Study Buddy

I found it difficult to consciously study for exams–that’s why in college I shifted to a course where I never had to, har har har.

But that experience can transform into one that’s bearable and even enjoyable.. Just get a friend to stay steady by your side :)

Change the World, One Photographer at a Time

It’s the UP OPTICS ACLE experience–Photos that moved the world, and how to take them (more info here).

In this picture, UP OPTICS’ “Kuya”, and forever-resource person, photographer Dan Cercado, shows off one of the few pictures that sits framed in his house. “It was taken with this point-and-shoot camera.”

Fangirls?

I am reminded that one doesn’t need fancy cameras to take photos that “change the world”. All it takes is a camera, and a heart to see things others can’t, to learn/”invest“ in skills to do justice in the moment you’re capturing, to be humble enough to realize that you’re supposed to take pictures with the purpose of glorifying and share the ”awesomeness“ of life in this day and age.

I am humbled and educated in this ACLE (Haha, I’m plugging). Then again I always learn from Kuya Dan. Read his blog to learn how he takes his pictures.

It's THAT trademark grin! :D

Thank you for sharing how you do photography Kuya Dan!

UP OPTICS ACLE – Photos That Moved the World

 

Learn about

Photos That Moved the World 

and

How to Take Them

An Alternative Classroom Learning Experience

by the UP Photography Society (UP OPTICS)

February 4, Wednesday   • 1 – 5 PM  • AS 410, Palma Hall, UP Diliman

 

Speaker: Dan Cercado, photographer

 

For more info, contact Cori (0905-294-45-48)

 

***

 

What is the UP Alternative Classroom Experience? Find out here!

 

Kawawang Metro Aid

Look at all those leaves—a version of “Philippine autumn” at school:

I can’t work when the weather’s this good because I’d rather spend all this time just being outside! It’s so refreshing, especially knowing that there’s city muck and dust to greet you as soon as you plunge in those streets just a few blocks away.

I wonder how street sweepers feel when it’s the January-February, tree-shedding-leaves season.

Do you watch Philippine Travel Shows?

Me and two of my closest friends in UP Diliman would love to know what you think of them!

Kindly give us some ten minutes of your golden hours to answer this survey for an ongoing undergraduate thesis on Local Tourism in Philippine TV.

Why answer this survey?

Because YOU who watches this TV show is HARD TO FIND. And we’d love to see if YOU believe these shows/networks yourself, being someone who actually lives in the areas they feature. Kumbaga, walang tatalo sa first-hand experience at knowledge mo tungkol sa lugar na un! Your opinion and recommendations can make a difference in maintaining the standards of quality Philippine travel TV shows! (Besides, you’ll be giving out priceless help to us students :D)

Thanks in advance! O game, click the link na!

Marker

After my two-hour sleep, and cramming for a four-page comprehensive exam for my 7am class (oops?), I found myself strolling with a friend in the UP Lagoon.

The Lagoon magically turns into one of the most beautiful, peaceful, and COOLest places in Quezon City during these January-March second semester and summer seasons. Hmmm, come to think of it, it’s always a great place to go emo in, especially at 6-9am, when you’ve still got it all to yourself.

“X marks the spot”.. Were they planning to bomb this tile or something? Maybe it’s a floor marker for an amazing race org final rite? Maybe a meeting place for two freshie BFF’s who couldn’t see each other as much as they did in highschool, or star-crossed lovers of different colleges in the university (understandable in UP as its colleges tend to have separate “worlds” among themselves)?

Sandy sky

Today is a “24-hour-days”, starting with editing two papers from 4am, a class a 7am, an interview at 10, another class at 1, and when I got home, got into some hours of floaty-headed moments like this wonderful sky.. then a lot more later, went back to work!

..yahoo, thesis! Hahahaha!

Back to school/work

Onti na lang.. I feel so ready to graduate from all this already! Hahaha!

Shoes and surveys

On the first day of classes of 2009, my groupmates and I delivered a report in management class in corporate attire.. a “culture” which is very NOT U.P., even according to the president of the university who also happened to be our professor in the class.

We sort of grazed the concept of “corporate culture”, and our professor suddenly inspired began pridefully spilling out what the UP “culture” is like. In a nutshell it’s one where we can wear pambahay cotton shirts and thrice-worn-nonwashed jeans everywhere, where a “boss’s” words are never The Rule, and where we can get away with almost anything we want done, even if it means fighting authority. Where we’d rather lose the job, than that effing dignity and reputation we’re notoriously known for. And hello, this IS the university president at seven in the morning revealing the embarrassing-gratifying-narcissist(?) ”humble” image of her work culture’s constituents (go judge it yourself).

