Speech Choir and Ignite Competition

   

 Awhile ago, our final group project takes place as we compete for another Speech Choir similar to Chants and Cheers last Feb 5, 2016. It's funny because we were not even nervous as the day of the competition comes. But with that aside, our block is literally the definition of procrastination and the worst part is we get to do it and work with another block. I was afraid because the week before we hadn't even started anything yet. All we do is just repeat the piece over and over and in addition to that, It was so hard to contact the other block to practice because we have different schedules. It's like applying alcohol to the burned area. But again, I don't understand how we still manage to finish the piece. Unfortunately, we didn't win any place but it's as expected. Actually, I'm not really mad because we were still able to compete even with the hindrances given but I can't say that I'm proud either. However, with the disappointments aside we're glad that it's all over.

     After the Speech Choir, the ignite competition comes next at the same day and just like yesterday at the Public Speaking Competition, another one of my blockmates won another trophy at the Ignite Speech Competition and finished as 2nd runner up. We were all so proud and honestly any place will before she was called all of us were hoping that we atleast she could get a place and gladly our prayers were answered she really did win. I can say that it is a well-deserved win and for me I was hoping for atleast 1st runner up because she really did a good job and she captivated and got the audience involved with her speech that's something isn't it.

     All of us were teary-eyed as the ERC Faculty bid us goodbye because this is the last all English term in APC since no freshmen will be enrolling next term due to K12. Ms. Nina also created an AVP that shows that ERC isn't just some boring English faculty and that they too also have fun like most teenagers do. This was an amazing journey and we thank all professors that helped us and taught us things that we could use for our future.

Public Speaking Competition

Last April 20, 2016, I participated at an event entitled Public Speaking Competition. So, basically if you're part of the competition, you need to create a 5 minute speech about "Integrity has no need of rules"by Albert Camus. Albert Camus was a French philosopher, author, and journalist. Camus became known for his political journalism, novels and essays during the 1940s.

Six participants per block are chosen to compete and I was surprised I'm one of them. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get to the final round due to tough competition and I forgot a big chunk of words in my speech. I was really unlucky because those big chunk of words were the answers to the questions given to me that I was unable to answer. Honestly, all hopes were lost after that mistake and as I was watching the other contestants performing their speech which was so good compared to mine, just added more weight to my disappointment. I was disappointed because I know myself that I lacked preparation and didn't take it seriously.

     But with that aside, atleast one of my blockmates got the chance to go and compete to the final round. We noticed the big smile of his when they called his name. He was so good and he even changed some parts and added some humor in the middle of his speech. Now, that was an impressive skill to have because while you're thinking about your speech you may get lost when you say something that was not part of your speech. The whole block was really proud because he really deserved it. Gladly all his efforts wasn't in vain because he won as 1st runner up at the competition. We were all so proud and all of us teased him over and over to celebrate and treat us pizza. Now, this kinds of moments is what makes our college life memorable and a good way to end the term.

Benjamin Alves Birthday Celebration

     Last March 18, 2016 Benjamin Alves celebrated his birthday at Asia Pacific College with the students from the courses of Engineering, Multimedia, and Business. Most of us knew him from the movie "Sana Dati" which I also did a blog/film review. Check it out here: Sana Dati: Film Review. I'm really happy because this is actually the first time I ever saw a celebrity in person and I'm kinda overwhelmed. The GMA news crew were also there filming and taking photos on his visit.

     Benjamin Alves didn't just celebrated his birthday he also performed and read a poem he wrote a long time ago. Along with the other contestants chosen from different courses, they had poetry reading. It was interesting because each group has its own theme and own way of delivering their poems.

     Some students were lucky because they were able to ask questions about him. He answered every questions as honestly and as humble as he can. He also get to talk about his experience about the movie "Sana Dati" and how lucky he was for being part of that movie. He was so thankful for us watching the movie and hopes that we keep supporting for him for his upcoming projects.

     But let us not forget her, she was the host for the event and she really did a great job on that. She was very funny and did a great job on keeping the momentum going while we waited for Benjamin Alves to arrive. It just shows how professional she is on handling different kinds of people and different kinds of places. Some students also gets to play "Pinoy Henyo" the famous game from "Eat Bulaga" where you need to guess the word by asking questions and answering back with only yes or no. Though, they were unable to get the answers right it was still fun.

     We're really thankful for taking time to celebrate your birthday with us even though it's just for a short while. Thank you for inspiring us and enlightened us on how writing poetry and stories can really help broaden our mind. 

