Rambling

Last night, I was watching the Discovery Channel special, "The Real Olympics." I wasn't able to start it, but I don't think I missed all that much. Anyway, it was basically (What is it with this word? Had an interview a few hours ago with N Steel, and I caught myself saying this all the time! When I finally got myself to stop it, I found my interviewer infected with the "basically" virus herself.) about the Ancient Greek Olympics and how it really was. The second part was a juxtaposition of the Olympics then and the Olympics now.

It was extremely interesting.

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A Japanese gymnast named Fujimoto was featured briefly. He competed in the Olympics a few years back. Apparently, this guy had gotten injured before most of the competition started. But he kept the injury and the pain of it to himself. He didn't want the rest of his team to be disheartened by it, and, I suppose, he didn't want to let anybody, including himself, down. The only time people found out about it was when, after a really good run on the hanging double loops (or whatever it is technically called), he collapsed on the mat.

There was also this story of how a Greek fighter swallowed his own teeth, as his opponent had punched them out. Turns out he didn't want anyone to know how badly he was beaten. Bloody.

These reminded me of Donald Geisler, the Filipino tae kwon do jin, and how he wanted to keep on fighting his Tunisian opponent, even after he had injured his ankle.

I hope that when my turn comes to do something like this, I won't disappoint myself.

On another note, can the stomach digest teeth?

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I also learned about how the term "amateur" was coined.

In Ancient Greece, there was no distinction between the amateur and the professional athlete. Athletes were representations of the gods, and that was that. But in the Victorian era, the elites got into sports and started having competitions. However, being the elite that they were, they ruled out people who would be naturally good at the sport. For instance, in boating competitions, they ruled out the boatmen, and in competitons of strength, they ruled out the laborers. This led to the distinction between professional athletes and amateur ones.

Interesting.

When I was listening to this explanation, I remembered the Globalization class of Dr. Benjamin Tolosa, the chair of the Political Science department. I took this class as my elective, when I was a junior at university. Reality as a construct, he taught us. I'll remember that one until forever.

Now that I think about it, I am pretty sure that my readings for Mr. Michael Coroza's Filipino class, when I was a sophomore, had constructivist elements in them. They were about how the history of the Philippines, as seen by the natives, had been lost and replaced by the account of the Spaniards. But then again, when I was taking it up, no one explicitly explained what constructivism was.

I suppose that is why I associate the term more with Dr. Tolosa than with Mr. Coroza.

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Other fascinating things were presented in the documentary, but I won't be writing about all of them here. Just watch it for yourselves. That is, if you're into that kind of thing, like I am.

Last interesting thing I'll write about (at least for now) - If you won a Gold medal in the Ancient Greek Olympics, you wouldn't need a wall to protect your town. For as long as you were there, no one would attack it. Why? Because the Gold medalist was supposed to have been favored by the gods. A demi-god, he was. Or, more accurately, a mortal one.

The essence of that is not too far from the saying, "The glory of God is the human fully alive." is it?

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After this show ended, there was another documentary, also on the Discovery Channel, this time on terrorism. There were also two other documentaries on TV: one on a Filipino man having a sex-change in Thailand and the other on ways of life in really far-flung areas. While I find these topics interesting, I didn't watch any of them.

Sometimes, it just really is time to tune out.

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Now that we're on TV, or on the subject of TV shows at least, allow me to say that books are still my favorite medium of instruction.

Don't get me wrong - I do value multimedia education. For instance, when I was a junior in high school, I reviewed for the Bioman's test in genetics by watching the clip on meiosis/mitosis on the Encarta CD. Actually, now that I think about it, I went through all the clips of that CD, from the features of the authors (Jane Austen was there!) to the more science-y stuff. They're really nice to watch. Entertaining too.

But then again, there's just something about seeing the letters on the page that you turn with your hand.

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Speaking of hands, I replaced two of my tools with new batteries yesterday: my TV remote controller, which is now obedient, and my toothbrush, which is, once again, too jittery for comfort.

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I have a feeling that my era of unconventional fruitfulness will end soon. When it does, my only regret would be that it could not have lasted longer.

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Is there such a thing as a professional rambler?

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It is with these thoughts that I live out the last day of August of this year.