I'm BACK! :)

Yeah, I’m not gonna be as busy as I was in the last school semester anymore. (Well, we'll see) Yup, the first sem has ended and I’m on my way to the next. Yesterday was actually my first day of school for the 2nd sem. But let me tell you first about the last one.

The first of the two terms this school year was so hectic, as I told you, guys, in my past entries. I was so busy that I couldn't update my Blog often. I didn’t even have the time remembering Miss Julia Campbell’s death month-anniversaries. I could say that I had never been so busy as I was in the last sem. I used to “not giving much attention” to my school assignments, but in the last sem, I did.

Last sem, I was enrolled in two courses, the Teaching Course in Hotel and Restaurant Management, and the Feasibility Research, which I often talked about. Teaching Course is a course about teaching in my field, Hotel and Restaurant Management, and its teaching techniques and strategies. By the way, my school is the only hospitality school in Metro Manila that requires the Teaching Course in the curriculum. In this course, we had to act as a teacher in the class and to be evaluated by our teacher, who is also the department head of HRM in my school. Each of us was given 3 topics that were to be demonstrated in the class one at a time. So, in future, we can be teachers, too. I could say that this course had put a little pressure on my, but I think I did my best. Yup, just a bit of pressure compared to my 2nd course, the Feasibility Research. I’ve mentioned before that this course needed a careful study on building up a restaurant. And, thank God, my group, or should I say, most of the members of the group did their best in our project. At first, when were just starting, I often complain about my group mates. I didn’t like them. I thought all of them were not that dedicated to the project, but as the sem goes by, I’ve proven myself wrong. Maybe, I didn’t see their concentration when we were just starting, but I could say that they were indeed, industrious as we went on through the project.

My group had countless, sleepless nights together at one house, just doing the projects. Especially in the last part of the sem, when our teacher was rushing us in our book. I was not able to attend all those nights, though. But, I made sure that I could stay with them up to the midnight and usually would go home alone. I also had myself 3 consecutive nights and days sleepless at home, and followed by another after couple of days, just doing my tasks in the project. Anyway, yeah, we made a book. We put into a book the Feasibility Research we had. It was a 7-chaptered book.

See how hectic the course was.

Few days after the mid-term examination, my group had heard from the other groups that the deadline for the submission of the book’s first draft was on September 7, earlier than my group knew. But then, we believed in rumors, and we then only had 5 days left. We rushed ourselves. Doing nothing, but the project, since by then, we still have more works to be done. Our goal was to meet the deadline.

The deadline of we “thought” the submission of first draft of book came. My group was so surprised to see no book was on top of our teacher’s table, the first was my group’s. We thought we were late that day. Eventually, we found out that we submitted the book a week early to the supposed to be deadline. We were relief. Until the original deadline for submission came. My group was shocked that only few groups had submitted the drafting. The batch of the few books, including my group’s, had the advantage of being checked first, by our teacher. To those who submitted their drafting late, it was so unlucky that our teacher lack time of checking books. It was their faults, anyway. Then the books that were checked had returned to the groups. My group’s first draft had a lot of comments and suggestions for changes from our teacher. My group was thinking if she really wanted to make our book more meaningful or she was just putting more pressure on us. Either way, we still made the changes.

Our teacher scheduled a deadline once again, but this time, for the final book. My group had sleepless nights again, doing a lot of changes. The final book was done, and we submitted 4 copies to the, not to our teacher anymore, but to the board of expert panelists. It was for them to study our project, which would, in few days, be presented and discussed to them by the groups.

It was like the “judgment day” for the fourth year students facing the panelists to present the 4 months-in-the-making project. Different emotions my group had before our turn. My group, by the way, was the first group of the 2nd batch of presenters to present. And, of course, we prayed before we started the presentation.

Before our turn, me and my group mates was nervously reviewing and preparing for our individual topics, but as we entered the “conference room”, the nervousness turned to excitement. Yeah. We didn’t know how it happened, but we were so excited to begin with our presentation as we saw the panelists. Oh, let me introduce to you the board of panelists. The panelists was composed of 4, but unfortunately, one of them, who was in-charge of asking the financial matters, couldn’t make it, due to an illness. She is also our school’s Accounting Department Head, Mrs. Aura Marie M. Baetiong. Anyway, the remaining 3 were, one of them was the Dean of the Instruction in our school, Dr. Leonisa C. Del Rosario, then a teacher in HRM Department, Mr. Robert P. Mallon, and the guest panelists, a College Dean in a reputable and distinguished hospitality university here in Manila, Dr. Gloria Baken W. Siy.

I’m not gonna go in to the whole details about the group’s presentation, but instead its highlights. The guest panelist, Dr. Siy said that she was, for the first time, impressed, out of the groups that had then presented since the first batch. That was so flattering, especially to me, since I was not that confident with our project. My group a number of “very goods” from all the panelists, especially they interrogated the financial aspect of our project.

