A Student of Life

An Unending Journey of Self-discovery

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 23:26:00 -0400

There is an uncomfortable and awkward feeling when you do things that are not your passion. Accompanied by these feelings is that the quality of your outputs are compromise since you don’t truly want to do it. Doing something that will not make us happy birth to unexplainable discomfort or even cognitive dissonance. The result of this is mediocrity. It’s like a trap and many of us fall in this snare.

Have you ever experienced it? I guess, I belong to the group of various people who go through this dilemma. I do not know exactly what will make me happy. Nonetheless, I’m certain that the things I’m presently doing don’t contribute to my genuine happiness. Now, even in my academics I’m not sold-out with the stuffs I’m doing. I only did and continually doing these things because they were required. I did it for the sake of complying. Previously, I was so eager to study and motivated to achieve my desires. Before, I stay awake until dawn just to make sure that I study my lesson well and be prepared to take my examinations. Now, it seems that I don’t even care if my score will be high or low. Formerly, I gave my best to whatever undertakings I had and I exerted 100% effort. Presently, I often cram and settle for less.

Even with my own career path I let other people decide for me because I don’t have any decisions for myself. One of my friends encouraged me to continue medicine so I took the national medical admission test. Conversely, after taking the examination I was convinced not to pursue medicine because it is not my passion. My other friend is persuading me to try the law school, until now I haven’t decided yet. My mom wants me to work after graduation since I’m the eldest and they expect me to help them with my siblings. Perhaps, this is the most possible direction I will take but don’t have the

assurance that I’ll be happy with it. Obviously, I have a huge predicament within me. I don’t fully understand my whole being, my existence, and who I am,

Self-discovery is a process of learning who we really are and how are we similar and different from other people. One of the methods for self-discovery proposed by psychologists is the human need theory. Steven Reiss stated that Human Needs Theory purports to teach people how their personality traits arise from intrinsic motives and values. This leads me to a question: what motivates me? What is my life’s impetus? Further, as I ponder about it I realized that most of my actions are motivated by external factors and outside rewards. These extrinsic motivators are temporal and the satisfactions it gave are also fleeting. I hope that I’ll be back to what I was before – motivated by intrinsic factors, to rekindle the passion inside me. I anticipate the moment that my impetus would be intrinsic motivation. As I look back, intrinsic motivators propelled me to do stuffs just for the fun of it or because I believe it is good or right thing to do. Intrinsic motivation is far stronger motivator than extrinsic motivation.

Currently, I am finding the courage to stand up for what will truly make me happy. To be brave enough to face the challenges I will grapple with. At the end of the day, I will not know myself if I’m afraid to confront the truth. All I can say is I will be forever a learner and student of life. Everything that happens to me has a purpose and I’ll be mature enough to embrace these experiences. In my opinion, learning as well as self-discovery is a lifelong process.

Quest for Gender Equality

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 23:22:42 -0400

Over the decades, the issue about gender is a very hot topic in society. Gender is one of the gauges of status differences. Consequently, gender inequality receives so much attention from people who are concern about social equality. Frequently, sex and gender are used interchangeably by most people but there’s a distinction about these two subjects. Sex is made biologically through chromosomes, brain structure, and hormonal differences while gender is constructed socially through social interactions. Gender identity is ones private sense of being a man or a woman, and consists primarily of the acceptance of membership in a particular group of people – male or female.

As a person, we developed our gender identity and gender roles during childhood. Cognitive Development of Kohler suggested that formation of symbolic thinking assists the acquisition of gender identity and the process of acquiring gender-appropriate behavior. According to the non-Freudian view, gender roles develop through internalization and identification during childhood. Internalization of gender norms could be seen by the example of which types of toys parents usually give to their children. Thus, “feminine” toys reinforce interaction, nurturing, and closeness; “masculine” toys often reinforce independence and competitiveness.

Up to the present generation the battle for superiority or even equality among genders is on and still continuing, I have my own doze of experiences regarding this issue. I have a male friend and we often have opposing ideas and opinions about certain matters. We even clash at times. We both don’t want to lose the argument. It may sound absurd but I think we are the human version of cats and dogs. He’s prideful and doesn’t accept his faults. Likewise, I have this thinking that nobody or no one can put me down particularly men. He values and protects his ego. The same way, I want my voice to be heard. He always tries to manipulate people especially his female friends. Nevertheless, I’m one of the exceptions because I can decode his actions and motives by merely observing him. He has machismo mentality. I support and advocate gender equality. Honestly, it’s hard to prove myself in front of our older friends and other people because we all know that Filipinos are still attached to paternity ideas. They have mindsets that men should be better than women – a kind of gender stereotyping.

