Dr. FG David

Not everyone may know him because he rather kept his intelligence and wisdom away from the limelight. All those who have met him, however, all those who have crossed paths with him one way or another, all agree that he is someone to be always remembered. For everything that he taught us, how can we forget? (Sorry, sir. If you still don't want any of the limelight, we really just could not help but write about you).

I've written several blog posts with him in them during the time I was taking his classes, Psych 210 and Psych 212 (Multivariate Statistical Methods). You may check out my August 2006 Archives and look for my entry "Inspired". I also had several other entries where I mentioned him in passing.

I rarely write the actual names of my professors but I've written his name on several occasions. He makes that kind of impact. He does. His family, friends, students, and colleagues know that.

Like any other UP Psychology student, I heard about him even before I took his classes. Undergraduate students have him as their neurophysiology or neuroanatomy professor. Graduate students who are serious about finishing their MA or PhD degrees didn't have a choice but to go through Dr. David's two classes popularly known for their difficult statistical derivations -- Psych 210 and 212. Don't get me wrong, they were a good kind of having "no other choice." These were the classes that you'd be highly grateful for, no matter how hard and painful it was back then while taking them.

I attended two of his classes. Two semesters. One for each semester. He was never absent. Not a single day. I would have wanted to say the same for myself but I missed two days of classes in two semesters. One was when I had to leave for Palawan and one was when I got really ill. The first absence was a choice that I made because I was pursuing something I loved to do. The second was a non-choice that I wished didn't happen. In retrospect however, everything does happen for a reason.

After that second time I was absent, during the following week, Sir David asked if I was already feeling better. As always, he used that faint tone of his which you barely hear and yet, sounds so clear. Up to now, I still wonder how he spoke that way. I said, "yes, sir" and smiled at him. And for that particular moment, I knew that he did not simply memorize us all. He was truly concerned about each one of us.

During the first day of my Psych 210 class, my head was filled of stories about him. My younger sister, Nikki, who was under his undergraduate classes, is partly responsible for whatever image I had of him even before classes started. She did give me a very good image of him.

I knew how Dr. David would call each one of his students by their surnames and how he knew each one by face. Imagine the number of students, year in and year out. He knew all of them.

True enough, he called me Miss Jara in his classes. And somehow, with the way he'd call each one of us, I just wanted to be able to give the correct answers all the time. But sometimes I didn't give him the perfect answers. Like when he first asked me, "Miss Jara, what is 2?" and I said "Sir, 2 is a number". He simply replied, "Two is an abstraction." Oh yes, I had preschool-ish answers on particular days. Preschool-ish answers are not necessarily wrong. In contrary, they're so simple and unquestionably correct, making us laugh at them or laugh at the person who said them. But he didn't laugh.

My regular seat was in front of the class, right across his table. To all those who don't know, I have poor eyesight and I'd rather have the best view of the two most difficult subjects in my MA course. Math, derivations, and I didn't seem to mix that well. That didn't mean that I stopped trying. In fact, it was the opposite of that. In Dr. David's classes, I had to give more than my usual efforts.

A batchmate of mine, Imon, also told me what Sir David was like while we were waiting for him on our first day of Psych 210. Even before the start of class itself, I heard that he'd address us with the question, "What is an experiment?". And he did. It was Imon who answered that first question.

After one of our long exams during the middle of the semester, I felt so tired and drained. I even cried because I felt that I could have done better. It took some of us more than three hours to try to finish our exam and we still didn't finish... While walking down the corridor, we said in our most pleading tone: "Sir, effort..." And he told us before saying goodnight, "Oftentimes, effort is the best measure of success." I took that to heart.

As I mentioned before, I've written some of his words of wisdom on the margins of my notebook. How I wish I could share those notes to all of you now but a fellow graduate student has all my notebooks with her because she's preparing for the comps. I'll simply write what my memory retained after a year.

I remember him telling us to be systematic starting with the simplest tasks. Even with the way I copied the given data and wrote them on the board, he'd ask if I were being systematic. (I think for that particular task, I was.)

And then I remember him asking us why we were all there one night, in that class, in the courses we took... We said because we chose this. Yes, he agreed that we did choose our courses but why us? Why were we all there that night? Why did all of us choose our courses and ended up in the same class? Was it because we all had to meet each other this lifetime? Not really.

He was waiting for his favorite answer -- that most likely, everything that happens, happens by chance. We were all there that night because of random chance. We weren't destined to be classmates. Just like when we play dice and we get number 5. We're not destined to get 5. It showed up because of chance.

Remember the saying that says "God does not play dice"? Dr. David had a different thought on that. Playing dice, being a game of chance and randomness, just seems to be one of his favorites.

We played dice once in his class to prove that point about chance.

If we were to ask him about death, he would probably say that this is one of those random events. Death is inevitable, yes. But when does one die? He'd probably say it's all up to chance.

Some people may not agree with some of the things he had been believing or not believing. But there will always be a little something among all the things he said that we'd never forget and would come in handy sooner or later. Which one of his many sayings you would remember is really up to you and your needs.

The ones I wrote are the bits and pieces of my experiences with him. Mostly in the classes I took under him. Right there, sitting quietly, front and center with my poor eyesight squinting back at him and our notes on the board.

Because of him, I learned that there are other things more elegant than all the shiny and beautiful things in the world -- Math. "Its elegance is in its simplicity." And this is I speaking, a non-lover of Math.

Because of him, I learned how to look back at where things came from, from origins of words to the simplest forms of equations.

Because of him, I re-learned how to compete with noone but myself.

And lastly, he taught all of us to go on with our lives and to finish everything that we've begun, in whatever field we chose.

It's the little push that makes great things happen.

To Sir David, maraming maraming salamat.