The Four-eyed Journal » School

A busy week Sept 4 to Sept 8

jhay — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 01:44:10 +0000

Again, it will be a busy week for me for I have the following engagements and tasks lined up in the next 6 days:

Today I must finish preparations for the a top-secret plan of the USC to help promote and strenghten Students’ Rights in DLSU-D. I’ll definitely write a lot about it here in the coming days. It will all be unveiled on September 12, 2007 which is next Wednesday.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, September 5 I have two appointments which are in conflict with each other!

1) Is the “Dare to Bare” project, a university-wide debate about one crucial and fundamental Feminist issue: “Who defines what is beauty?” More to the point, “Who has been saying what is beautiful or not? And why all women seem to be struggling to conform with it?”

It’s a joint-project between the Lasallian Women’s Circle and Vox La Salle Debating Society which I co-founded just last June. Participants in the debate would be representatives form the 7 colleges of DLSU-D and the University Student Council.

2) Is an evaluation meeting for the SERVE Volunteers’ recently concluded 2-day training “SAS + ALT ’07″ which was held last Aug 31 to Sept. 1 at La Constancia Farm, Silang, Cavite. It was the very first SERVE formation and training activity I attended since I joined the group last 2005. Pictures are already in my Zooomr account.

Both would take place at the same time, from 1pm to 3pm. Oh God help me!

Thursday would be the same as today, follow up preparations for the September 12 event. Plus I’ll be able to continue major work on the two sites I manage; Genshiken and LIFE.

Friday, on top of my regular classes, I will be giving a talk about the role of youth in community development at a forum organized by the College of Liberal Arts. Joining me as a fellow speaker is Sir Lucky Godinez of the Lasallian Community Development Center, the mother-unit of SERVE. The audience would be Comm Arts, Pol SCI and Journalism students.

I hope I don’t get chewed up by them, once they find out I’m a Biology student. Nonetheless, I will come adequately prepared and with something else up my sleeve so to speak. Again, I’ll be talking about it here too in the coming days.

Saturday, I have two events that are in conflict once more.

1) The Tree-planting activity by DLSU-D at Mts Palay-palay probably in coordination with LIFE. I need to be there because I need to talk to the LIFE team about their new website, plus it would be a great new adventure once more.

However, there’s

2) Bloggers’ Kapihan: Blogging Beyond the Basic over at the Philippine Science Highschool. It’s the very first installment of the BK series and I’m really looking forward to joining the event. Hmmm….right now, I’m decided on attending this one instead of the tree-planting adventure in Mts Palay-palay. I was there during the first so I think it’s okay to skip the second one.

Invitations are still open, just click on the link above and leave a message in the comments thread.

Tagged: 8 Random Facts

jhay — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 02:02:38 +0000

Was tagged by Cocoy and then by Edward to do this 8 random facts about me. The rules are quite simple;

you share 8 things that your readers donâ€™t know about you then at the end, tag 8 other bloggers to keep the fun going. Each blogger must post these rules first.
Each blogger starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
At the end of the post, a blogger needs to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
Donâ€™t forget to leave them a comment telling them theyâ€™re tagged, and to read your blog.

I have a feeling I’ve done this meme once but heck, this is another chance to disclose if not confess a few more random (if not weird) facts about my self. As friends, blog-friends and readers have always come to know me as that uber-serious geek. Enough pish-posh and now here’s the inevitable.

The 8 facts:

Though I’m a Human Biology major, I have more books about the Humanities (Pol-sci, History, Sociology, Philosophy etc.) than the about the life sciences. It all started back in my sophomore year in highschool when I met one of my most influential teachers of all time. He opened up my mind to whole new perspective and this is what makes my personality today.
I’m not totally against the piracy of music. If I happen to really dig a particular band or artist’s music I’d go out and spend money on their original CD. If only one or two songs gets me hooked, I’d acquire just those particular tracks in some other evil way. Why spend lots of money on a whole album CD if I’m just going to listen to two or three songs?
Still on music, I could really have a bad case of LSS or the last-song-syndrome. If a song really gets me hooked, I’d be playing it in repeat, all day in my mp3 player. Strange thing is, it takes me weeks to remember the whole lyrics by heart.
I’d rather be an ‘irregular’ student than the ‘regular’ one. It gives me the freedom to design my schedule for the semester allowing me to balance(?) academics with my extra-curricular and social involvements. Besides, I get to meet whole new bunch of people every subject, every semester which I think is one the best things in college.
It was in second year of highschool that I signed-up for my very first e-mail account. It was not a Yahoo! account like what 99% of my classmates had, rather it was a Hotmail account. I was so much of an e-mail noob back then the password to that account was well, ‘password.’ It was so rudimentary (not to mention ridiculous) hackers at the local internet shop I frequented failed to open my account while they easily broke into my friends’ inboxes and messed up their lives.
If I don’t know you personally or at least spent time with you online (via forums, chat or on-line games, email, blogs and blogging) I would not add you up to my list of friends in Friendster. Call me snobbish or anti-social, I’m not comfortable with the idea that the majority of the 300+ so-called friends in my list are persons I’ve never even met in my entire life. The way I see it, it’s quantity over quality.
Volunteering for something has always been natural for me. Especially in the laboratory. I have volunteered samples of my blood, head lice (back in elementary), fingernails, hair (all sorts of it), saliva, ear wax, cheek cells, sweat, urine and almost every bodily fluid in laboratory experiments in the past 15 years or so of studying. Though I have yet to offer my stool and semen samples, but what the heck, anything in the name of science right? (That’s why I wouldn’t be surprised if a clone of myself would be somewhere else wreacking havoc and chaos to humanity. Cool!)
I had never lost a tooth in the hands of dentist in all of my life. Whenever I had one about to come off because a replacement has matured and come out, my mother would get a sewing thread, wrap a neat loop around my loose tooth and in the count of three, she’d yank the damn thing out of my mouth. It was quick, almost painless, a whole lot cheaper than going to the dentist and it was an experience that helped me become a man.