Paddington

Paddington: Film Review

     Paddington is a 2014 British-French live action/computer animated family comedy film directed by Paul King. It was released in the United Kingdom on 28 November 2014 and grossed $259.5 million worldwide on a €38.5 million budget. It received a Empire Award nomination for Best British Film.

    The paddington movie started when a british geographer named Montgomery Clyde found out an unknown species of bear. He is about to shoot one down and take it to England but suddenly the bear playfully takes his gun away and learned that the family of bears were intelligent and can speak in english. He stays with them for a while became friends with the two bears which he named Lucy and Pastuzo. Before he leaves he gave his hat to Pastuzo and said that they're always welcome to go to London and visit him. 

     Years later, an earthquake strikes the home of the bears forcing them to find a safe place to live underground. But, Pastuzo wasn't able to reach their shelter in time then disappeared with his hat found next to his nephew. His Aunt Lucy told him to go seek and find solace in London. 

 
    Paddington thinks he can find a home with the geographer who found his aunt and uncle, but does not know the explorer's name. Then comes the journey of our little cute bear named Paddington. Meanwhile, a sadistic museum taxidermist named Millicent Clyde captures, kills, and stuffs exotic animals to house in the Natural History Museum. When she becomes aware of Paddington, she immediately sets out to hunt him down.

     This was a good movie and I find Paddington absolutely adorable and delightful. It's a perfect movie for the whole family to watch. This films also proves that children films like this doesn't need to be childish in a way to entertain. The film is filled with inventive and imaginative ways of telling its story and Paddington the animated bear fits perfectly in this idealized portrayal of London.

Who Wants to be a Millionaire? English Edition

     Last March 8, 2016, the English Resource Center brought us a game called Who Wants To be a Millionaire. All 9 GramCom classes will have 4 brave individuals to represent their block. Not only that, 4 students from the audience who are not enrolled in GramCom classes this term will have a chance to participate at the event. This was a big event for ERC because cash prizes are at stake. A cash prize of P3,000 and gifts will be awarded to the Champions and a cash prize of P2,000 and gifts will be awarded to the 1st runner up.

     The first round is the easy round where all questions are worth 1 point or P1,000. Since, its called the easy round this is the easiest round of the event. Most questions are really easy that most of us are able to answer. But the next rounds were really hard but for our representatives it is still as easy as the first round for them.

     The first few rounds were simple and easy. Our representatives were confident and easily battled through the 1st half and continued to the semi-finals. But it started to get really hard from there, instead of just answering from the bleachers they were invited at the stage and answer from there. The battle was tight most of them were on the same pace. Out of 10 questions they only got 6 questions right and that wasn't enough for them to get to the finals.

     Even though, we lost we're still proud for our classmates who really did a great job. Their efforts were not wasted and honestly going through the semi-finals is a great achievement. We celebrated after that and congratulated them it was not an easy task indeed.

Sana Dati

SANA DATI: FILM REVIEW

Sana Dati is a 2013 Filipino romantic drama film written and directed by Jerrold Tarog. The same director who directed the famous Heneral Luna film which gained a lot of praise from teenagers and even adults.

     The film is a love story about a woman named Andrea (Lovi Poe) whose wedding is thrown into disarray when a mysterious guy, Dennis (Paulo Avelino) arrives and reminds her of the man she really loved back then.

     I admit I have no idea and haven't heard of this movie before when we watched it but as soon as I saw the name Jerrold Tarog I immediately remembered the movie Heneral Luna. Since, the movie was so famous and was well made I had interest on watching this movie and expected a lot and I wasn't disappointed. It was a great movie indeed with a deep meaning in it. Just like some good movies it starts where you have no idea what the plot of the movie was, then it starts to build up slowly. I really like those kind of movies it makes me interested and attached. 

     The story is absolutely beautiful, and the acting is really superb. It makes us feel the emotion of each and every character portrayed. The characters were really stuck in my mind who they are and how they reacted on every circumstances makes them stand out in their own way. 

     The eye contact of the main characters really enhanced their actions no matter how minimal they are. Even in silence, no words were needed to make us understand their feelings. I love how consistent they are on the characters like how broken Andrea is, how Robert feels that Andrea is not contented on their marriage, how gentle Andrew is even with the excruciating pain he's hiding, and how Dennis is curious with the girl his brother fell in love with.

     The story is so unique that every moment is unpredictable but is still beautiful because of the mystery that we're trying to unveil. Until now, I still find myself being haunted by the story, it is sad and sweet. There's a lot of ways on how this movie could've ended but I don't know why am I so satisfied with the ending. 

