17 - EEP Has Come To An End

Every Friday, we would have a class where we would just have fun. Watching movies and doing blogs were the things that we usually do. We were all excited to have EEP. Not only that but also our professor, Ms. Eliz Reyes, who guided us and watched with us every time we have EEP. She never let us down with her great movies. From our first meeting we watched Heneral Luna to our last meeting where we watched The Phantom Of The Opera and the Life of Jose Rizal. It was all so great.

Our meetings didn't have any lectures or discussion but we sure have learn a lot in our sessions with Ms. Eliz. Those life lessons and inspirations found in movies is already enough to fill our minds with satisfying information our minds need. Not only those satisfying information are given to us but also the entertainment it gives from watching movies. It's both educational and fun. Who wouldn't want something like that right? But it saddens me that there will be no more movies to be watched and blogs to do. EEP class has ended.

16 - On The Way To The Public Speaking Competition 

Every end of the English term, they organize an event Public Speaking, Ignite Speech, and Speech Choir competition.

In the Public Speaking Competition, their Speech Communication subject professor or commonly known as EPUBSP2 prof choose their top 6 students of each class to represent their blocks in the competition. The top 6 students will first undergo the eliminations round where evenly divided students will go to different rooms and compete first there. The top 3 finalists of each room will advance to the finals. Finals will be held in the APC Auditorium where an audience will be watching and listening to their speeches. 

Now let's go to when our professor, Ms. Nina, chose our top 6 or rather 8 students to represent our block. Ms. Nina had 8 in her mind it was: Nicole, Bianca, Ado (Palma), Yana, Carolyn, Gracielle, and me. I was shocked that I was included to represent for our block. As you all know if you read my previous blogs, I mentioned there that my greatest fear would be public speaking.

Now let's go to when our professor made us do the persuasive speech with the top 8 having their theme the cult of celebrities. I made my speech and they made their speech and everyone was done. It was time now to vote for the top 6 since we were 8. I was literally shouting and almost crying that they shouldn't vote for me. Luckily, I wasn't chosen. Thank God. Ahaha.

Moving on to the competition. While the others were in the eliminations round, we were at the auditorium, together with the APC Speaks, playing games and listening to music. Their games were pretty scary. It was the Speed Speech and the Impromptu Ignite Speech that made me scared as hell. Of course no one wanted to volunteer to join those games. They had to call randomly. They had to do that...Oh my god. My hands were freezing as hell. 

When the finalists already arrived at the auditorium, boy am I glad to see them. We are finally done with the games. And afterwards, they did their speech. They decided to award the winners during the Speech Choir and Ignite Speech Competition. 

15 - Cram. Cram. Cram.

Today (December 22, 2015), we had the Interclass Ignite Speech and the Speech Choir Competition. Everyone at the APC Auditorium were excited, all were cheering and shouting for their blocks.

Our performance may look like it was practiced and rehearsed for a long time but the truth is we actually crammed it. We started practicing when it was already December 14, a week before the competition. When teachers gave us time to practice and told us to show what progress we have made, we just make things up. We haven't made any progress at all. We also didn't have a good practice since every practice there is at least someone who won't be attending the practice especially to irregular students. We were having a hard time adjusting our time to their free time. For our props, we just did it in one day. In that one day, we gift wrapped a lot of boxes, cut and painted all those candy canes and crowns, and bought all those clothing that we will be wearing for our performance. Everything was done in just a week.

Now let's go to December 22. It was morning at around 7:10 am where classmates started coming in to our classroom. Everyone wasn't even dressed on what they will be wearing for the performance. We also had problems regarding the props. Some props were missing. We had to make another crown since there were only two and we need three. Not everyone has received their costume yet. Not all girls have their neck ties. We also had problems with the others. It was already 8:00 am and the girls still doesn't have their neck ties and some of our blockmates haven't arrived yet in school. Everyone was rushing and panicking at the same time. Also, some of our blockmates didn't know the final step which was only taught the day before the actual performance so we had to explain everything. This is what happened to us just this early morning.

