8 - Did you enjoy the week?

When it comes to discussing events, I am not really fond of making it. Please forgive me if I did anything poor here since they asked us to write a blog on something…

                SoCSIT (School of Computer Science and Information Technology) week happened at the last week of July specifically from July 28-31. Activities happened like the color run, opening ceremony, seminars, and other sorts. The question is did I enjoy it? I don’t like to be rude but I will have to say that I mildly enjoyed it. Though with these events, I was not able to participate to the other events. I will site the events I have encountered.

                Let’s start from Tuesday! The only thing happened here was the opening ceremony. We had to wait outside at high noon with the scorching sun for the “parade” to start. Many used umbrellas as I did while others went to the classrooms and the mall to do the banner for the parade. Our block shared the banner made by the participants by paying ten pesos to them. When the parade started, I thought that we are going to walk to the streets and in turns out it was just around the school parking lot. The other blocks are laughing because they waited outside for that long but then I think it’s a good thing since it that event protected our skin from burning more. There were only eight of us left to walk around the parking lot so my block mates were kind of mad.

                Good Wednesday or the same Wednesday as we would like to believe. We were informed two weeks before this event that we had to perform anything for 30 seconds. If the judges voted fame, we get nothing. If they voted shame, then we would be drinking something delicious (Sarcasm). We were utterly unprepared and had to improvise. My group mates agreed to do a rap parody and goes like this…

“I broke up with my ex-girl, here’s her numbah.” gave the paper. “Sike! That’s the wrong number!”

1.5 seconds of silence and then suddenly “OOOOOOOHHHHHHH!!! OOOOOOOHHHH!!! OOOOOOOHHHHH!!” (Mein Gott they’re late)

                And that lead us to drink a cup of milk mixed with sorts that I can’t explain.

                Thor’s day!!! Finally, it’s a good time to skip class and join the tournament of Mortal Kombat. Bad news, it was cancelled. That’s basically it.

                Pride day!!! Finally this time! It’s a good time to skip class and join the tournament of Mortal Kombat. Bad news (again). You guys knew what happened. But instead of having class, our professors let us have free time for the whole day thus going to the Game Development Seminar where the speakers are staffs from Garena though I can’t really relate since I don’t play their games. But they did say many about the benefits and the guidelines in games. And I was not able to attend the SoCSIT night because I had project that are due midnight that night. This video was the project that we finished and I edited…

                That’s basically what happened to it. I did enjoy it but only mildly. For my fellow APCeans, did you guys enjoy the week?

7 - To be or not to be... alone?

"61. Alone"

Forever alone? I mentioned sometime last time that some people separate from other because they are a misfit. Some don’t want to be along because they think it’s depressing. For me, being alone isn’t all bad in fact it sometimes help you. Alone, if you don’t know (obviously you do), is a state that you don’t join people.

          Though alone, they say is, depressing, why do some people choose to be alone? Some people choose to be along because they feel depressed or sad. They don’t want to cry in front of others and they don’t want to be hurt by the people around them. Sometimes it’s just a  part of them that they fell comfortable without others, they find entertainment through themselves. Sometimes they think that they are already independent and they don’t need immaturities with them. It still feels kind of sad though. You can make more wild guesses why people choose to be alone but I just cited some of the negative things about alone.

               Well if there are some negative concepts about alone then there are some positive ideas too. Because of you being alone, you can find yourself at peace. No one is bothering you and you can practically do whatever you want. Being alone isn’t because you’re sad but it also means you need some space from those you are busy at. If you come back, you’ll get less bored because you missed their joy and laughter. It’s like taking a break and then going back to them at the right time. Maybe being alone helps you find your epiphany and clear your mind.

               I am not saying that you should be alone because of the positive things I cited but it is up to you if you want to be a loner. If you have free time, think twice if you want to take a day off and sleep for the whole day or if you want to be with your friends because you want to take life to the fullest. After all, no man is an island.

               In conclusion, being alone helps us not just mentally but also socially. Like all bad things, this concept can also bring good things like the refreshment of your mind. Be along or not, as long as you feel comfortable you should do it. Take the time to realize what you have done for the time being and may you unlock what you have realized. Do you still believe in forever alone?

6 - Do I belong here?

“145. Write about being a misfit.”

Friends, we all have that. Who doesn’t have friends? Some of you may say that you don’t have friends that you are alone. Don’t be ridiculous, even though you say you don’t have friends there will be that certain few who are your friends. You just don’t befriend them. I don’t categorize real friends and fake friends since one definition of friend is somewhere who is “friendly” to you.

               So you are in a group but do you ever feel like you are the only one who’s different? Do you think that you are the only one with few similarities with others? If you are then you are a misfit. Misfits are people whose behavior or attitude sets them apart from others in an uncomfortably conspicuous way (Google XD). I know what it means but it’s just hard to define though. Misfits are the people who think that they don’t belong where they are but why are some people are misfits or rather why do people think that the person they are with is a misfit?

