11 - Frosh Night

"A night to remember"

We are all happy when we knew that there is going to be a Frosh Night for the freshmen of the APC. It is rare for us to attend to this kind of party, Why? because it is the first and last Freshmen party that we will attend. It was a tiring day yet an enjoyable night.

When the Rave part started I think that almost all the freshmen attended the party. All of us will remember that night. It was sad when it was over because we have to go home and get some rest. Not only we are sad but we are also relieved because of the party. 

16 - 15 Persons I commented on their Blog posts.

1. Luigi Urquia
2. Lurenne Tangi
3. Krisper Bariaun
4. Ryan Garcia
5. Jimmy Famador
6. Zian Vertudes
7. Kenard Pascua
8. Patricia Pangilinan
9. Argel Cornel
10. Jejomar Politico
11. Shella Gutierrez
12. Leonardo Salvador
13. Gabriel Estabillo
14. Shaun Ibañez
15. Buen Talosig

15 - Self Confidence

"Our one and only weapon"

 The Dictionary defines confidence as freedom of doubt; belief in yourself and your abilities. Many people lack the self-confidence and self-esteem needed to live a happy and healthy life. Self-esteem is a confidence and satisfaction in oneself. These two things must be present in people’s daily lives in order for them to believe that they have the ability to do anything. At this point in my life I am trying to gain the esteem I need to truly be happy. The best way to gain self-confidence is to look deep inside of yourself and believe that you have the ability to overcome all obstacles and challenges that you are faced with, on a daily bases, because our self-esteem is one of the few things that we have control over.

 Self-confidence is something that cannot be taught. It is up to the individual to decide how much belief that they possess inside of themselves. I am at the point where I realize that I must first believe in myself before others will believe in me. Nobody teaches us to be happy or sad. They are natural feelings that come along as we develop mentally, physically, emotionally and psychologically.

 When you get to the point where you allow others to dictate how you feel about life, you have to stop and take an internal survey. Ask yourself if your lack of self-confidence and self-assurance is holding you back from being the best that you can possibility be. Most often these feelings come from people allowing the negativity of other people to overcome them. You have to be willing to take control of your life and whatever is holding you back. So often we, as a people, look for the validation from society before we validate ourselves. I have allowed society to determine how I should look, dress and feel. It is time for me to take a stand and be in control of my own destiny.

 Some people have so much confidence that they are not afraid to do anything. Others are the complete opposite, and are scared of being judged or ridiculed by others. Self-confidence cannot be taught, but is reached by the individual when they decide to believe in themselves. In order to attain self-confidence, one needs to believe that they can do the task at hand. It cannot be accomplished overnight, but slowly gets stronger and stronger over a period of time. One of the major ways to obtain confidence is acting like one is confident, even when not. Acting will transfer into truly being self-confident and having high self-esteem. Another way to gain confidence is by talking to others. My example of gaining confidence is a true testament that this works. Talking to people that care will lift one up by talking about one’s terrific skills, boosting confidence level immediately.

 In conclusion, confidence is a characteristic that everyone struggles with at one point, but can be achieved by trusting one’s abilities and speaking with others that are supportive. Mark Twain once said, “The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.” Being comfortable in one’s own skin is the key to achievement and enjoyment in life, so start with some confidence.

14 - What Is Love

"Feeling"

Everyone at some point in their lives has experienced love, whether they were loved or have loved. Love seems to be the main underlying goal that we all strive for in our lifetimes. It is the one thing that we all, as humans, have in common. There are many different types of love: family love, friendship love, conceptual love, and intimate love. Many people have a hard time finding words to express this intense feeling because everyone’s experience and meaning of it is different. The thing is that with love, it is not positive or negative; it seems to have its ups and downs. However, we still go throughout life searching for it, without ever giving up.

 Family love is unconditional, meaning it is timeless, and everlasting. It is a feeling shared between a young girl listening to her grandfather stories of the olden days. It may even be the strict rules that a parent enforces, that a child feels are unfair. The great part of this love is that you can be yourself, make mistakes, and you will always be forgiven.

 The love shared between friends is similar, but there are boundaries not to be crossed. These boundaries are different with each friendship, but are usually somewhere along the lines of, not messing with each other’s boyfriends or bad mouthing behind each other’s back. Friendship love knows that you have someone there to talk to, especially about things that you could never tell your parents. This type of love is sharing your experience of your first crush in elementary school. Even taking blame for a childish act that your best friend committed, such as stealing a pack of gum from the convenience store.

 Conceptual love is a love of material things, and ideas or characteristics. This love we feel toward objects, such as jewelry, flowers, and other material things. It also is the feeling of loving characteristic traits, such as kindness, humor, and others.

It is the strength of this feeling that makes love the most powerful emotion that most of us will ever experience. People can do some dreadful things out of hate and fear, but love can push us to do much, much worse. And it is often love that can cause us to hate, whether it’s out of jealousy, or anger because our loved one has been hurt. Love, ultimately, is a sacrifice, whatever the relationship, and it must be the most powerful force in the universe because as human beings, we make true sacrifices for nothing less.