We, my group of friends only, went up to the auditorium to check up on things if the event already started etc. Luckily, it hasn't even started. We still had time. When it was already our time to perform, all of us were shaking. We weren't able to master our performance well. 

After our performance, we were not confident with our performance. Even our leader said that our performance wasn't really that good. Sad.

Now let's go to the awarding ceremony. Now this is a surprise but then again this also happened to our "Sabayang Pagbigkas" competition. We won 3rd place in the Speech Choir competition. It was amazing winning the competition where we haven't even mastered our performance yet. It was really surprising.

PS: We won 2nd place in the Sabayang Pagbigkas competition with a score of 96.5 and the first place of 97.5. It was so close winning 1st place out of 17 groups. Heheh.

14 - Fears and Nervousness Everywhere

Speaking in front of an audience is a common fear to us people. We are nervous when we are told to speak. The nervousness is killing us. Let's not also forget the huge amount of pressure coming from the audience. The pressure makes us scared that we tend to mess up and forget what we have to say.

I will say that I too is very much afraid to speak in front. It's one of my greatest fears to speak to an audience.

Last week, we attended a competition "Speak Sense". It is a competition wherein the best public speakers from selected high schools fight each other. Our school's organization in public speaking and debate, APC Speaks, hosted the event. They also invited guests from the contestant's school and all of us freshmen (SoM) who are taking up public speaking subjects.

It was my first time to attend a competition like this. At first I was excited since it was my first time, but then when it started everything changed. I was honestly scared. I was actually the one being nervous for the speaker. I don't know why. I was wondering myself that why am I the one getting scared. Why am I worried so much for the speaker? Why do I feel like I am the one talking in front? Thoughts like these began to revolve in my mind until the end of the competition.

It's not only that that keeps me scared but also the games that we played during the competition (informative debate and speed speech). I was also scared since our professor, Ms. Nina, was also selecting students who will be participating in those mini games. I was scared that I might get chosen. I was scared stiff lol.

All of these nervousness was kept inside me until the end of the event. However, I still enjoyed the competition even with those fears inside me. All of the speakers were great. All of them did good. I would also want to congratulate the winners. I hope that they do not end their profession here but continue it till the end. This is just the beginning. :)

13 - No Barriers Should Exist

Zombadings is a movie about a guy named Remington who mocks gay people when he was a child. As a child, whenever Remington sees a gay person, he will mock him. There came a time when Remington was with his mother in the cemetery, Remington heard something and tried to look for it. As he was looking for it, he saw a gay person. Not knowing the gay person is a witch, he kept on mocking the witch. The witch then cursed Remington that on his 21st birthday he will turn gay.

I can also consider that the movie is subversive. It shows how the gay society is not accepted by the

community. They are being mocked by the kids like how Remington did as a child. The adults of the male community does not accept the gays in being part of our community like how they are killing them using the gun made by a student. The movie showed the differences of men and women by the things that men do and the things that women do (men do the building or constructing a building) while the women do the typical things like cooking except for Remington's mother as she was a police officer. (Police officers are mostly portrayed by men) 

There were scenes in the movie that made it more entertaining than rather being more serious about gays not being accepted in the community like when Remington was dancing. I found that funny. Another scene would be when Mrs. Montano was skating inside the house. 

 I found out that in the movie the directors found it very hard to look for someone who will portray as Remington. It took them a lot of time. With that knowing, I am praising Mart Escudero that he was able to enter such a big role. Mart Escudero was known for acting serious characters so this adds to the praising I am praising to him since it can be hard to act a role that is more into comedy when you came from portraying serious characters.

The movie was good. I liked it. It was funny and entertaining yet important to us. It showed us that we should learn to accept people and accept their personalities in life. Nothing should block us from accepting others.