Lieza Arboladura, my group mate who made the computation for the project’s financial aspect, did a very good job. Chapter 5, the Financial Aspect, was one of the stuff that our teacher suggested my group to make changes to. It was just few days before the submission of the final book when Lieza made the changes. I was a witness of her almost giving up. I heard her kept on complaining, that she didn’t know how the proper computation was. I even heard her, in the middle of the night, arguing with two of our group mates, Amy and Lei Ann, who were also part of the “financial aspect” team. They were arguing about the computation, “no, it’s like that, it’s like this..” as they exchanged words figuring out the proper computation. Until the two of them totally gave up, took a nap and left Lieza still figuring out the correct computation. I was still awake then doing the typing job when Lieza shouted and said, “I made it!!” By the way, chapter 5, the financial aspect, was consists of the project’s prospective projected sales, income statement and expenses.

We couldn’t explain what we felt. After the presentation and came out of the conference room, most of us cried, tears of joy, probably. Most of the groups from the two batches of presenters came out the conference room so relief, full of smiles in their faces, one of the groups were even jumping and shouting, but my group, we cried. That was really unexpected to hear wonderful comments from the panelists, most especially from Dr. Siy.

After the presentation of all group from the 2nd batch, where my group belonged, a meeting was held headed by our beloved teacher :) Our teacher, by the way, was also in the conference room during each group’s presentation. During the meeting, our teacher congratulated all of us. She was so proud of us. Of course, there was a group that had problems in their project. The board of panelists didn’t like their presentations and their financial computation was incorrect. So, they had to repeat those stuff. And, guess who was endorsed by our teacher to help the poor group? Of course, it’s Lieza! :) Other groups from the first batch even sought help from Lieza to assist them to their computation problem.

I remember when we were just starting, my group was like the underdogs. Once being embarrassed by our teacher, and felt we were the least favourite among the groups. The quietest group, and the group that didn’t have cool cellphones, didn’t dress fashionably, and the group that didn’t eat expensive foods, but tell me who’s the one crying now. Hehe, just kidding :p Peace out!



--- T H A N K Y O U ' s ---

First of all, I wanna thank the Big Guy up there, for granting me a cool group to be with. You know how much I prayed for that. Thanks for the guidance and for always keeping me and my group mates safe in and outside the school the whole school semester.
I would like to thank those who believed in me and sent their wishes, my family, though you didn't really say you were wishing me lucks, my friends, my online friends, my old classmates, thanks for those advises, my group mates, Lieza Arboladura (who by the way, got the highest grade among the groups! in our course feasibility research), Maria Hilda Besmonte and Lei Ann Egos, (two of my group mates who easily get hurts) I apologize once again about my silly jokes, hehe. Amy Catabay, nice jobs on defining terms, Amelyn Broso and Heluyo Ramos, (two of my group mates whom I often talked about, lol. It was so lucky of them not being asked by the panelists. Nice prayers :) ), and of course, the group leader, Teresa Mansujeto, you really intimidated me by your words during the rushing of our first draft :). I believe I was really destined to be in the group. It was so spontaneous to be with you, but I guess that was meant to be :) Thanks for those memories and cool moments of laughters and excitements, nervouseness and pissed outs. And for sharing coughs and colds :) I love you, guys, and goodluck in this sem ahead.

To my parents, Ray and Thelma for your support, especially financial. This project was so expensive, thanks so much to you, guys. I'm dedicating this wonderful project to both of you. I'm also dedicating this project to my group of friends that were mentioned above, you know who you are. And, of course, last but not the least, I'm dedicating the success of this project to my inspiration, the late, Miss Julia Campbell. She was one of my inspirations to get through when my group had the first rejection. And, yeah, I would like to acknowledge the 7th death month-anniversary on Friday, the 9th of the month. I can't believe it's been more than a halfyear now :( I'll try to dig up some updates about the case. I heard her mum was here to testify for her daughter about the case. And I didn't hear anything about the case since then. I'll try to get some.


We walk without a sound
Across a barren landscape
Your eyes are twisted down
To the dew entrailed ground
We watch the stars
As they slowly fade away
And in the clearing sky I see
The cold stone face of morning
Setting in on me

It's a strange world
It's a very strange world
That leaves me holding on
To nothing when there's nothing
Left to lose

Your touch is cold and damp
The devil's in your eyes
I wonder why I always
Let you lead me on this way
'Cause you see only
What you want to see
Feel only as you want to
And I am on the outside
Of your strange world

We're walking hand in hand
We'll walk this way forever
Our eyes have risen to the water's edge
Watching with the tides
The stars have fallen
To another day
And the sun warms our path to find
That reason leaves us far behind
In this strange world