     Overall, this movie is perfect. The film is good in every way the content, the cinematography, the design everything. Jerrold Tarrog is a genius and this movie is a masterpiece.

Bomba Night

Photo created by: Bahay Bombilya

Woooot! Bomba Niiiight!

   
One of the most awaited events of the SoMA Festival and I can say it was a hell of a party! (just an expression)

     Last April 1, 2016 we had a blast celebrating "Bomba Night" at the APC Cafeteria. The event itself is really worth attending and they even gave free Kopiko Coffees for the first 200 participants and that really makes it more interesting and a good "Marketing Strategy" for students to attend because students like coffee and we really need it to keep it going.

     We're glad that we attended this event because it was a great stress reliever for us. Since, it was the time of the week where we're really pressured to finish our floats because it was only weeks away.

"Sud"
Photo Taken by: Bahay Bombilya

     This was a very similar event to Frosh Night (an event to welcome the new graduates and new students from APC) but instead of only froshies, it is open to all students of all courses, making it five times better than Frosh Night.

     There's a total of six bands performing at the said event, one worth mentioning is the famous band called "Sud", they're known for their famous song "Sila" which reached top 1 of Spotify's Philippines Top 50 viral songs last 2015.

   
 Another band that is worth mentioning is the band called "Wilabaliw" which was known for a lot of songs like "Me Techie Love You Long Time", "Diveler", "Matador" and many more. They we're the final performers of the event and they closed and ended the event with a BANG. A lot of student's were so wild and happy that our throats were melting.

Photo taken by: Wilabaliw

 
  I can say that this event was a successful one but I can say that there's still lots of room for improvements. An advice that I can give is after each band that is finished performing, instead of just talking and interviewing the students on how they feel they should also include some mini games that is fun to keep the momentum going. Overall, it's still a good event and a great stress reliever for a lot of students.

Mobilizing the Millenials as Socially Responsible Prosumers

    

 

     Last january 29, 2016 our block was scheduled again to attend a seminar entitled " Mobilizing the Millenials as Socially Responsible Prosumers". It was hosted by RAMpage all ABMA we're required to join and we also saw some other students in other schools attending.

     The name of the host is Tony Tiensin, apparently he is the editor-in-chief in subselfie.com and was also a former gma news producer. The website called subselfie.com is for those filipinos who want to share something they want everybody to know. 

     Before I start, what is the meaning of "Millenials" well, to explain this easier, we teenagers are the millenials. Millenials are born from the early 1980's to the early 2000's.

     So first, he let us watched some epic video where it shows Ninoy Aquino and President Marcos. We saw there about the lies or misunderstanding of the Aquino family and the EDSA Revolution. We were asked if we would believe those we saw at the video. Some said yes because it was beautifully edited and somewhat you can see that the owner of the video did really researched about the topic.

     Now his speech is all about the power of social media and what this can do about everything. With a single post we can inform everybody but the problem is wether it's true or not. Now, being a news reporter he said that all news that we see on gma are all facts and well researched before they air it. But, he also said that the higher ups, filters the news when it's very controversial and whether it can affect their network. Thus, the so called " Walang kinikilingan, walang pinoprotektahan, serbisyong totoo lamang" yeah right..

     After the seminar, a lot of students asked all kinds of questions about the news, and he's very good because he was able to explain and answer everything. You can see that he's very smart and well-mannered. He makes sure after the end of the seminar, is that we need to be careful about the internet and we have the responsibility whether to post or not, to believe something or not. It was a very informative event and I can say that I really learned alot on this one.

Chants and Cheers

     Last February 5, 2016 our whole block had another group competition called the Chants and Cheers Competition. This is like cheerdancing but we cannot move around, all we can do is chants and cheers, thus the name of the competition.

     Honestly, I don't like this kinds of competition because I hate our block when it comes to this. We always procrastinate and do nothing when the event is still far ahead. But this time we tried to manage our time and stop procrastinating but as usual it didn't work. Every time, we had our meetings no one listens, and when our leader asks us to help and compose some cheers but no one cares. That's what I really hate about our block.

     Only one week left until the event and our work is still just about 30%. Good thing our advisor helped us to get grip of ourselves and start working. So, she asked us to compose some cheers and said that she will give us some plus points for our quiz. Because of that, we all start composing and that's how the mood gets hyped and finally.. We started finishing our whole piece.

     After we finished our piece, again we became lazy and start doing nothing again and we still don't have actions and the biggest problem is it's only one day left before the competition. So, because we only finished our piece we still don't have props, costumes and etc. Then, one girl volunteered that she will try to buy our costume, and one boy volunteered to bring the musical instruments that we can use. After that everyone cooperated and we finished our piece until 9 pm of the evening.