You learned a lot new and weird things about me today didn’t ya? Now to continue this tag, I’ll be tagging 8 wonderful people who have visited my blog this past few week.

Melo Villareal of Manila Freelancer

Jammed of JammedPh

ApplesH of Apples-Pie

RexRazor-ex of The King of Blades

Deuts of Deuts.net

Kegler of Ar-wee-der-yet

Shaun Low of Shaunlow.com

The 8th blogger to be tagged is you! Yes you my beloved reader. If you’d take on this tag, let me know and I’ll link to your post in a summary post by the end of next week.

Reasons you’re late for school

jhay — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 00:10:17 +0000

Being in school almost a decade now, there were times that being late for classes really put me into trouble. From being the star of the teacher’s morning sermon, to being subjected to downright public ridicule, the ‘accused’ in school-parent meetings, being school janitor for a day even up to the point of being thrown out of class.

Let’s face it. All students at some point in their life as being students would have that day in which you’d be the last one to enter the class, half-way into the discussion or worst, an exam.

Why do we become late? Below are some of the classical reasons…

Traffic – for the commuting students, traffic is a constant threat and killer to that perfect attendance. You have to wake up late, usually before anyone else in your family, battling the sandman and the lure of that oh-so good and soft bed of yours just to get up and get ready for school for you have one heck of a journey a head – literally.

No school bus for the Pinoy student, except for those who are enrolled in the private schools which is weird really because in other countries it is the public schools that have this buses, but the general picture is if you don’t have a car or any other means of private transport, you’ll be at the mercy of the morning traffic rush.

So mastery of the local traffic scheme and trends en route to school is a must.

No uniform – for those who are required to wear uniforms at school, not having a clean and pressed set is one of the biggest upsets and tragedies that could really ruin your morning and the rest of your day.

In a desperate move, you resurrect one from the basket of ye-old-smelly-and-dirty uniforms, do some quick cosmetic fixes, iron-press the darn thing and pray to all the saints and even your ancestors that no one in school especially your friends and special ones that you’re wearing the same uniform you wore yesterday or from Monday.

The bathroom is occupied – So you have your uniform all pressed and perky for the day ahead. You’ve waken up quite early with plenty of time to spare in case you get caught in the morning traffic. You make your way to the bathroom, grab the doorknob turn it open but it wouldn’t. All you hear is someone singing some videoke song from the inside and good grief! It’s your sister or brother who spends at least an hour inside the bathroom and he or she is just half-way through with her morning routine.

Banging on the door and begging for that someone to speed things up in the bathroom could help, but if it’s an older sibling you’re in for a long argument and some more begging.

You left something at home – You’re all set to go, most often than not you’re already on your trip to school, admiring the roadside view, having the morning chat with your friend, snuggly sitting beside your special someone, happily texting away or listening to your mp3 player and then suddenly something dreadful comes to mind and your life flashes before your eyes. You left something very important back at home or at the dorm!!

From school IDs, to books, homeworks and projects to mobile phones and even your wallet. When you accidentally leave these behind at home, it feels like you’ve left behind half of what and who you are. Or sometimes it feels like going to school naked with your hands tied to your back. And your professor is ready with the guillotine, waiting for you to just walk in and surrender yourself to his or her mercy.

Silenced alarms and wrong calendars – for some strange reasons, we set the alarm before we went to bed. The alarm, ever diligent as it is, rang and went on at the exact same time you set it. Unfortunately this ruins your good sleep and you almost wreck it in the effort of turning it off. Minutes or hours later you jolt up from bed realizing that the alarm has already did its job but it’s too late for you. Only a few more minutes before classes begin. Tsk tsk tsk

Okay, maybe you’re not that cruel to your alarm clock. You promptly got up after hearing it went on but since the sandman still has you under his powers, your murky eyes got a glimpse of the calendar and thought that today is a no-class day. So back to bed with you, until of course an hour or two later you realize that…oh you know how this story goes and ends.

