That is also most of who I am as a person. These books were what defined me. That's why they were in a separate shelf away from my other books. They in one way or another challenged my understanding of self and reality.�

Anyway, what's gone is gone. I can't look back at their contents to see if I've deviated from their ideals. The reference to who I am is officially gone. For the record, only Foucault and Plato were saved (the Fr. David SJ readings). The beautiful thing about life and humanity though, is that the definition still exists in me, and that I am an ever changing individual. I may not be able to go back to Marcel, Hobbes, Vatican II, or any of the other lost books to revisit their impact on my psyche, but I guess the best thing to do is move forward. I can either look for the lost books (again) which are hard to find in bookstores in my little slice of 3rd world metropolis, or I can rebuild by reading new books and see if they affect my self and my reality.�

So: step 1. I bought Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness, and Cohen's Humanistic Psychology. That's one lost book and one new book. Let's see where I go from there...

My Day and Humanism

I woke up unknowing of how extremely disappointing this day would be.�

My Th135 (Introduction to the New Testament) class was dissolved. There were theoretically enough of us in the class. It's just that someone decided by some arbitrary standard that there weren't enough people. Thus, I had to look for a new elective to cover the lost elective. After a long search that brought about minimal possibilities and a singular semi-convenient result, I ended up with FA172.2 which is Introduction to Illustration as a Visual Narrative. For the love of God, how lame is a drawing elective for a science major?�

The Philosophy department's secretary is a stoic seemingly uncaring person who seems an ironic icon set amidst the humanist background that is the Philosophy department. Let me stress that this whole mess was never in any way my fault, but the way people seemed to turn down my buffer requests and pleas to join the other section of the same dissolved class, which was unfortunately tagged for graduate students, seemed to indicate to me that they don't really give a damn whose fault anything is, or in my case, whose fault it wasn't. I'm guessing their premise is "life isn't fair." The problem is that in the Catholic university setting, simply saying that life isn't fair is as if acknowledging that justice is flawed, and its flaws are acceptable parts of lived experience. This quietism is precisely what is to be avoided any Catholic, let alone philosophical humanists. Ateneo is supposed to be a humanist school. The bricks of this wonderful facade unfortunately tell a different story.