      The day of the competition arrived and we're all very nervous. We prayed altogether before we go up to the auditorium. As the event starts, and watched the first two groups that performed, we thought maybe we still have a chance if we get everything right, so we hold on to those words.

     Finally, it's our turn it's now or never, we marched fiercely onto the stage and did our performance. Everyone we're so nervous it was inevitable that we'll have mistakes so we just proceed and finished it. For me, I was disappointed because maybe if we finished our piece earlier we'll have bigger chance to win but sadly no... We lost, 4th place out of 5 groups, we we're all quiet. But then, we expected this, win or lose atleast we didn't give up and that is more than enough for me.

The all-around Jon Santos

" Follow your passion ... I did !!! "
           - Jon Santos


     Simple but wise words from a man named Jon Santos.



    First of all, I don't like talks because you know.. they're B-O-R-I-N-G, so when I saw his poster at our school I didn't even bothered to read it because they do not interest me and I don't even know him. Until one day, our professor said that we are required to go listen to his talk. Then, I found out that he's a comedian and I was happy because I really like comedians because they're entertaining and funny after that I was really excited to go.

     As soon as the event started, the atmosphere were really deafening because we we're expecting some joke for his introduction, but no, he started like normal and introduced himself but as soon as he realized that the mood we're really down he decided to impersonate Miriam Defensor Santiago. After that, our attention we're immediately hooked because of his impersonations and that turned the boring atmosphere around. As he goes on with his speech, he didn't fail to make the audience howl with laughter with his wit, humor, and masterful impersonation, and it's amazing how he easily transitions from Erap to Miriam Defensor Santiago.

     Although, he didn't came to our school to show us his impersonation and comedian skills, instead he was told to talk about himself. It's funny because, out of all people that will give us great life advises and to be ourselves, I never thought that it will be coming from a comedian and an impersonator. Oh' the irony, but aside the jokes and the stories, he gave us 9 points and lessons to remember as we go on with our lives.


1. Listen to everyone but choose whose words you will keep.


2. Learning will enrich you but learning what you love will make you the best version of you.


3. It might be a baby step but if it will move you forward, it is a step worth taking.


4. Knowledge is everything.


5. Win the war before the fight.


6. Adjust, adapt, evolve.


7. Always be grateful.


8. You're never alone in your journey.


9. Love yourself but learn to lose and let go.

     These lessons will help us go through everything, it worked for him, why not try it for ourselves?

"Alejandro 'Anding' Roces"

          Who is Alejandro Reyes Roces? To be honest, I've never heard of him until now. I know it's sad that I don't even know a legendary man like him, maybe because I'm not really into history or literature. At the moment I only care about myself and what's happening in the present, and for that I am truly disappointed about myself. I've read some of his short stories and I can say that he is truly legendary.

           He was a Filipino author, essayist, dramatist and a National Artist of the Philippines for literature. He served as Secretary of Education from 1961 to 1965, during the term of Philippine President Diosdado Macapagal. He was born in Manila, Philippines on July 13, 1924 and he died at May 11, 2011.

He is famously known for: 

• Changing the date of Philippine Independence Day from July 4 to June 12
• Recovering the stolen original manuscripts of Noli Me Tangere, El Filibusterismo and Mi último Adiós
• Changed the language used in Philippine passports, coins, bills and diplomas to Wikang Pambansa

          Noted for his short stories, the Manila-born Roces was married to Irene Yorston Viola (granddaughter of Maximo Viola), with whom he had a daughter, Elizabeth Roces-Pedrosa. Anding attended elementary and high school at the Ateneo de Manila University, before moving to the Arizona State University for his tertiary education. He graduated with a B.A. in Fine Arts and, not long after, attained his M.A. from Far Eastern University back in the Philippines.

          He has since received honorary doctorates from Tokyo University, Baguio's St. Louis University, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, and the Ateneo de Manila University. Roces was a captain in the Marking’s Guerilla during World War II and a columnist in Philippine dailies such as the Manila Chronicle and the Manila Times. He was previously President of the Manila Bulletin and of the CAP College Foundation.

        In 2001, Roces was appointed as Chairman of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB). Roces also became a member of the Board of Trustees of GSIS (Government Service Insurance System) and maintained a column in the Philippine Star called Roses and Thorns.

         If you wanna read some interesting short stories in your free time, I recommend Alejandro's works because every single one is a masterpiece.

References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_Roces

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4073883.Alejandro_R_Roces