Ponce Suites

Gallery of ARTSThe ceiling on the fourth floor.

1.) The ceiling on the other half of the fourth floor 2.) The stone lizard stairway leading to another floor.

Ms. Stella Stremera, Editor-in-chief of Sunstar, discusses civic journalism.

Arts, Arts, Arts...

Every corner is a work of Art. Pictures above are taken from Ponce Suites, Davao City. The ceilings, floor, chairs, tables, stairs, walls and every corner has a concept to ponder upon. The entire building offers guests with variations of arts made using different media. The ambiance is conducive for the artists, thinkers, nature-lovers, dreamers and for the peace-lovers.

Amazingly, the flooding artworks displayed in the entire building is made by a single person, Kublai Millan, the artist.

(To be updated)

YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN

To the dreamers, achievers, jesters, positive thinkers

To the believers of what is right

To those who have failed but are on the track of moving and fighting on

To those people with courageous hearts

To the warriors fighting for royal dominion

To those who have dedicated their lives to save others

To those who believe for doing what is right

To those who are determined to succeed

To those who are willing to win

To those who are striving to excel

To those who are not quitters

To the people who have touched our hearts

To those who have good hearts

To the emotionally prepared, physically healthy, politically upright, spiritually strong

To those who work hard

To those who are determined

To those who are strong-willed

To those who don’t get tired of helping

To those who are willing to die for a noble cause

YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN!

THE FATHER HAS SEEN ALL YOUR EFFORTS,

KEEP ON DOING IT!

MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

May the good Father bless you abundantly!

Jose Maria College

Jose Maria College Building

The compound's highway


1, 2 The scholars. 3 Princess, the jester, gamingly posed at the school canteen. 4 Fortunately, Brown agreed to pose for this post.

Jose Maria College serves as an educational ground for people of different color, status, congregation and diversities. These factors do not clash, they just blend.

While the blue blooded is often tossed in competition with the green blooded, I took myself shouting and cheering for the Royal bodies, my clan: the JMarians.

It is just so amazing how black Americans, Canadians, muslims, white Americans and Filipinos among other differences interact harmoniously.

Fast Observations:

• What we wear will reflect who we are. Majority of the students will give you the “sticky stare” if you wear mini-dress, spaghetti straps, skimpy clothes and matters of similar sorts.

• Smoking is a big No, No. Honest to goodness but this rule is strictly imposed from the administrative staff down to the rank and file and students.

• Zero waste area, seriously. The highway, I mean the rough highway, is brushed every now and then. If that is the case, how much more the classrooms? Try to imagine it. The school believes that cleanliness is Godliness.

• Low rates of boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. Maybe everybody is busy making assignments and beating deadlines.

• Student Empowerment. JMC has frequent evaluation about the teachers’ performance and the results are always respected. Termination is always the main punishment to those who are inefficient, unjust and unfair.

• Respect is a virtue. Old students are always called “Ate” or “Kuya”. I can always feel a "healthy competition" among us.
  

• Majority of the students are scholars (academic, varsity, sponsored, etc.)

• No Gangsters. No addicts. You can check the records if you want.
  

Pictures...Pictures...Pictures...

I want to make things be left as memories and use other things in other ways. Leaving some things as a way of gaining more...

These bulk of papers were just some of the many that greet me every time I go home. The picture above would remind every one of us to take every semester seriously. Really, seriously. Until now, I'm not yet finished with this (laughs). More weeks to go.

A little carbo is needed to avoid brain drain.

This is the mug, i got as a prized for answering just one question at school. I prefer drinking tea to keep me alive and awake. Behind is the computer area, the most "abused" area, where all of the data, assignments, projects, exploration and matters of all sorts are done, finished and put to end.

My bag is usually filled with these things. A notebook, ballpen and some gadget necessary for survival.

Computer Programs

RECOMMENDED COMPUTER PROGRAMS FOR MASS COMMUNICATION / MULTI-MEDIA STUDENTS

VIDEO EDITING

• Adobe Premiere for professional editing, user friendly
• Pinnacle Studio for professional editing
• U-Lead Video Studio Amateur Editing, user friendly
• Nero Editing Amateur Editing

Audio Editing

• Cool Pru Edit
• Sound Forge
• Audacity
• Acid Express

Image Editor

• Adobe Photoshop
• Arcsoft

Note: I have tried all the computer programs above and its proven working. Before installing, just take a look on the terms and conditions to know what program will really suit your needs. All of the aforementioned programs are accessible in the Philippines.

Blogger vs. WordPress

Blogger vs. WordPress (Which is better?)

You decide, You choose.