The UP president wears awesome rainbow-hued corporate couture everyday, yet she understands and respects the rest of us who just want to be comfortable and “ourselves”—she’s a “UP person” I have high respects for, especially with the way she seems to balance these contrasting things in her life: classes, chancellors, “regular” or “activists” students and professors, staff, the government, the masa… then there’s her fashion, her family, her sleep time (she always arrives at our 7 AM class earlier than me)..Wow. I feel lucky to be learning the corporate culture, and management from “the best”, especially when I’m not a management student– there’s the comm director of this huge accounting firm in the country, the president of the premier state university of the country, the owners of one of the remaining export businesses in the country, my father… S#&%, I just realized, I SHOULD be really good at it myself too! O_O uh-oh.

Hahaha, ok, where was I?

The UP “corporate” culture is a lot like what you see in this picture: my groupmate-friend here couldn’t take her the agony of her “heels” anymore, she simply took it off while we were walking to the next building.

Well, she did have her every-reliable tsinelas in the bag anyway.

***

Something related to the “corporate career” talk:

As I was hanging out with two friends at Sunken Garden, two UA&P students approached us to survey us on our perceptions of call centers and BPOs as graduating students.

This is a personal observation among UP students: surveys are so close to heart (because everyone in UP has done a sturdy at some point of their college lives), and sometimes we even love answering it.

For one, me and my friend also do research (I’m a communication research major while he’s in business administration): we know how devastating it feels to be refused by informants. Both of us felt kind at that glorious-windy-sunny-day-sunken-garden-moment, and didn’t want these other kids to suffer the same pain as we have in the past.. so we took their instruments and chick-checked our perceptions away.

Second, answering surveys could be a learning moment for ourselves. One doesn’t get see survey results in a snap, but a bit later while answering, one may suddenly be hit by personal revelations like hey, my friends didn’t invite me to go BPO-ing with them because they couldn’t see me happily working in one, awwwww. 

A life tip (maybe): please answer surveys, especially when they’re by students, AND when you believe you’re still in that student-”I really don’t know what I want to do in my life” phase. Who knows, you might learn about yourself (even if it’s simply your “perception” of some X and Y brand-shampoo, or chocolate milk drink :D)!

UP Para sa Bayan photos

UP Para sa Bayan -- The crowd in awe at the landing parachute gliders-- and yes, that's Quezon City Mayor Sonny Belmonte on the right :D

Leadership, excellence and service– the three pillars that make University of the Philippines have recently been “personified” in the recent Hail UP Oblation photo shoot, and UP Para Sa Bayan, a one-day public service fair of UP colleges and alumni offering free services for the Filipino last Saturday, December 13, 2008.

I roamed around this event, and got free blood and sugar, a health & lifestyle one-on-one consultation, and a portraiture lesson! Click here for more photos from my camera and more details about the event.

My on-the-spot portraiture lesson by UP Centennial artist Mar Bongalon

 

Silent drill formation

Other highlights of the day:

• Kasalang UP, a mass marriage of a hundred couples, with QC Mayor Sonny Belmonte doing the “funky”/cool-toned honors and marriage vows
• UP Vanguard parachute tents! I love seeing the faces in the crowd looking at it ^_^ They’re all in awe.
• UP Vanguard silent drill exhibition —I miss rifle-passing/throwing from COCC. These guys were all snappy and alert!
• The Hail UP Oblation photo shoot

Hail U.P. Oblation pictures!

The Hail UP Oblation photoshoot was legendary! It made me want to take off my clothes and pose for my alma mater as well! :D (Kung pwede lang sana e!)

Hail! U.P. Oblation centennial photo shoot

An incredible, breath-taking experience! Click this link for photos from my camera.

Very “alive” human oblations

Of course these Oblations were very alive themselves! View their funnier photos here.

 

Thanks to all the models who participated in this centennial shoot! Our National artist Guillermo Tolentino would’ve been very proud! You did the Oblation monument, and UP, more justice than it can ever receive in its lifetime! To inspire the gathering of a all these people, and “sacrifice” themselves, er, visually by doing something potentially embarrassing (and you did it anyway!). We’re all super proud of you guys!

Let’s do what we can to keep the spirit of Filipinos in the minds of many :) I excited to see what the AP and Reuters photographers came up with! 

Hail! UP Oblation photoshoot

UP Oblation Run fans and enthusiasts! Finally, a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get that perfect angle of a human UP Oblation: A photoshoot of 100 U.P. Oblations–minus the masks, and all that running!

Attend “Hail! U.P. Oblation“, a grand UP Centennial photoshoot in UP Diliman’s Amphitheater, on December 13, Saturday, at sunrise (6 A.M.).

