Once in my life, I was a teacher. It was not an easy job. Sure, it had its highs and lows, but it could be boring at certain points. Teaching’s a serious business, I tell you.

How so? For several hours, you stand in front, yakking and yakking till your throat hurts. It could be frustrating, especially when you kept on yakking and yakking only to see your students either sleeping or not listening. The first class in the morning was the worst time. Everyone was sleepy – including the teacher. So I always tried to crack jokes to somehow lighten up the mood. But my sense of humor was next to zero; I collected jokes and read them at class. I still have a folder at my file server containing the jokes collected through my teaching years. My joking was a hit-or-miss affair, most of the time misses, since for most of the students the jokes I shared were rather stale.

Then there were gaps in the schedule wherein I had no classes. There were times where the gap stretched into hours. So I did what a decent teacher would do: read books.

Ok, but at least I was reading. Right? Right.

Still, it was boring. What was that cliche about boredom leading a man to do stupid things? Well, I was not exempt.

Back then, when you have a Nokia 7650, you were ahead of the technological curve (actually it meant you had money). It was the first phone to have a camera. A VGA camera was high-tech. It also made people camwhores. Like me.

There are more pictures, but that image is enough torture, no?

But the novelty of camwhoring faded in, what, months. Boredom can lead to delusion.

Yes, even students got bored. And delusional.

Anyway, it could only get worse.

Long-haired, barong-clad, what could be worse than that image?

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Lest anyone gets the idea that teaching is boring, it is not entirely boring. It can only get boring when you have so many free time in between classes. And first subjects. Most of time it can be fun. And interesting. Interesting for you get to meet all types of people.

And depending on what kind of teacher are you, you can have an adoring set of fans, este, students pala. I’ve had my share.

Those number of fans could only mean I was a good teacher, no? No? K.

Anyway, I remain friends with some of my students after they graduated and/or after I left teaching. I saw some of them fall in love; I saw some of them fall out of love; saw some of them got married, have kids, and separate later on. I saw some of them succeed and revel in their victories; I saw some of them fail and commiserate in their sorrows. I remember basketball games after school; of hotdogs-and-ice cream get-togethers; of trips to beach resorts and far-off places.

Yes, it’s a mixed bag. But I miss all of it still.

Will I go back to teaching? I don’t know. I had written about it before; back then, I said that in the end it could be a lonely job. You see new students come in, and you see them leave. Repeat every year. That’s my reason why I remain out of the academe.