Blogger

• Smiley Disabled
• Justified Enabled
• For Blogging
• Authors can extremely play with the templates / backgrounds
• One major asset of blogger is the way how the authors can play with the HTML codes. A minimal understanding of codes can let authors manipulate their page into something what they want.
• Video, audio, image compatible
• New on the process of “category program”
• Run by Google

WordPress

• Smiley Enabled
• Justified Enabled
• For blogging
• Authors can easily invite friends. It has its “friendster style” of inviting friends.
• Authors can play with the templates. Wordpress is already on the brink of offering variations of templates.
• Header costumization is easy
• When it comes to HTML editing, it requires a little amount of payment
  
• Limited HTML editing (for free version)
  
• Video, Audio, Image compatible but not as easy as blogger
  
• Established “category” program for easy reading
• Independent entity
• Fast

Manny Pacquiao aka Jose Rizal

This is an edited picture of Manny Pacquiao aka Jose Rizal. Funny, indeed!

SIX PILLARS OF CHARACTER

When I was in college, my professor spoke about the Six Pillars of Character which I want to share with you: Trustworthiness (Be honest. Do not deceive, cheat or steal); Respect (follow the Golden Rule); Responsibility (Persevere: keep on trying! Always do your best. Be accountable for your choices); Fairness (Play by the rules. Do not blame others carelessly); Caring (Be compassionate and show you care. Express gratitude. Help people in need); and Citizenship (Do your share to make your community better. Vote. Obey laws and rules. Protect the environment).

--A question of character
AS A MATTER OF FACT By Sara Soliven De Guzman

ORATION PIECE

Killing Myself

Chelyn Torejas

Diverse people from diverse places have once come to colonize our country. Literatures and pictures stand as a witness of how we endure, struggle and fight that yields forth of what we regard today as history.

At the heart of our country carves an era that manifolds through the regimes of Spanish occupation, Japanese conquistadors, American colonialism onwards to the Birth of World Wars. And the fruit of these all is my unique individuality. I am the child of the west and east combined.

I am a product of so many revolutions. For a time, I was blinded from what is real. For centuries I was enslaved by people of different blood, color and race.

Spanish colonizers use religion as an excuse to earn the hearts of my race. They taught me to embrace poverty as a virtue and exposed me to learn gambling and even cock-fighting.

The blond, tall Americans poisoned our way through education. The whites instilled in me to follow “adversial” communication hitting my country badly. Their tactic of “dividing and rule” has resulted to the regionalistic division we still have today.

The arrival of Japanese has even caused tremendous fears, hardships and pain.

For a time, I have seen the harsh realities filled with chaos, propaganda, hatred, vengeance, wars, hidden agenda, corruption, greed, lust and every devilish deeds. But Lo and behold, a new one has come.

I am killing myself. Killing the old Filipino. Within me, came rushing out the stinking blood of every devilish deeds. My heart has stopped pumping the music of deception. My lungs has totally exhaled every waste I have inside.

I am a new Filipino. I am bound to make a living history beyond a legend and a real history in the making that will continue to unfold through time.

The new revolution has given me true victory, a victory by which I am longing for long and the solution is not through war. This revolution has not been fought in the streets. It will be fought in hearts of men.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided. Knowing the present would mean understanding the past.

I am a new Filipino gaining wisdom from the past. Gone is the Filipino Indolence, beholding to erase the crab mentality, further eradicating my colonial mentality.

A new Filipino I am. In my blood runs the infitisimal seed of heroic deeds for the sake of the heavenly and for the benefit of the majority. The seed that drive away the oppressors and the seed that will further cleanse the filthiness of this country.

I will search the unkown. I will continue to dream my dreams wishing upon the stars and will never say never. I will continue to move on, to rise up towards the direction of a glorious tomorrow.

To look on the present onwards the future and to scale how my new country will develop will serve as an inspiration that is worth and is bound to be followed.

What the people today endures, struggles, and fight towards progress will continually mold a state of a new history –a bright history that is enough to urge individuals to continue to endure, struggle and fight for action and be a winner in running the race that is set before us, worthy to be repetitively told and retold. A transparent history free from thwarted truths.

Out of me are the voices of the unheard, the pictures of the unseen, the cries of the deaf and the truth that is ignored. I am but a dream but will stand to prove that this dream is becoming a reality.

I am killing myself. Killing the old Filipino. Killing the old me, building a new identity, erasing the undesirable assimilation from my past, picking the best experience I have before. A new Filipino I am, worthy to behold.

My eyes have been opened and I can see better now. I am a product of bloodshed, A new Filipino --free indeed, dreamer and the inheritor of a fruitful tomorrow. To live is to die. Thus, I am killing myself.

ON WINNING AND LOSING

Sadly, the more awards I reaped, the lesser the number of true friends I kept. Jealousy and envy made sure that I lost all but the few genuine friends who really cared about me, the person. At such a young age, I learned that the top could be a very lonely place indeed.

If you really think about it, only losing can teach us to be truly humble. Only losing can make us reflect on what really matters most to us. And above all, losing builds our character in so many ways that winning can't.

In the end, it's not so much about how much we have won or lost, but how we have performed in this so-called game of life.

-Kathy. Winning and Losing (2007), Salamin.

