Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

Next on my list of backlog subjects is that of my students (former, of course, not current) that have been on TV.

First is Louie, who is currently part of the local version of the reality series about boxers. He was my student when he was a freshman in the early nineties, but I know that he shifted to another course from the one I graduated in (and mostly teach now).

I know that he stayed in school longer than most of his batch mates. In fact, he even became the student of one of his original classmates who had graduated and was my co-teacher (obviously staying in the same course he left).

In those years there were also a huge fluctuation in his body mass. There were times that I’d see him and he was like a balloon about to burst. There were also times that he’d be very lean, or I can even describe it as gaunt.

I assume some pharmaceutical products (intended or side effectual) were responsible for the latter.

Of course now he’s more in the second category. What I don’t know is whether he graduated or not, given his performance before.

The second, Gelo, appeared as one of the audience in the first episode of the live incarnation of a youth-oriented debate program. Coincidentally, this is the station that is the yuppie-oriented affiliate of the first channel.

He was part of the contingent contacted through the one of the school’s political parties, so they were wearing their party hues, blue and yellow, and not – unfortunately, the school colors.

The topic was whether the youth trusted more their parents or their friends. Who do they approach whenever they have a problem?

Furthermore, this student Gelo is effeminate. So after he gave his opinion, which leaned towards the family, one of the hosts asked him in a politically correct manner if he was single or not. He answered the former. The host prodded further if his parents were watching and if he was sure he was single.

It was also the same episode where another student (probably from the rival school) got a unanimous reaction from the panel and the audience alike when he included in his opinion the somewhat inappropriate (to the discussion) word “microcosm”.

Those are the two most recent. Further back, I had two students who were part of the UAAP men’s basketball team (it was an athlete’s block passed on to me when the original teacher left in the middle of the trimester), so of course they (all of them most likely) appeared on TV during the telecast of the games. But one of them went on to became part of the troupe of a comedy show, so that he’s probably more known for that than the playing.

And that concludes session number 585. Class dismissed.