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Showing posts from June, 2016

The Maldita Guide to starting your school year right

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"The important thing about going to university is the experience. You can throw yourself into a wide range of things wholeheartedly in a way that is virtually impossible when you have a full-time job - things like debt, manic depression, and canals." » Bluff your way at University by Rob Ainsley This is my inspiration when I was in school, actually. "This is  America's Next Top Model , not America's Next Top Best Friend!" Because sometimes, you should really fight to focus on what you came to school for: Education, and not bad-influence friends! For my whole life, I didn't get 'school' right. I struggled with studying and social relationships necessary in school. I sucked in high school, and my first attempt at college was even worse. I honestly think that I had PTSD after a silly initiation for a group. When I tried to go to school again, I was calmer, and now I got it right, I graduated Magna cum Laude with little effort at all. Don...

Book review: CAT'S EYE by Margaret Atwood

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Book summary from   Publisher's Weekly :  Atwood writes in an autobiographical vein about Elaine Risley, a middle-aged Canadian painter (and daughter of a forest entomologist) who is thrust into an extended reconsideration of her past while attending a retrospective show of her work in Toronto, a city she had fled years earlier in order to leave behind painful memories. Most pointedly, Risley reflects on the strangeness of her long relations with Cordelia, a childhood friend whose cruelties, dealt lavishly to Risley, helped hone her awareness of our inveterate appetite for destruction even while we love, and are understood as characteristically feminine betrayal of other women that masks a ferocious betrayal of oneself. Atwood's portrayal of the friendship gives the novel its fraught and mysterious center, but her critical assessment of Cordelia and the 'whole world of girls and their doings' also takes the measure of a coercive, conformist society. Written from t...

Intrusive thoughts

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For a long time since grade school, I have struggled with intrusive thoughts. Senseless, repeating, often over the mistakes of the past. They are thoughts that can't be shut out no matter how hard one tries. Sometimes they replay for weeks, months, even years. I remember my first intrusive thought, when I had a grade school crush. The boy's image would replay inside my head for many times, 24/7 actually. This crush is the cause of so much of my childhood shame - I was made to talk to this guy by a friend who threatened to withdraw her friendship if I didn't do her 'dare' she assigned me. So I did. I only realize now that she made us her pawns, because she would flirt with the guy and feeds like a vampire on my jealousy, which in the end was all done to feed her ego. But that was the first time I was so obsessed with a person, to the point that I even imagined that the person was secretly in love with me (and I am so ashamed of this part) and that we could commun...

2015 LLE Oath taking Speech

Licensure examination for Librarians 2015 topnotcher Joint Oath-taking and Induction Ceremonies of New Librarians and New PLAI Members Century Park Hotel, Manila, 27 May 2015 (Note: A big thanks to  Mr. R. Dante O. Perez  for the suggestions, references below. I enjoyed the oath-taking, I was nervous about speaking at first but halfway through it disappeared and I just felt like talking to the audience and the new librarians. Glad to see some classmates from the UP-SLIS regular review also in the oath-taking. I only talked to some of them already after the review classes were over! My classmates who passed were not able to attend. From CPU, only me, my mother, and our Director of Libraries were present.) I am honored and humbled to speak before you today, new Librarians. Congratulations to all of us for this milestone. Looking back, I remember the days and nights of endless studying and reviewing, and there came a point that I just wanted the exam to be over. I’m sur...

The 'Secret' of topping the board exam

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    Licensure examination for Librarians 2015 topnotcher (1st place with a grade of 89.60%) Thanksgiving and Testimonial Program Henry Luce III Library, Central Philippine University, 18 May 2015 (Note: the quotes here are from  the blog of Arch. Raison Bassig  - I followed his suggestions on the board exams and I recommend it to future test-takers, his tips helped me a lot in my review and on answering the exams. The ‘WTF’ acronym is not mine, I got it from a  LET topnotcher .) Good afternoon, welcome everyone. We acknowledge the presence of Mr. Nelson Pomado, the Dean in the College of Education, Maam Melda Estember, Director of Libraries, the rest of librarians and teachers, and of course BLIS students. First of all, I would like to thank everyone here. Thank you to the teachers and librarians of CPU who were always supportive ever since we were students and even until now. Thank you, especially to Maam Cynthia, Maam Estember,...

Studying tips for the Board exam [part 2]

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  WATCH: TOP 10 TIPS in passing the board exam Continued from part 1: Studying tips for the Board Exam First before all the tips, you need a mental adjustment. Declare hat you will work hard, and that you will PASS. There's no space for even a bit of negativity here. I know someone who kept on saying that 'Boys are smarter than girls, but girls are just a lot more focused on studying'. It pissed me off because I did not agree, boys and girls start with the same brain, it depends on effort and not gender. She did not pass, I don't want to blame her exam result on this wrong belief, but you don't need these assumptions, they will  not help  you pass the exam. You need a sharp, single-minded focus, a vow to yourself that you will do your best. I talked to someone in CPU handling the board exam reviews for the different courses such as Engineering, Accountancy, and Nursing, and she said that the students who have been in the top 10 for their board exams already ...