Professor Z could be a he, a she, or an it. But for the purpose of reducing all the complexities of the English language into a simplified form, let's just call Professor Z a he.

Do you know Professor Z? Shame on you if you're an English Major in UPD and don't know this Professor Z person.

Professor Z wears titatiumish eyeglasses. He is chubby. He bounces around like a springing bullfrog.

He tells all his students that a lot of people are Zombies.

Specifically, he says he wouldn't want to print a bigass advertisement on a leading newspaper company thanking our Goblin President. It costs a fortune. He'd rather use the money for the betterment of the country. How patriotic.

In boldface format the blown up print ad would have to say "Thank You President Goblin Tyrant Hilly Mole In The Face for donating/helping/organizing blabbyteeblaaahh on this such and such occasion."

If he won't publish that he'd be stripped off of his perks and privileges.

Now what would he do? He doesn't want to print that bloody vainglorious ad. He wants someone else to do it: a Zombie.

A Zombie is a thoughtless, mechanical, apathetic entity who feeds off human flesh. (Plug: My favorite short story forever.XD It's written by a blogger, not some canonized dead literary asscrack.) Succinctly, this Zombie Professor Z is referring to is some venal cretin who'd willingly accept the responsibility of printing the thank-you-president-goblin frippery.

He calls this cretin a Zombie.

ZEEEE OOOHHHH EMMM BEEEE AAYYYEEE EEEEEE.

Z-O-M-B-I-E.

Zombie.

zombie

But Professor Z, he hasn't one memorable lecture just yet.

It's been two months. And still, we don't know shit.

The only lecture he's ever come up with is the status of the creative writing industry in the Philippines.

This lecture, he's prattled it three times on three consecutive meetings.

The lecture wasn't a long discussion broken in three parts. It wasn't a topic discussed in three different perspectives.

Each of those three were all the same. A double mirror image of his first lecture.

He hasn't any idea he's said it three fucking times.

Who's the Zombie?

I've had two classes under Professor Z. The first one, I didn't learn shit. He leaves the teaching responsibility to the students who conduct yawning pointless reports.

But what he mostly does is come to class and laze off babbling about how inspirational he is to his students.

He tells this with funny anecdotes and hyperactive gestures: how the world is and how it should be and what we should do.

If you look at the students' faces, you'll read the word AMAZING.

The students are Zombies with faces petrified in smiles and glass eyes.

They are astounded. Stunned. Stupefied. Turned into fossilized archaeological matter.

It's the same face you'd see in a church before the spiritually inspirational Bo Sanchez.

Who's the Zombie?

In this class I'd wish I'm playing chess instead. Climbing a mountain. Drinking alcohol. Jogging around the academic oval. Or reading a book.

He tells his students all the scholarships and grants and awards and prizes he's had here and oversees. How he did it, the pathway to stardom. How he became a literary celebrity. A successful professor.

A successful, inspirational, amazing professor.

How he's standing now here in front of the class, he assumes the responsibility of infecting us young ambitious English majors with his contagious positive energy.

I've heard this a quajillion zillion times, like a flash animation programmed on loop. Like a parrot. A broken record. A DVD adventure series. Everything is hard coded from the facial expressions to the self-laudatory speech to the flying hand gestures.

He's a comedian who goes on tour and stages his script. He is not a teacher.

Who's the Zombie?

He is Sisyphus lifting a rock up a hill which simply rolls back once he reaches the top.

This professor, he's trapped in his past. He's so amazed with all his achievements he doesn't achieve anything right this very moment in this very classroom.

All his now, all his present, they're put on a cryogenic deep freeze to be thawed and resurrected centuries later when there's a cure.

He's the phantom of a dead person who doesn't know he's dead and continues reliving the routines he's done alive.

Who's the Zombie?

He is not genuinely inspirational unlike professors Conchitina Cruz, Vlad Gonzales, Butch Dalisay, and Anna Felicia Sanchez. (I've heard Professor Neil Garcia is also an excellent teacher, but I hate poetry.) If they'd be graded I'd give them an A+ raised to infinity.

But this professor, I wouldn't give him an F. I'd give him a Z.

Now he tells me the world is full of Zombies.

I couldn't help but laugh. I just say: How true, how true.

Professor Z drops by this blog from time to time (He found me by googling himself.XD) and comments on it in front of the class. I appreciate the comments, but I rather have him comment here. I have stage fright; I don't like to be the center of attention, thankyouverymuch.

I don't know what's he like outside the classroom. So all this is just an impression.

Ang Panitikang Pambata Sa Edukasyon is a conference taking place right now in Claro M. Recto Hall at the Faculty Center. Gio who was raising funds selling books outside that hall told me it was an open discussion about writing children's literature so I stepped in when lo and behold, it's actually a discussion about the Major Crisis in the Philippines.

All departments in the university are disseminating this information right now.

To summarize the state of our country: kids now ransack garbage for leftovers and scraps, gather them in a heap, cook them again, and eat.

It's not as dramatic as that of Africa where people die from starvation. The Filipinos, we're improvisers. We do what we can to survive. But still, it is an abomination.

The brilliant speaker Professor Will Ortiz flashed powerpoint summaries and statistics under the regime of President Goblin Tyrant Hilly Mole In The Face.

One example is the budget allocation for education in the country. The government uses 5% of the GDP (or Gross Domestic Product) for education, but only 0.6% is actually being implemented. We are one of the countries with the least budget for education around the world. Another is: We've acquired an additional P3 trillion international debt because of President Goblin. We're neck-deep in watery shit.

Chew on that.

This is the reason why I don't read newspapers. It depresses the shit out of me. Fifteen minutes into the lecture and already my eyes were watering, my eyesight blurred. I raced out of the hall to retch on grass.

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