Yeah there’s that six A.M. calltime.. but then again it’s once-in-a-lifetime! You’re gonna be telling your grandchildren about this event (especially if you’re one of the models, or know one of them)! So go! ^_^

More details in the press release below:

A hundred male University of the Philippines alumni, students, faculty, and staff will pay tribute to the UP icon, the Oblation, via a unique photo shoot on December 13, 2008 at the crack of dawn. The “100 Oblations” event will be one of the closing activities of the UP Centennial celebrations.

Called “Hail! U.P. Oblation”, the historical and visual gathering is estimated to take place at 6 a.m. at the UP Diliman Amphitheater behind Quezon Hall where the original Oblation monument stands. The event will be covered by foreign and local media organizations and professional photographers. The best photographs from Hail UP Oblation are being planned to be featured in a future UP Centennial coffee table book.

All are invited to witness this once-in-a-lifetime human ensemble and photo expedition as one of the final events of UP’s one hundred years of service to the country. Unlike the men of the Oblation Run, the 100 Oblation models will be wearing specially designed trunks with stylized fig leaves.

After the photo shoot event, “UP Para sa Bayan”, a public service fair offering free medical, dental, legal, veterinary, health promotions. education workshops, as well as traditional and non-traditional amenities, will take place at 7 a.m. The entire University Avenue and the UP Academic Oval will be filled with 100 tents offering various services to the public for a day.

Both Hail UP Oblation and UP Para sa Bayan are organized by the UP Alumni Association special committees. 

For more information, please visit the Hail UP Oblation official Multiply portal, or contact the committee through Misha (0920-901-51-07), Debbie (0917-791-39-24), and Bev (0915-847-91-19), or through email (hailupoblation@gmail.com).

For UP Para sa Bayan, please contact the UPAA office at 929-8327, 920-68-68, and 920-68-71.

Who is the UP Diliman student, exactly?

Someone’s releasing groundbreaking findings about the “UP stereotypes”. 

A recently conducted study by a class in our Communication Department attempts to generalize the new Isko’t Iska with numbers and facts in KaleidoISKOpe: Silip sa Bagong Iskolar ng Bayan on December 4, 2008 at the CMC Auditorium, from 1-3pm.

Here’s the spiel from my classmates Sheena and Kayc:

 

So you think you know the true Isko and Iska? Think again! These findings will surely bust commonly held notions and stereotypes on UP Diliman students. A glimpse of our research findings:

Grade Conscious. Most UP Diliman students work hard for incentive grades. 

Loner no more. 76.5% of UP Diliman students are organization members. 51.5% of them belong to more than one org. 

Party harder. 70.8% of UP Diliman students have gone clubbing. 

On the go! More UP Diliman students own laptops (53.1%) than desktop computers (41.1%). 

Readings galore! Photocopying books is more popular than owning original copies. 

My Ride. 25.1% of UP Diliman students drive their own cars. 

Non-Smoking Campus. 65.1% of UP Diliman students have never smoked and do not plan on smoking while still in UP. 

Academic Integrity. UP Diliman students find cheating and plagiarism unjustifiable. 

Just say NO. 84.8% of UP Diliman students have never had sex while in UP. 92.4% have never taken prohibited drugs.

Sexy time! 10.6% of UP Diliman students have had sex while in campus and they are willing to do it again while in UP.

Intrigued? Know the numbers. Go beyond the statistics. 

Watch KaleidoISKOpe: Silip sa Bagong Iskolar ng Bayan

CMC Auditorium, Dec. 4, 1 – 3 PM. 

Those “CW days”

Lookie, the green thing! Ghost of Christmas Past!

The UP Balay Kalinaw is a very comforting, comfortable, home-y place to be in. 

A few steps away from this picture, one can enter a bookstore selling most of the Filipino poetry books I want to read. I went here to canvas for a book one of my “idol” professors recently released.

Somehow being in Balay Kalinaw reminded me so much of my “CW days” (creative writing). I’d hang out with classmates I’m close with from my creative writing classmates. I’d spend mornings and breaks just discussing with them the meaning of our stories, which part of our lives went into crafting so-and-so protagonist and antagonist. It’s fun being a CW major that way– you are “finishing an undergraduate degree” by contemplating deeply into things, or shocking people with the emotions of your written works no one every thought you could ever convey. You get to dissect all the people and things close to your life, and somehow figure them in with the theories you learned in school to create beauty and art through written works that many people can connect with.

I’m glad I’ve spent a part of my student life in those days of never-ending draft versions and free-flowing venues to create poetic justice.