I’m not a feminist neither a sexist. I’m just clamoring for fairness, equality, and justice between genders.

Procrastination

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 23:10:11 -0400

“Men talked of killing time, while time quietly kills them” a quote from Dion Boucicault which depicts how people utilize their time in completing tasks or achieving goals. Some may prefer doing tasks ahead of time and being assured that they will be able to finish it in a given period. In some cases, many individuals use their time recklessly and as a result, they tend to procrastinate. Benjamin Franklin once said that “you may delay, but time will not.” the phenomenon of procrastination has prevailed for much of history and continues to flourish in the modern day. A lot of people are accustom in putting off their works until the last minute but time continuously go on whether people delay a task or not.

Procrastination is not limited to working individuals in fact almost all students engage in this kind of behavior especially students in tertiary level. According to Ellis and Knaus, 80%-95% of college students admitted that they procrastinate while nearly 50% of college students chronically procrastinate (Steel, 2007). Academic procrastination is usually observable during examinations and days before the deadline of the school requirements. It is natural to procrastinate occasionally but excessive procrastination can result in many negative repercussions such as lost time, increased stress, lower grades, poorer health, decreased long-term learning, lower self-esteem and even guilt feelings for not doing a task when it should be done. In short, excessive procrastination can interfere with school and personal success. Despite of overwhelmingly negative outcomes of procrastination, still many students are doing it. This conflicting scenario lead to one question: why do people engage in an activity that is not beneficial for them? The most evident reasons why students procrastinate are perfectionism, fear of failure, confusion, task difficulty, poor motivation, difficulty in concentrating, and lack of priorities. Some students put high standard of performance for a task which doesn’t seem possible to meet that standard. A student may lack confidence and fear that he will be unable to accomplish a task successfully. Others are so concern on how to start a task or how it should be completed. Sometimes, a student may lack the skills and abilities needed to accomplish a task. Also, many students may have little or no interest in completing a task because they find it boring or without significance in their lives.

Nowadays, students have plenty of activities which caused them difficulty in setting priorities. In this technology savvy generation, several stuffs are getting the attention and time of students that’s why they have hard time in concentrating. Based on observation, almost all of the students are hooked with social networking sites like facebook which consume their time instead of doing some more relevant tasks. The computer has a wide range of activities to offer that become distractions like computer games, listening to music, watching videos on youtube and surfing the news. Television, cellphone, mp3 and other modern gadgets are some of the other distractions. A study by Quest Media showed that 95% of college students procrastinated “frequently” and “very frequently”. This study also divulge that instead of writing papers, students preferred to watch TV(23%), surf the net(17%), and sleep(13%). I am not an exception to this because I admit that I am a crammer and usually procrastinate.

As I have noticed self-esteem and self-efficacy can be linked to procrastination. Task difficulty, poor motivation and difficulty concentrating are attributed to self-efficacy. According to Bandura (1986), people with high self-efficacy respond to negative feedback with increase effort and motivation while those with low self-efficacy lessen their effort when given negative feedback. Self-efficacy beliefs determine how people feel, think, motivate themselves and behave. Consequently, self-esteem is how favorably someone evaluates and feels about one’s own self. Perfectionism and fear of failure are associated with self-esteem. People feel that their self-worth increases whenever they finish a task and they become confident of themselves. Failure serves as threat to one’s self-esteem because if a person doesn’t get the task done; it will result to low self-esteem. People are very much concern about how other people perceived them which cause them to perform tasks that are beyond their limits. I know at times I’m a people-pleaser and it upsets me whenever I disappoint people around me. Thus, it affects my self-concept and self-worth.

As a student I have a responsibility to understand why procrastination happens and be aware of the factors that lead to procrastination. I must also regulate this behavior – procrastination, because somehow procrastination has good effects yet not all the time and chronic procrastinators suffer a lot.

I’m Lovin’ it :)) How I wish Mcdonald’s...

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 10:58:58 -0400

I’m Lovin’ it :)) How I wish Mcdonald’s Philippines serving size is like this

Who says that valentine’s day is for lovers only? Who...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 09:02:03 -0500

Who says that valentine’s day is for lovers only? Who thinks that when you don’t have a romantic partner you wouldn’t receive something special and sweet treat during valentine’s day?

