Every year, we hold the Industrial Engineering Week. And it’s always on a February. This year, we had it last February 25-27, 2010. Yeah, it’s just 3 days (2.5, technically), but we already got used to calling it the IE Week.

February 24 – Put Up

From 8am to 5pm that day, we were all sweating out during the putting up of our booths for the Market Expo. Though we weren’t really the ones who built them as we had some carpenters to do it, still, we exerted effort in beautifying our booths.

At the end of the day, we were joyed at what we have done.

February 25 – Opening

We had a mass first thing in the morning at the USC-TC church. We then proceeded to the lobby of the Bunzel building (Engineering building) for the opening program. There were the opening remarks by Mrs. Dakay, the inspirational speech by Mr. Galindo, an intermission (games participated by 4th year students), and the ribbon cutting by Mr. Embalzado and the IE Council President (yours truly).

Then we had the ever-present vanity sessions! All we did after that was man our booths and get some free taste of the products from the other booths!

February 26 – Visitors

There was actually a College Faculty Assembly that day, so there weren’t too many Carolinians present at that time since there were no classes. We ruled the lobby! We were roaming around, looking for fun when it got boring in our own booths. In the afternoon, we had visitors from the outside — 4th year high school students from the Mandaue City Science High School and 4th year Industrial Engineering students from the University of Cebu Lapu-lapu and Mandaue. The UCLM IE students conducted some interview, and we answered their questions accordingly. We had them taste our products after that.

February 27 – Closing

Everybody was in costume or business attire for the judging of booths/businesses. Guests were there to conduct the final interview. After everything was the closing remarks of our adviser, and we had the final pictorial.

Click pic to enlarge. [Some of the numbers don't represent the booth numbers.]

1. Flick-ers Hub
2. Casato Origami
3. KidZone
4. Tahong Chips
5. BfD
6. Doodles
7. Tokenz
8. Alpha
9. Suzie’s Diner
10. JIGE Pet Society
11. BananaVille
12. Quail Hollow Retreat House
13. CARD Company
14. Ice Fruitees
15. Pan de sal Pizza

We then started cleaning up the place by taking down our booths.

After all the struggles we underwent just to make this event successful, it’s finally over. And I know all our efforts paid off! The constant headaches, the almost-sleepless nights, the last-minute decisions — everything, though not really wanted, was worth it. It wouldn’t have been the Market Expo that it was if it weren’t for the silly times — jumping here and there, having ice cream for lunch, witnessing a live drama (ssshhh!), stealing visits to other booths just to get a free taste of their products, hurriedly running back to our respective booths when we thought the powerful one was coming (hahaha!), etc… Hilarious!

By the way, it’s already the third year of the Market Expo, and I hope that next year’s activity will be as cool and funny as ever! Hahaha.

Sa Ngalan sa Amahan is a Cebuano play inspired from Sa Ngalan ng Ama by Roberto Jose de Guzman, a Palanca Award-winning play for Literature. The play revolves around the tragic story of a family ruined by the autocratic ways of the father. The story takes place within the old household of the Villasante’s. It tackles highly important and relevant political and social issues discussed in the family setting, society’s most basic unit and very foundation.

The story stresses the importance of family relations and how the country is shaped by the families composing it. Conflicts in the story do not only revolve around the family members, but also involve the greater circles of the Philippine society. The lives and views of each of the family members carefully reflect the facets of our society.

Ticket prices are as follows:

P100 – regular price
P85 – student price
P150 – Gala Deluxe
P200 – Gala Premiere

Schedule: 10am, 1pm, 4pm, and 7pm (Gala)

Tickets are available at the SM Cinema 2 entrance on February 27. For inquiries, please contact 09224510944 or 09266597789.

Please support this play by watching it! I myself want to know how my mindset will be after the play.

Ten months of being an official member of the Cebu Bloggers Society (but 16 months since I joined), I’ve grown to love my blogging family so much. We’ve all established a deep connection with one another already, and I know it’s gonna go on for a long time.

In two years, blogging in Cebu has ripened from being a mere online diary to something that takes an active role in civic and social awareness.

One of the factors that contributed to this positive development in the blogging scene in Cebu is the creation of a local blogging community.

The Cebu Bloggers Society was founded on February 14, 2008, with the main goal of uniting Cebu-based bloggers into a well-bonded community. And indeed, after its creation, individuals with diverse backgrounds but with a common interest, which is to promote Cebu and advocate blogging as a key tool for progress, converged to establish Cebu’s first and largest blogging community.