You woke up late, very late – this is the number one reason we become late for our classes. No amount of traffic, burning away of uniforms, lost IDs and stuff, even if you have your own bathroom in your own room, a thousand alarm clocks going on at the same time could do you any good. If you wake up late, you’re late.

Reasons could range from staying up late the night or morning before, being drunk the night before, playing online or offline games all night, or cramming to finish a due project even up to giving your self a few more ‘minutes’ of sleep after the alarm has told you it’s time to get up and get things moving.

All sounds very familiar to you doesn’t it? Well it doesn’t affect students too, even the working class have these reasons for being late.

Do you have a reason I haven’t mentioned? Do you know of some remedies or workarounds for this terrors of the perfect attendance?

Do share them and wait, I have to go, I’m late!

Struggling to organize the workflow

jhay — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 06:18:56 +0000

Contrary to what my non-blogging friends cum blog readers’ belief that I have quit blogging and will sell this blog, I’m breaking the much extended blogging hiatus with this post today.

Where the heck I’ve been?

This past week, I was out for most of the day directing and mounting Sining Bayan’s Silang Day theatrical production, “Silang Magigiting” which was premiered last Saturday, June 9, 2007 at the Silang Town Plaza. It was for the celebration of Silang Day and the inauguration of our town’s newly elected officials.

Below are some photos I took with my trusty SE K800i. Don’t wonder why I’m not in any of the photos because I’m the one who took them and I was doing so many things at the same time; directing, managing the backstage, keeping tabs on the finances of the production and keeping those hormone-enraged teen actors and actresses focused on their acting. Nonetheless, it was one heck of a great week!

In the last photo, is Supreme Court Justice Presbitero J. Velasco, Jr. who was guest of honor at the ceremonies.

The rest of the photos from the entire production can be found in my awesome zooomr photos page. Other shots of the actual performance would follow suit.

Lastly, I have a feeling questions like, “You do theater arts?” or “Ano ba talaga course mo?” will be coming from readers who never knew I’m into these kind of activities knowing that I blog about geeky and political stuff. And here’s another secret, I’ve been into theater arts long before I ever heard of the word ‘blog’.

I really, really, really hate Globelines broadband

Aside from the week-long production which shaved off any ounce of weight I gained, plus more, during the summer break; I was unable to blog and go online from June 6 to yesterday, June 10, 2007. All thanks to Globelines Broadband’s crappy f*ck*ng services! Come to think of it, the recent disruption of my connection once more followed the repairs-they-make-are-good-for-only-two-months pattern. Yes, Globelines does provide me with fast and unlimited internet connection, but every two months, they simply screw things up!

It’s back to school on Wednesday

The new semester officially starts this coming Wednesday and though I have a relatively light academic load giving me plenty of spare time in between classes, I have a strong feeling it will be eaten up by extra-curricular activities. (My school life has been like this since highschool)

Since my student political party will be taking over the La Salle DasmariÃ±as‘ University Student Council this school year, keeping the party united and working in support of our student officials, as I am the Secretary-General, will greatly become a bigger task.

Aside from that, I was appointed to become a member of the University Student Council’s advocacy committee, a gargantuan task given that the committee was formed with the objective of breaking the passivity of the Lasallian students in the DasmariÃ±as campus.

Another thing to keep me on my toes this school year is the newly formed Vox Lasalle Debating Society which I co-founded with a few good friends of mine who believed that it’s high time Lasallians from DasmariÃ±as once again engage in the fine art of debate.

Organized chaos

All these plus many more to come as I expand my other more private projects such as a webzine and an anime-blog in the coming months. It appears that once more, I’ve bitten more than I could chew. Then again, things have always been like this and crazy as it may sound, I thrive and do most of the amazing things I could under stressful and dire times.

Now all that I mentioned before is just half of what I’ll be dealing with for the next 5 months or so, as I have this blog and a another one to take care of, especially my problogging gigs and an online venture project.

Am I just ranting off? No, because this is the price for being active, for being responsible, for doing things you like and love and facing the challenges you know that will improve yourself and the community you live in.

Though I’m a bit crazy, I’m not crazy enough to screw all these up. I’m currently thinking of new ways to organize my workflow so that I’ll manage all these tasks and to-dos with better results while keeping my self alive and human.

So in the following weeks, I’ll try my very best to document the things I’ll do that will hopefully help me get things done, like playing more with apps folder in my K800i, abusing my installation of activecollab, finding new tips and tricks with Gmail and Google Groups and using more and more online apps like Google Docs and Notebook.

Could this be the start of a change in my blogging? We’ll see…