Partly true, along the way I may stumble and fall but I do not want to get tired of looking on the goal, keep the focus and try hitting it the next time. There’s no retreat only rigid determination, discipline, preparation and of course, prayers.

Yes. I have seen how some of my friends get insecure, jealous and envy over me. It’s too irritating that makes me question If they are my friends why can’t they be happy of the blessings I’m receiving? Maybe their insecurities are filling their hearts in that they are blinded with it hoping to covet what I have. Another factor is that maybe they see you as a threat to their careers. This is the reason why sometimes we feel they are pulling as off.

But no matter what, for as long as I have the Father within in me, for certain, “I WILL NOT BACK OFF.” I WILL CONTINUE THIS GAME. SEE YOU AT THE END OF THE RACE. Good luck everybody. GO, ENDURE AND KEEP RUNNING! MOVE ON, DON’T STOP. As the mantra says, LOVE THE UNLOVABLES. I will really try and continually LOVE THE UNLOVABLES.

RADIO BALLPEN

RADIO, BALLPEN ROLLED INTO ONE

A relative earlier called and told me about the abundance of “simple gadgets” as she relates like the photos above hitting the store shelves in Ireland. High tech ball pens equipped with functional radio costs about Php 300.00.

These gadgets are selling like hotcakes in Ireland and the common buyers? Of course, the Pinoys who are busy filling balik bayan boxes due for the holidays. I am just positively happy to guess that I’ll be getting one. Sounds really great. My hands are itching to have one.

Not really that high tech but at least.

Funny Commercial

This a Philippine commercial for xoom, a company that offers money transfer services. this really gives me a good laugh. Just, funny.

TECHNOLOGY

In 2000 Stardock released DesktopX which gave Windows support for desktop objects. These objects could be used to build entire desktops or exported as mini-applications called "widgets".

STRANGE TECHNOLOGY

BIOMETRIC SUB-SYSTEM QUALIFICATION SYSTEM

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, Title IV, Section 4011, directs the TSA to issue guidance for use of biometric technology in airport access control systems

"ON TARGET" VIDEO GAME URINAL

Set back into each urinal is a pressure-sensitive display, which activates an interactive game when used. This game includes sounds and images, bringing entertainment value to where you’d least expect. It will most likely will be installed in airports and schools “with the functional purpose of improving hygiene”.

INTELLIGENT SPOON

Connie Cheng and Leonardo Bonanni have developed the world's first "Intelligent Spoon". It's equipped with sensors to measure temperature, acidity, salinity, and viscosity. Download the recorded data to any computer via a cable for furthur processing.

My personal post

NOTHING IMPORTANT IN THIS POST

Comments down here are my personal posts. Topics range from etcetera down to etcera. Skip if you don't want to know the weirdness and the motion my mind is into. I can't stop because ironically ideas are just popping in and i want to scribble it down.

Television

TV as an Escape

Television is a medium widely enjoyed by the majority. It is not only a medium aimed to inform but also to entertain the viewers.

As we look on the stream of Philippine TV today, you yourself can observe that Filipino viewers are bombarded with fantaserye and programs casting imaginary characters swarming TV channels in the prime time slot. ABS-CBN has Pedro Penduko, Kookey, Super Inggo, Super Islaw, Marina, Krystala and Lastikman among others. GMA, on the other hand is widely promoting, Zaido, Super Twins, Encantadia, Darna, Fantasticman and Mulawin among others.

The audience has been enticed to addictively follow the program via the story’s fictional plot and setting. Adding to that is the impact brought about by the magical special effects and colors manipulated and made easy using technology. Imaginary heroes fly and act at the Director’s will. Viewers are given set-ups where they are expose to the smell and feel of what they can see in TV.

With that, you can see that TV is being used as a form of “escape” to what is real. This is a study supported by many theories like Uses and Gratification theory. It states that the medium is used by the viewers to satisfy his different needs including the medium’s “escape function”.

Filipinos as observed, are fiction-lovers, deeply emotional and always longing for a hero-figure. This is the reason why in every Philippine revolution be it in the Spanish, martial law, or present period, Filipinos are always plotting for a “leader” to follow and to look up to. With this, came the skyrocketing popularity of Rizal, Ninoy, Ramos and even Estrada and FPJ among others.

The warm acceptance of the public with this type of program is patterned according to the behavior of Filipinos. The white lady in the balete drive is not real It was just created to create publicity and the following events created history.

What is certain is that, these heroes when worse came to worst will definitely not save and help me neither my country. The warm acceptance of the public with this kind of programs is the main motivation why TV networks are continually producing Fictional series like what we are seeing today.

What is important is for the viewers to develop a “discriminating attitude” towards the medium. The viewers should learn how to “decode” or “read” the messages the programs are giving them to make the activity an active one since TV viewing by nature is passive. TV has its “addictive power” in which viewers are underpowered to do other things. This is where the couch potato syndrome takes in.