The Cebu Bloggers Society has really grown and evolved quite significantly. From its humble beginnings, the group presently has at least 80 members, and the number is still bound to increase further.

And now, the group is already anticipating its 2nd founding anniversary! Dubbed as CBS @ 2: The Cebu Bloggers Society 2nd Anniversary Celebration, the event is envisioned to further strengthen the bond of friendship and camaraderie within the blogging community.

The anniversary celebration will be held on Sunday, February 14, 2010, 5-9pm, at the Celebration Hall of SM Storyland, Lower Ground Floor, SM City Cebu.

This big and important event won’t be possible without the help and assistance of the following:

Major Sponsors

Minor Sponsors

Batang Yagit

Jehzlau Concepts

CBS, see you this Sunday! Happy Valentine’s Day! And Happy 2nd Anniversary! Weeeee!

Shadow

Friday night. Shadow went loco. I thought it was because of the stuff I downloaded that time. Windows wouldn’t start up in normal mode, only in safe mode. I tried troubleshooting, but I wasn’t able to solve the problem. I went to bed with a frown. Toink.
Saturday morning. I told my mom about what happened, and she scolded me a little. But it was okay. I asked her to call her friend to help us with the problem. I felt better that day (I wasn’t home the whole afternoon) since I knew Shadow would be fixed soon.
Saturday night. I tried some more troubleshooting after finding out that the problem wasn’t entirely my fault after all. It was kind of a Vista hitch. I did a startup repair, but it didn’t work ‘coz it just said there were no problems found. Weird.

Sunday morning. My mom’s friend came to fix Shadow. I thought some reformatting would be done. But he just did a startup repair using my recovery CD. And voila, Windows would boot in normal mode already! I did try the startup repair last Saturday night, but I didn’t use the CD since I thought it was already preinstalled or something. So… I could’ve fixed Shadow myself had I tried using the CD? Hahaha. I’m just happy Shadow’s back to normal already.
Sunday night. I couldn’t open any site with Firefox and Internet Explorer! Only in Chrome. I did a computer scan, and some malicious files were quarantined (maybe from the stuff I downloaded last Friday night). It fixed the problem. I also noticed that some results from my Google search would redirect me to a malware site (or something), but I didn’t click anything from that site. It was just weird that I was redirected. I didn’t care yet.
Monday morning. The redirection happened again. I searched the net about this, and I found out that Shadow’s been infected with the Google Redirect Virus (I think).
Monday night. I searched the net again for ways to eliminate this troubling virus. There were a lot of posts about it, but I was skeptical. I tried one solution, come what may. I just wanted Shadow to be back to a normal and clean state. Hehehe. I tried ComboFix, and poof! Shadow’s really back to normal now! Hahaha. I’m not really sure how ComboFix works, and if it’s safe or not. I’ve read about it, that it’s an excellent but very powerful tool so it shouldn’t be used without supervision from experts. It could even disable the computer and make it unbootable if used incorrectly. Maybe I just got lucky? Hahaha.

Those were the misadventures of Shadow… and the owner. Hahaha. I just hope Shadow wouldn’t have any more problems. I’m not a computer expert, you know! And it’s not every time that I get lucky with solutions on the net. Hehehe.

The JPIIE Inter-school Forum, Team Building, and Term-long Planning (or simply, the title of this post) happened last January 23-24, 2010 at the Don Bosco Retreat House in Lawaan, Talisay City. It’s already my second time there. The first time was during our retreat in 4th year high school, and the memories are still vivid in my mind. Anyway, we were kind of behind the schedule already. We started our team building activity after dinner (8:00-11:30pm). Not to exaggerate, but I think it was, by far, the most stimulating team building activity I’ve experienced in terms of real team building and lessons learned! Here are some of the things I’ve learned:

• Just do it. Don’t be too preoccupied about what’s gonna happen. If you know what to do and how to do it, everything will turn out right in the end.
• The “para nako” (for me; para sa akin) syntax. Every time you voice out a thought, acknowledge that it’s just your own opinion. Don’t generalize or think that others have the same thought as you. This way, you won’t offend anyone.
• Know who you are. Know what you want to be. Don’t pretend to be somebody else. It’s easier to attain your goals if you are sure where you’re heading to.
• The difference between deciding and doing. It’s big. The former doesn’t do anything, the latter does everything. In addition, plan your work and work your plan.

Those are the easiest things to recall. Nevertheless, all the denotations and connotations were really effective. Slumber time followed.