13 - Gadgets

"Life Changer"

Our life has changed drastically during 20th century. Many things that were praised and defended before are now forgotten or disregarded. Modern life is unthinkable without computers and thousands of other intricate devices that were of no use before. Contemporary generation grew up in the new informational environment and easily finds common language with all those devices. This makes their parents, who grew up without any of those gadgets, think that their children possess special abilities. But in fact playing computer games microwave oven programming require many fewer intellectual faculties than studying history.

 Here we have the general delusion of modern parents. Children are considered to be clever just because they possess some invaluable skills, their parents do not have. And lets see what are real benefits of such knowledge. What can children receive from all those countless TV-shows they watch and numerous computer-games they play? Watching TV makes children unable to grasp large amounts of complex information. In the majority of cases TV makes children master only little amounts of simple information, necessary in everyday life. Getting information in such a primitive way weakens young minds, makes them unable to withstand intellectual work. Their minds are feeble, like the muscles of a man who never did any physical exercises.

As a result children are able to grasp simple ideas, but when they have to remember anything complicated, there is a problem. Kids need a lot of time to complete their home assignments, because they are not able to concentrate on a specific subject. Children spend a lot of time doing their classes and parents start thinking that curriculum is too complicated. They see a lot of ‘unnecessary’ subjects in it, which take their children’s time. But lets see how kids are spending the time they have for homework. In the majority of cases kids are just sitting and doing nothing. The majority of kids need parent’s assistance because they can not concentrate on anything themselves.

 History and other supplementary subjects have become of no value lately. That is because people have found substitution to it. Modern people do not read books and do not go to the theatres. Everything in our life is substituted with Internet and TV. Cozy conversations at the fireplace are substituted with spontaneous and confused chat over the mobile telephones. Every day millions of people go to work to do some routine operations which repeat every day, from year to year. When they come home, they turn their computers on again and merge into their little universe, where they can be whatever they want. People grow lonely and isolated. In such a way people become similar to the machines without any spiritual life. It is extremely important to save the spiritual part of human life, to learn human culture and history. It was said that one, who doesn’t know his history is not worth any future. Modern life has made people unable to live in full, to feel. Every day people go to work and there they do the same things every day. This makes them similar to the machines that make the same operation the whole life.

 What I want to say is that education is slowly approaching to the point when only ‘necessary’ subjects are learned. But lets think what differs us from machines. Of course, it is our culture, history, philosophy and a lot of other things that we consider to be unimportant now. Studying history develops imagination and ability to analyze.

12 - College Life

"New Journey Begins'

 The ideal college lifestyle dissipates quickly once the reality is reached. Many young adults imagine vivid pictures of what college might be like for them. However, once these young adults mature into independent men and women, and enter into the school of their choice, they soon realize the reality of the college lifestyle. They must learn to adapt to their new surroundings as quickly as possible to accomplish the sought after degrees. Students come to the realization that life is not as easy as they might hope for.

 Many young adults seem to believe that college life is filled with parties and typically a laid-back lifestyle. These students believe that, much like high school, classes will be taken during the day and filled with all their friends. They imagine a lifestyle with no other worries besides an occasional essay or lab. It is often said that college is the greatest time of one’s life; many high school students believe this and look forward to it. Some enjoy the idea of being able to come to class late, leave when they want, and pretty much have say-so of their own lives now that their parents are out of the picture. The majority of college freshmen enter into school picturing an easy, fun-filled ride. These reasons provide support to the unusually low grades of first-year college students.

 The widespread college ideal lifestyle is seldom the reality. Students quickly learn that many classes stretch into the nighttime hours. Often, students are not in classes with their friends, but with other students who sometimes can be old enough to be their parents. Although the average college age might be near 20 years old, it can range from 18 to 40 years old or older. There are many middle-aged adults going back to college to get their degree at the same time the 18-year-old college student is going to start his or her degree.

10 - Anti Smoking

"The Mark of your Life"

I want to strongly promote the dangers of smoking to young children and teenagers around the world; however, I not only want to inform, but I want to take severe action. Over half a century ago, citizens did not have the privilege to the hazardous effects of smoking, and as a result, huge parts of the population took up the previously dubbed “glamorous” habit of smoking. Fortunately, today we are in the middle of an information age where enlightening the general public about the health risk of products is an everyday occurrence. Surprisingly, 420,000 Americans died from smoking alone and 2,000 teens became addicted to cigarettes last year.

Despite the extent of awareness programs and campaigns to stop smoking, the deadly habit is still prevalent in America, and even more strongly all over the world. I want to discontinue the sales of tobacco for good this time. This is the only way deaths of Americans from smoking will cease. I want to create a movement so well-built and so supported that tobacco companies would have to do more than write a warning label on their products, but downright stop selling them.

The majority of our youth today is so swayed by peer pressure and negative parts of the media that a mass decrease of smoking is not in sight. On a brighter note, the movement against smoking is growing, and these voices must grow louder and a battle must pursue. I intensely advocate more than the awareness of our culture must be done to stop smoking.

We have already aired dying lung cancer patients with tubes in their throats pleading the public to quit smoking, but they do not. We have already deployed anti-smoking advertisements about the health effects of smoking and the undeniable fact that smoking will cause lung cancer, stroke, emphysema, and heart attacks. Nonetheless, even with this ominous fate, Americas continue lighting up! The vast majorities of today’s smokers are fully aware of the advertisements.