Thanks to my sweet mom. She gave me a cake and a flower. :)

Happy Valentine’s Day! :)

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 07:08:10 -0500

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. -1Corinthians 13:13

Buttered Shrimp with Broccoli. Another dish prepared by Mommy...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 06:49:02 -0500

Buttered Shrimp with Broccoli. Another dish prepared by Mommy last sunday. :)

Mom’s Chili Buttered Tahong. She cooked for us last...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 06:46:10 -0500

Mom’s Chili Buttered Tahong. She cooked for us last sunday. One of the rare moments because she’s always have a work even on weekends.

the-absolute-funniest-posts: ;) don’t click hope to see...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:10:36 -0500

the-absolute-funniest-posts:

;) don’t click

hope to see escalators like this one in malls here in manila :) awesome

MOTHER OF........ DOLL PAINT

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 09:50:20 -0500

thefuuuucomics:

more….

here

That’s what you call talent :) cool man!

Wedding Coordination @ Tagaytay

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:42:00 -0500

Last February 1, 2012, we had a wedding coordination at Tagaytay. Our call time to be in the hotel was 10:30am, we arrived at Tagaytay about 10am that’s why we had time to ate our breakfast first and then had a short meeting. During that day, the weather was good and we really love the cold wind breeze. Fresh air! :)

The wedding ceremony was held at Caleruega church and the reception was in Sonya’s Garden. By the way, we traveled for about 45 minutes from Hotel Dominique (Tagaytay proper) to Caleruega (Batangas). Then, 20-30 minutes from Caleruega to Sonya’s garden (Cavite). Imagine the distances. hahaha :D However, it’s not boring and tiring trip since my eyes was soothingly pleased with nature’s beauty.

Sonya’s Garden is a haven for those people who wanted to relax, smell the scent of fresh air and eat foods that are good to health. They serve fresh and organically grown ingredients. A perfect place for those who want to escape from the noise, pollution and stress that the metropolis has. A must-try restaurant for those vegetarians out there. Click here to visit their website. I cannot give comments about the food they serve because I was not able to taste most of it. I just tried their fresh dalandan juice and some breads from their panaderia. I must say that the juice was great especially when served with ice and the breads are delicious, love its softness.

If you plan to go to Tagaytay and wish to spend time in cozy spot, Hotel Dominique is a place to stay (just in case you will be in Tagaytay for more than one day). It has a pool and it doesn’t look like a typical hotel that is a tall story building. It seems to be like a home or should I say, rest house in a way. They have suites and cabana (for large group of persons). For more infos: click here.

Here are some photos during that event:

(I used my Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot phone in capturing these pictures. I’m hoping that I would have a DSLR soon. *fingers crossed* hahaha :D )

The majestic Caleruega Church in Batangas. Behind that church is a picturesque.

The reception set-up at Sonya’s garden. I wasn’t able to capture the whole set-up especially the couple’s table. It was just a view from the back.

Sonya’s Garden at night with dazzling lights.

The coordinators after the reception program. hehe :)

Photo

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:15:07 -0500

Butterflies. It was used in the wedding.

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:54:49 -0500

Butterflies. It was used in the wedding.

Photo

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:15:59 -0500

Gurls' Pig Out Day! :)

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:29:45 -0500

We have an agreement that every 9th day of the month we will go out and spend time with each other. It’s our way to keep updated even if we weren’t block mates now and we have to make time despite of our busy schedule.

For today’s agenda, Zark’s attack. Originally, we planned do have it on the 6th day of February for us to avail the 150php promo of Jawbreaker inclusive of fries and iced tea. Sadly, we weren’t lucky enough to have a reservation. Seemed like a lot of people wanted to avail that promo. Fully booked! hahaha :D

Nonetheless, because we were craving for burgers and we have to fulfill our accord, we’ve decided to eat at Zark’s Burgers though we didn’t get to avail the discounted price of Jawbreaker. We are all full after eating those burgers and of course, we enjoyed our time together.

I think the prices they have for their burgers are still reasonable. Its affordability, serving size and delectable taste made it worthy for the price. I only have one suggestion, they should expand their place because it’s quite small since they have lots of customers. They should put in additional tables and chairs to cater for more customers.

We also love their mouth-watering Wings ‘n’ Chips doused in lemon garlic dip.

Warm-up stage. haha :D There are still the Wings ‘n’ Chips

After few seconds, the Wings ‘n’ Chips are gone. haha :D

Presenting the burgers we had….

Zark’s Ultimate Burger for Au.

- 1/4 pound burger with cheese sauce in a bed of fresh veggies and then topped with sautéed mushroom and bacon.

Shaq for me :)

- 1/4 pound cheeseburger topped with bacon and fried onion strings.

Bourbon Burger for Nads.

- 1/4 mushroom burger topped with Zark’s very own bourbon barbeque sauce.