Lourd, Shalee, Ronald, and John.

We wanted to attend mass at 6:30am the next day, but only few of us were able to wake up earlier and prepare. I wasn’t able to go. Anyway, during most of our breaks, I was with Shalee (USC), John (USC), Ronald (UCLM), and Lourd (UCLM). After breakfast, we went out for a morning walk to the church (that’s already after the mass). Unfortunately, when we arrived at the church, we had to run back ‘coz it was already raining. The path was steep, and the retreat house was far from the church! Who wouldn’t end up panting? Hahaha. We had to dry up before the next activities would start. We had the discussion of JPIIE’s nature and history (c/o the former president, Rankine Novabos) in the morning and term-long planning or project proposals in the afternoon.

After our final snacks, we had cam whoring sessions (never gone), and we left the place with a happy heart.

I’m still overwhelmed by the weight of everything I’ve grasped from the event. I just hope that young as JPIIE may be, we will be able to attain our term goal of establishing our identity and growing as effective and efficient leaders, not of different schools, but of a big family of Industrial Engineering students. Move forward, JPIIE!

Officers from USC, USJ-R, CIT, UCLM, UV, CTU, and DBTC.

PS JPIIE stands for Junior Philippine Institute of Industrial Engineers. And our complete name has a -VC extension for Visayas Chapter. And oh, click here for the pics.

The whole time, I was attempting to take decent pics of the fireworks with my point-and-shoot cam, but it was kind of a failure. All of the pics looked funny! Hahaha. Here are some of them:

Confetti

Lightning

Microbes

Sparklers

Galaxy

Jellyfish

Fireworks. Hahaha. I think this is the most decent one I took.

More funny firework pics here.

My favorite part of the event was the demo show of Pyroworks International! Breathtaking! Kinda. Hehehe.

It’s gonna be fiery on the night of January 16, 2010! Eight firework manufacturing groups from all over the Philippines will converge for a pyrotechnic showdown at SM City Cebu (fronting Northwing). This 2nd annual Sinulog fireworks competition will happen at 8pm and will also feature a demo show by Pyroworks International. So if you don’t want to miss the battle, be there and together, let’s blaze like a flame and fly up high above the stars! Wahahaha. I was just singing. Let’s see the sky on fire!

This event is organized by Pyroworks International and brought to us by SM City Cebu.

Think-About-It Sunday
On weekdays, I’m restraining myself from so much over-thinking activity (no, it has nothing to do with the decision-making side, just the recapturing of events), especially when it comes to negative thoughts. Aside from the fact that it takes time as I usually just stare out and do nothing while in the process, it sucks the spirit out of me. Hahaha. But since it makes me uneasy when I’m not able to have one last thought of those things, I decided to dedicate one day for all those stuff without making myself guilty.

Spread-a-Quote Monday
I love quotations! Though I often forget who originally said them, I usually associate most of them to every situation I am (and the others are) in. “As the saying goes,” “Like they say,” and the likes — I say those things frequently. There’s a wide array of quotations online, and I get across them every now and then. So I’d like to share some of them with my friends through text message or posting them anywhere online and offline. Hahaha.

Healthy-Living Tuesday
I admit that I don’t feel so [physically] healthy. I may look healthy, but my lifestyle is far from one. I love sweets too much, I always lack sleep (or sometimes, I oversleep), I don’t exercise, and I spend most of my time online! Hahaha. Yeah, I consider my virtual lurking unhealthy. To lessen my detrimental lifestyle, I’m going to try to live healthy even just once a week. Eat right (normal meals with fruits or something), sleep earlier than usual, and/or sweat out (if I can find time out of my busy weekday). As for my being so active online, I’m yet to find the cure for that. Nyahaha.

Random-Fact Wednesday
This one’s so vain. Hehehe. I just want to recall those random nothings about me and share it to the world (even if nobody’s interested). At least it will make me remember myself more, and let others know me better. Wooo.

Save-a-Dollar Thursday
If I’m not going to control, I’m gonna go broke! Well, I’m not really so extravagant, but I’m not very thrifty either. On the average, I manage to get my needs (and wants) and still have some bucks left on my wallet. But I just want to spare even just a little amount every week from my wallet for “buffer stock”. Who knows, it might just come in handy when I need it the most.

Praise/Hug-a-Friend Friday
Who says it’s all just about me? Hehehe. I don’t usually praise people verbally as I just acknowledge their praise-worthy acts from within. But when I do say it, I mean it more. So I’m going to dedicate my Fridays to making my friends know that I appreciate them even with the littlest things they do. Hugging couldn’t be that hard either, could it?

