Maka-KaLIKHAsan "On-The-Spot Recycled Project Making Contest"

Last September 27, St. Louis College of Valenzuela, on their College Week, invited all fourth year high school students to join the campaign against climate change. As part of their Eco-Fair, they held the Maka-KaLIKHAsan, an on-the-spot project making contest. I chose two of my most creative senior students and we joined this very challenging competition.

In this contest, the goal was to come up of a recycled product out of scrap materials that SLCV provided (old diskettes, egg trays, cartons, CDs, old newspapers and magazines). The final outputs were judged according to the following criteria:

·         Use of Recyclable Materials – 40%

·         Creativity and Craftsmanship – 40%

·         Originality – 20%

After revealing the materials to be used, the coaches were given the chance to collaborate with their students on what particular output they could come up with using those materials. The coaching was limited to ten minutes, so I maximized the time in helping my students to figure out their output. Then, we decided to come up with a TABLE ORGANIZER. Here is their recycled product:

Office table organizer with flower vase and picture frame 

These are the outputs of other schools who also participated:

While the outputs were being judged, we attended the Kabataan para sa Kalikasan Forum. We learned a lot from the speakers who talked about small ways that the youth can do to battle against the danger of the climate change.

When they announced the winners, my students were filled with joy, because in spite of so many beautiful entries, we still bagged the THIRD PLACE! My students received trophies (the trophies are also recycled, made of twisted old newspapers coated with bronze paint) and a cash prize of 1000 pesos.  

With Ms. Venus Bucud, SLCV College Marketing Officer

A Very Frenzied Week

Wow! I couldn't imagine how I survived the last seven days. To give you an idea how frenzied my schedule was, here’s a peek:

• September 27 : On-the-spot recycled project making contest in St. Louis College of Valenzuela
• September 28 : TEACHnology Tools for the 21^st Century Learning, an ICT literacy seminar workshop we organized as our final requirement in Knowledge Management course
• September 29 : Bulletin board/school organizational construction with a Sir Mike and Ma’am Cora
• September 30 – October 3 : Preparation for the Mr. and Ms. Teacher Idol 2013
• October 4: Attended ICT in Education Planning and Management

This will also explain why I haven’t had a post for a while. I want to tell all my wonderful experiences and crunch them in this single post, but I am afraid that I may miss some details and insights I feel like sharing with you, so I have decided to post these events one at a time.  

TLE Department Logo Design

I'm done with our department's logo design that we will use for our banner this coming World Teachers' Day parade of our school. I am really struggling at first on how to start this task, I considered a lot of symbols to represent the different areas and specializations that we are teaching. My first drafts are with complicated and many symbolism that they appear like hodgepodge. So, in the end, I decided to make it simple by using the gear symbol to represent technology and the torch to represent education/learning. 

CorelDRAW X5, a very powerful vector-based drawing program, was the application I used to create this logo.

A Prayer for Perseverance in Times of Rejections

I intentionally search for this prayer from the booklet PRESENCE "Prayers for Busy People" published by St. Paul Publication. The prayer is about asking for courage in times of troubles in life, particularly in times of rejection. I just feel for this prayer right now. 

It's not easy, Lord, to follow after you.
You take the hard road with joyous leaps and bounds.
But I stumble over every stone and slip into every rut.
You calmly weather each storm
and walk calmly through the night.
But I am buffeted by the winds
and I always falter in darkness.
You always have the right answers, Lord,
for those who confront you.
But my tongue is thick and clumsy.
I cannot articulate what I feel
or what they need to hear.
You have the wisdom and power to meet the needs of men around you.
But I am foolish and ineffective,
and my friends turn away from me in disgust.
I have really tried to relate
to the people about me.
To reach out to them in real love and concern.
I have tried to share their sorrows and their joys.
I have shelved my own ambitions
to respond to their needs.
But when I fail to reproduce for them
what they want,
or when I am limited by my humanity and
incapacitated by my own personal problems,
they will have nothing to do with me.
I feel sometimes as I have been used
only to be abused.
I am squeezed dry by my friends
and then cast aside
as if I was of no further value.
Yet I must continue to follow you, Lord.
It is a hard path to walk
and I am sure that I will falter at times.
I desperately need an occasional oasis of rest
along this journey through wind and sand.
I need desperately your touch of peace and love
As I labor amidst the blood and tears
of this distorted world of ours.
I am empty, Lord, help me to feel your fullness.
Grant me the grace and courage
to be faithful to you in all my daily loving. 

(Adapted from Psalm 35) 

How Did I Get So Busy?

I was checking my daily planner and I was shocked to learn on how hectic my schedule would be by this week. To give you an idea on why I felt so overwhelmed, here's a peek of my to-do list:

1. Faculty bulletin board
2. Greetings banner for World Teachers' Day
3. Backdrop design for photo booth
4. TLE department logo
5. Meeting with the Mr. and Ms. Teacher Idol 2013
6. Recycled product making contest
7. Seminar workshop for Edmodo

I really don't know if I can still get out of this schedule alive! Of course, time management is the key here, but sometimes I think that I am drowning myself into this busyness thing. Now, I remember the book that I've read titled "How Did I Get So Busy?" by Valorie Burton. It is a small book comprised of 28-day plan to free our time, reclaim our schedule, and reconnect with what matters most. I grabbed the book today and schemed it for those helpful tips on how to redefine a busy lifestyle and carve out time into things that would reflect my highest priority.  

After reviewing this book, some of those principles that I think will help me make it through this very demanding schedule are as follows:

• Assess your situation. It is so important that we acknowledge that there is a problem that must be resolved. If you think that your busyness becomes a hindrance for a satisfying life, then it is time for us to find out in which aspect of your life it has invaded you: work, relationships, finances, health and spiritual life. By doing an inventory you can now deal with the specifics. In this way you will find out what are those activities that are making demands on your time. Then, try to 'dream' about your ideal life, with a lot of space to accomplish those things that really matter for you.
• Hurrying up is slowing you down. "Only fools rush in," as the popular song goes. Most of the time we tend to rush things to save more time or to catch up, but in reality we are just consuming more energy for something that will fail because for sure there will be details that we will miss in an hurried task.
• Tame your to-do list. Just like what I am experiencing for the past few days, it seems that the tasks are daunting and never ending. I always feel the need to be ahead and so I will fill up my list with tasks that will make me two steps ahead of what I should suppose to accomplish. In this book, I relearned the importance of breaking bigger tasks into smaller and simpler tasks and tackle them one at a time. 
• Break your procrastination habit. In this book, the author shared her weapon to overcome procrastination: "Dig your heels and just do what needs to be done." Specifically, she gave the following approaches on how to deal with procrastination:

• Commit five minutes to tasks and you will surely gain the momentum to finish the project.

• Stop making it a big deal. Once we perceive that what confronts us is a great deal, it overwhelms us and then we get stuck.  The result: we tend to avoid it and proceed to those we can get easily done. What we should do here is to break the tasks into manageable pieces. 

• Give yourself the permission to do it imperfectly. To err is human. Remember that we can always find the time to polish our work. What important is that you start working on it. 

• Make it fun. Enjoy while doing the task. Invite a friend to help you accomplish it. Play a background music to keep you moving. 

• Drop the goal and enjoy the day. Do not pretend to be a superhuman that can do great accomplishments all in one day.  If you think that you can no longer finish the task for today, drop it from your list and enjoy the moment without thinking about it. This will save from being guilty about procrastination. 

It's been years since the last time I read this book and I'm glad to revisit it today for some sort of inspiration and encouragement. I hope that this can also help you in dealing with your busy days. So if you will excuse me, I still need to revise my to-do list. :)