Floyd Chicken Burger for Elaine.

- 1/4 burger topped with fried chicken skin and a choice of cheese sauce or barbeque rum sauce on the side.

Jawbreaker for Kath.

- Triple cheeseburger with spam, bacon and overflowing cheese sauce on top.

It’s a must-try burger restaurant. Zark’s Burgers (check out their menu and prices) is located at 2nd floor Archer’s nook building, Malate, Manila (In front of La Salle Taft, same building where yellow cab is)

Like a kid, I found myself playing with these GLOW STICKS.

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 06:58:44 -0500

Like a kid, I found myself playing with these GLOW STICKS.

Tired and Exhausted yet Productive

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:46:04 -0500

I’ve been busy for a week. From January 23-28 I did various errands and didn’t have a good rest. Indeed, it was a tiring and exhausting yet productive week.

Monday (Jan.23): It was a holiday, nonetheless, I used up a lot of energy because we had a dance rehearsal and MTV shoot for my sister’s debut. Gotta move to the groove. hehe :))

Dance practice.

Video shoot. We’re just extras here since it’s my sister’s MTV.

Tuesday (Jan.24): Internship duty at Letran from 8am-5pm. Afterwards, my friends and I went to St. Peter Funeral because the father of our classmate died. (No pictures taken)

Wednesday (Jan.25): Nothing spectacular happened for the day. I just attended my classes from 8:30am-4pm. We checked our midterm exams and then, reporting. After class, I immediately went home caused I was really tired. (No pictures again)

Thursday (Jan.26): Supposedly, I have classes but instead of attending my classes at school, my OJT-mates, who happened to be my block mates, and I decided to have our internship duty in Letran. I stayed there for half-day only. And, by 1pm I went to DFA to process my passport. In fairness, the system at DFA is organized though there were lots of people who also processed their passport, I finished all the steps at 3pm. By 5pm, I accompanied my mom to her emceeing and assisted her all throughout the program. I became an instant DJ since the party was a surprise one and they didn’t plan well about it.

At the debut party.

Friday (Jan.27): 8am-2pm internship duty, that day we had to accomplish a lot of things plus there were no student assistant who could man the admissions office so I was the chosen one (among the four interns of guidance office) to take over. Since it was friday and the entrance exam schedule was saturday, there were many HS students and some parents applying and inquiring. I planned to stay at Letran untill 1pm but I left at 2:15pm. I immediately rushed to Mt. Carmel Church at Quezon City because I was one of the coordinators of the wedding (the wedding starts at 3:30pm). Traffic pa. Good thing, I made it yet when I arrived there, the wedding procession had began. I just assisted my senior coordinator during the wedding proper and at the reception. ‘Twas a successful event. :)) Thank you Lord.

The newly weds with the emcee and coordinators.

After the program, we tried the drinks of SHOTS Mobile Bar (check out their FB account). It was good and it brought fun in the wedding. The guests enjoyed the different drinks they served.

Saturday (Jan.28): I wanted to finished my 150-hour required time for internship so I decided to duty on a saturday because I only have to stay there for 4 hours but it’s considered whole day. At first, I thought I was going to help administering the entrance exam since it was the only activity that the guidance and admissions office hold every saturday. However, the admission staff asked me to accompany him at Valenzuela to conduct the scholarship exam in one of the public high schools there. It took 1 hour and a half trip before we reached the school. After we have given the exam, we went back to Letran and ate our lunch. Then, I headed to PLM for our Sped Fun day and batch meeting. I ended my day with my LIFEBOX-PLM family and celebrated Nikka’s birthday at Bon AppeTEA (check out their FB account for their menus and branches they have) P. Campa branch. The place is homey and cozy with free wifi. The milk teas they have are delicious and very affordable. Also, the owner is very hands-on and kind. They chat with the customers whenever they are at the shop. We played pinoy henyo and we were the only ones who were noisy there. Good thing, it’s late in the evening and there were only few customers aside from our group. We stayed there until 11pm because it’s closing time.

With gurls and Barry after sped fun day and batch meeting.

With Lifebox-plm at Bon Appetea :))

Ferrero Rocher is Love

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:01:39 -0500

Sweet (and I mean literally sweet) stuffs come when you least expected it. We received two boxes of ferrero rocher from mom’s lady boss. :) Sugar-rush! Thank you. Am a self-confessed choco-holic. Oh I love it so much.

I admit, sometimes, I’m like this

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:09:53 -0500

I admit, sometimes, I’m like this

four seasons! :)

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:38:52 -0500

four seasons! :)