Ask-Me-Anything Saturday
Just for the curious and bored people, I’m open to all questions asked, however serious or foolish it may be, and for whatever reason. But I’m yet to find out what questions are subject to approval-then-answering. Hahahaha. For private questions, I’m gonna give out the answers privately also. Naturally. Hihihihi.

This is getting ridiculous. Hahaha. But yeah, I’m having fun so far. It’s still my first week. Whether I’m getting something out of this or not, I’m planning to keep it up for the whole year just to have something different everyday.

You! Do you have something to spice up your days?

CBS at Maribago Bluewater Beach Resort

Is it too early to fantasize of vacationing again? To think, Christmas break just ended. Hahaha. As a student, I’m just like the others who whine about school every single day. And I don’t deny that. School’s not a bed of roses. It’s a bed of nails. Sounds familiar, eh? Hehehe. But really now, it’s starting to get thorny again because it’s almost our midterms week! And we have this marketing stage of our feasibility study that we have to pass before the dreaded exams week. Who wouldn’t want to divert his/her attention from that, huh? That’s why at this very moment, I’m imagining myself chilling out at the beach with a couple of friends, enjoying the sweet smell of the breeze and the hot feel of the sun. And where is that beach, you ask? Of course, Maribago Bluewater Beach Resort! Not that I’m being biased here, but I’ve really grown a liking to this place. Maybe because never in my life have I tried to visit and enjoy a beach resort for four times within the same year! Oh okay, also maybe because of the warm welcome we get every time we go there.

CBS at Sumilon Bluewater Beach Resort

By this time, my mind’s wandering off to Sumilon Bluewater Beach Resort already. Since my experience there last year was one of my firsts, it sticks to my memory like glue. It was such a happy trip because I was with my very big family of bloggers — the Cebu Bloggers Society! Come to think of it, I haven’t really gone to the Bluewater Resorts with anyone else but them. So, does this mean that one day, I’ll be seeing myself in Panglao Bluewater Island Resort with CBS again? Sure! I’d love that!

I’ve been talking a lot about Maribago Bluewater here in my blog, so I’m pretty sure you already want to go there and see that I’m not kidding! To convince you even more, just visit the Maribago Bluewater Blog and discover the beauty of the Bluewater paradise!

She isn’t the girl she used to be in 2008 and the years before that — one with strong personality who, most of the time, let her pride get ahead of her. Perhaps, her prideful side was caused by her immaturity. She often forgot to put herself in other people’s shoes, that’s why she always thought she was right. She was also one who got controlled by her anger easily. When provoked, she would always do something to get even. Her anger wouldn’t slip away just like that. Even during times that she was at fault, she found it hard to say sorry, and she also found it hard to forgive. But she apologized and forgave anyway. To simply put everything she was before in a statement, she was a hard one when angered, but she was actually a good friend.

When 2009 came, she changed a lot, and it made her an almost new person. One of her friends even mentioned that all her experiences during the year that passed did her good. And other people who knew her way back also saw the transformation.

It was the year when she grew up. The once naive little girl was unknowingly led to maturity by the persistent bites of reality. She laughed, she cried; she frowned, she smiled. She went on a journey she never thought she could handle. A lot of times she was challenged, and for what it was all worth, she would’ve given up hadn’t she realized that it was all for the reason she held on in the first place. She has undergone the sweetest of moments and the fiercest of times. She learned how to open her heart to the people around her, though it entailed the pain of being attacked off guard. She took the risk of doing some things she has never done before. And though it didn’t turn out to be always totally favorable, she was happy to be able to free a part of her. She learned how to sympathize and empathize. She understood how it was to swallow her pride and to control her emotions to prevent it from going wild. Everything that happened to her last year, especially during the 2nd half, shaped her into the person she is now — softer, more understanding, more mature.

If there’s one thing that didn’t change throughout her years of existence, it’s her sunny nature. She strongly believes that if there’s a time to get serious, there’s also a time to get silly. She tries her best to keep her high spirits all the time.

She figured she was kind of a drama queen last year. She seemed to find it very liberating to be able to pour her heart out, especially about things she either has undergone, or could relate to. Why is it, you ask? I say it’s just her sentimental disposition.

I wish this girl all the luck in the world. I think she badly needs it this year, just like everyone else does. Have a wonderful year of the Tiger, pal.