Funny but Sensible - Save Our Library Please!

While browsing the news feed of my Facebook account, I bumped to California Teachers Association page and saw this funny but sensible comic photo:

© 2011 Pittsburgh Post - Gazette

We are now in the Digital Age and that going to library will just be a waste of time for our students, since everything under the sun can already be researched through Internet. That is why there is really a need to revamp our libraries and convert them to what we call now Knowledge Activity Centers. We should integrate computer and Internet facilities within library. How I hope that electronic catalogs, interactive e-books and multimedia learning modules could also be part of our public school libraries. Am I being too idealist again? Maybe, but the government should do something about this or else our libraries will soon become a place long forgotten, full of cobwebs and dusts. 

Graphic and Layout Designing: My Special Assignment

Last year I was asked by our school head to design a cover for our year book. For this school year, I have this feeling that she might ask me again to do the cover design, and perhaps the graduation official banner as well. That's why I'm kind of preparing my "creativity stamina" for these special assignments. 

This was the last year's cover design used for the year book of batch 2011-2012:

Year Book Cover Design

This is the school's official banner for the 16th Commencement Exercises I designed last year:

Graduation Official Banner

Last Few Drops of Holiday Vacation

I can't believe it... three days to go then back to school again!

How should I spend these last few drops of holiday vacation? Actually, I still have my three remaining goals unchecked to maximize this vacation:

1. Home foot spa

2. Read Wicked by Gregory Maguire

3. Play my newly installed PC and Android games

Done with #1 and #3. I hope tomorrow I can finish this "Wicked" book. :)

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Just this moment, a question popped in my mind... "Am I prepared for January 6?"
Well, let's do an inventory:

Lesson plan ✔

Test Notebook ✔
Attendance Record ✔

Updated E-Class Record ✔
Visuals ✔

Well it seems that I am already "on fire" to start my first class session for the year 2014. I accomplished most of these tasks even before the Christmas vacation had started. 

Next week will be our Third Quarter Examinations. I hope my students will exceed their mastery level last quarter... I'm pretty confident 'cause most of them are doing great during our class discussions and computer lab sessions. 

I'm also looking forward for the fourth quarter mini-courses. For my Grade 8 students, I'm going to teach Graphic Designing with Adobe Photoshop, while Animation and Multimedia is my prospect mini-course for my senior students. 

Symptoms of Procrastination

All of us are kind of guilty procrastinating and wasting time for unproductive things. And I bet that for this new year, TO AVOID PROCRASTINATION is for sure part of your resolution. I think for us to really defeat this enemy no. 1 of self-productivity, we should define procrastination clearly.

Web Definition by Google.com

How many times I've heard excuses from my students why they failed to submit on the due date of their assignments or projects. Most of those are just make-up excuses I know, but what they are missing actually is to accept the fact that they don't have time management and that they are totally unaware that they are being struck by this sickness called procrastination. 

We should identify some symptoms that we are actually procrastinating. Christian H. Godefroy and John Clark in their book "The Complete Time Management System" gave the following symptoms to alert us that we are already procrastinating and I also included some tips on how to combat these symptoms:

1. You let your mind wander. Daydreaming while working is a usual cause of procrastination. Counter-attack: Be in the NOW! Focus to what you are currently doing and never entertain thoughts of the past or future.
2. You voluntarily let yourself be interrupted by anything that comes up, a phone call, an e-mail or a visitor. Counter-attack: Screen you phone calls, set specific time to reply to all your messages, sometimes it's not really bad to close your doors to some friends, surely they will understand that you just can't take your hands off with the tasks that you need to finish. 
3. You get sidetracked by the least little unimportant job instead of doing what you really should. Counter-attack: Your TO-DO LIST must be arranged from the most important tasks to the least important tasks. Be sure to tick off those most important and urgent tasks first. Prioritizing is very important if you want to be more productive. 
4. You take long coffee breaks, over-extended meals. Counter-attack: This is not to say that you should not enjoy "break times or vacant periods", these are also essential to increase our concentration, but remember that these are just energizers, so allot just enough time frame for it. 
5. You do a lot of things that you don't really have to do. Counter-attack: Simple tasks like paying bills, going to groceries etc. can be delegated to others so that you can concentrate with your task.

Godefroy and Clark (1989) also suggested that for us to avoid procrastination we should have clear defined goals. What is your goal? Do you really want to attain it? Most of us also have fear of failure, so that we are really afraid to start the task. This fear is usually caused by our previous failures. It's important to note that failures are ladders to our success. It's true that by avoiding these tasks we can escape failures, but surely we can't also experience success. 

Welcome 2014!

So what is in store for me this year? Only God knows. Though I am somewhat expecting a lot for this year, because I have this gut feeling that most of my personal and career goals will come into realization this 2014 (I’m crossing my fingers).

Last night for the New Year’s Eve celebration, our family just had a simple dinner. Then, we attended a mass at St. Francis of Assisi Parish Church. The mass is not only a celebration of the New Year, but most importantly the mass was dedicated for Holy Queen. The priest said that it is important for the Catholic like us that every January 1, we also honor Mama Mary, the mother of mercy, the first apostle of Jesus Christ, the virgin who gave birth to our Lord.

We also enjoyed watching the fireworks display in our rooftop, while playing our loud music to drive away bad spirits (it’s become part of our tradition). Most of our neighbors really celebrate the New Year with a “bang!” as in with strong fire crackers. I just hope no one was hurt from them. Sadly, as I’ve read from the news, firecracker injuries were worse this year than the past five years. Filipinos should learn that we can still celebrate the New Year festively even with out those dangerous firecrackers.

By the way, about my New Year’s resolution, I’m actually planning to print it and post in a wall where I can always see it. This is to remind me every day of what I should accomplish for the whole year. Try it too. Let’s see if it will work. J