Two thousand ten (2010) has just faded to history. Here I am, trying to bring back to mind the highlights of the year gone by and how it influenced, in anyway, my life, socially, spiritually, and professionally. It is kinda hard to remember the events as they unfolded, especially if each day just seemed to be not unlike any other passing day.
Thanks to social networking apps like facebook, I got the chance to reconnect with a lot of people- relatives, former students, former classmates and friends from the world over. It feels great to get some updates from them, after years of temporal separation. Nothing was even sweeter than the opportunity to visit my younger sister and her family in Toronto, Canada, after eleven long years. In Toronto, I met new relatives who were warm and gracious. I also got the chance to visit few old friends. I accompanied my wife to her faculty development meeting in San Diego, CA. While in there, I got the chance to visit fellow Plaridelians around the area, met their extended families, and experienced their warm hospitality. More hometown (Plaridelian) friends we were connected to when my family spent the Christmas holidays in Houston. Our visit with them was very pleasant and memorable as we made more friends in the parties we went to. In addition, we got the chance to swing by a family in Houston we knew so well back to my post-doc days in Kansas State University. Of course, our facebook friends list gets longer. Late this year, when I was about to turn 50, I developed strong interest in blogging. Blogging has become an outlet for me to express opinions, all of my own. I looked forward to having a blog published every week.
My spiritual life took a topsy-turvy turn as the year was unfolding. As it seems now, my belief system is sitting on a shaky ground. Recently, I've been reading the atheist's views as I have been in continuous search of the rationality of faith and reason. I know this sounds eccentric and weird. My take is... as I get older, I become more inclined in the mechanistic rather than vitalistic point of view of things. All through the years, I've fed myself enough with information related to spirituality. Now is the time to explore the other side. Many things just don't make sense. And these are just left to 'the god of the gap' to be a piece and at peace with sense and sensibility. Being informed requires a second look at things (practices, beliefs, etc) that have been held for a long time. The powerful human intellect has unearthed volumes of novel information which never existed when traditional belief systems flourished back to the days. It gives new meaning to the saying 'examine your conscience'.
On the professional note, 2010 was a highly productive year for me as a teacher. Two semesters and two summer sessions of teaching gave me the opportunity to reach out and mentor to about 300 sudents. Teaching as a job is a lifetime vocation. It requires being abreast knowing the tricks of dealing effectively with the millennials. As such, I was privileged to attend a professional development on teaching excellence and leadership. I find it quite delightful and gratifying as a teacher, to be able to inspire a few students among so many who just want to get high grades without exerting some efforts on their part. And I get this clue when these few students wish to take more of my classes and from the rumors that spread around the campus student world. Of course, I take so much pride hearing from my students from the not-so-distant past, some now famed medical doctors, college professors, high school teachers, or somebody respected in their chosen professions - all telling me I was a bit part, no matter how small, of who they are now. From them I draw the inspiration which energizes my proclivity to continue to teach and inspire few students at a time.
Overall, 2010 was a wonderful year!
I am person of the present. I take lessons from yesterday to make my today a little better. I could care less about the details for tomorrow. For no one knows what the future holds.
For 2011, I will just embrace what each day brings...
Happy New Year everyone!
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