               First reason that I can think of is that misfits can’t handle the people around them or misfits don’t have the same personality as others. They think that they are better than them for their talent is good and theirs isn’t or they think that their behavior or characteristics does not make them comfortable with others. Would you say that a quiet person who barely speaks at all fits to a group who likes to rumble around and scream? How about a person talented in piano joins a class full of talented violinist? The tendency is that they’d leave the group or stay there and be a misfit. The second reason is that people do not want to be with that person because they feel uncomfortable with that certain person. The cause might be it’s because they are jealous that they bully them, they don’t like their personality and makes way to get them off, or they don’t like the deficiencies the person has.

               The first reason isn’t much of a bad thing because the problem is you only. If you don’t want to feel different then you can always work hard to attain what they have in common. Adjustment is the key to try and be the same with others. As for the second reason, I feel that this really is a bad thing. I have experience being separated from others because of my personality and I know what it’s like to be a misfit. With this reason, you are discriminated. Discrimination is one of the things I hated most. It’s like judging a person without even trying to know what he is capable of. This time it’s the environment itself that is making those people misfits.

               A lot of us are trying to change to gain friends and we don’t want to be different with the others. We want to talk a lot of things and share our common interest. That is why other people are adjusting even though they don’t like it since they can’t change people. But take this, would you really work hard to attain their level and is different bad? Be proud! Being different than the others is what makes you special. I don’t like having a boring life with the same concepts. Having a group with different variety of personalities for me is the best group that anyone can have. Because of this, you have your own special set of skills and maybe share those skills or interests with others. As for the people who are discriminating, I advise you not change and just find another group. The moment you have changed and you were accepted -- wouldn’t you feel sad if they found another one to discriminate on? In my belief, they only chose you because of your usefulness and not because of who you are. I said advice but I am not forcing you.

               It is up to you if you really want to change for yourself. Will you change to be the same with others or will you change your concepts to accept who you are and hope they accept you too?

5 - Will you yolo or YOLO?

"90. Write about something that you wanted very much and perhaps worked long and hard for, but were unable to get. What were your feelings then? What are your feelings about it now?"

From the previous blog I mentioned about doing something else rather than doing the important things first. It's called procrastination which is to delay the things of what you are doing and here I am yet again procrastinating rather than doing the blog which the deadline for the first seven blog posts are due tomorrow. This is one thing I wanted very much but was unable to get. But all of that is about to change when I totally finish the blog posts before tomorrow!

  

      My feelings then were relaxed. I had a lot of time to do it and I didn't want to do it because I didn't have the urge to do so. I only write when I feel like it. It's like doing an assignment. You get more points if you are somehow interested with that certain subject rather than those other subjects and vice versa. Think of this scenario. You are asked to write two essays and those would be any topic that you like and a topic about boring stuff. Which essay do you think you'll get with more points? Get the point?

          Being relaxed were my feelings back then but now, I feel urged. Though it is not recommended that you procrastinate, having less time to do what I need helps me release my adrenaline meaning I am panicking but in reality, I am excited to finish this work. Doing this blog isn't the only thing I worked long and hard for. The stories I publish in Wattpad, the novels I am currently doing but is not actually in Wattpad, and the game I am producing are some of the things I really wanted and worked hard and long for but is unfinished. I am just procrastinating for the right time to do it which will improve the way I do them. Just because you only have less time to do it doesn't mean that you will not be able to do it. You don't have to give up that easily. As long as there's still time, there is still a chance to do it. You still have that persistence to continue. All you have to do is YOLO it!

          You only live once. That's what YOLO means. People think YOLO is a discreet word that they need to think twice if that certain action will make it worse or not. Well I think YOLO is a word challenging us to do stuff that we haven't done. I also say YOLO which means you just need to go with the flow regardless of the outcome and do it -- just YOLO it! This blog that I am doing right now, I am YOLOing it.

        Like the title said, will you yolo it (Think twice and try avoiding it) or will you YOLO it and see what you have accomplished. Who knows, maybe what you did actually becomes beneficial to you… or not but hey, it's better than doing nothing.

4 - Have I forgotten something?

“130. Did you ever forget something really important?”

Yes, I did forget something important but the problem is -- I don’t know if it is important. First minute, I opened the computer and search for the things I needed to search but the moment I opened my web browser I logged in to my Facebook and just do it later or maybe never. Hey, I think you guys have also experience this situation maybe in a different concept. That’s not the point though; the point is our distractions are getting out of hand that we never really do our needs.

Distraction does not give you the full attention of something else. It could either be from a want or from a need. Everyday, we see distractions whether we’re at school, at work or at home. It is a common problem that everyone encounters frequently. Sometimes we just want to wish that we can really focus with our objectives and not forget about our assignments. I wished I was never distracted. But today, I do not wish that I never get distracted. As a matter of fact, I love distractions.

I don’t want to change your concepts that distractions are bad or they will only make your time lessen for the upcoming tasks. I don’t like controlling people (Yeah right, and I wish I was Charles Xavier) because I know that they have their lives and they want to use it to the fullest. But I would like you to put your attention into this saying that “Distractions are beneficial.” And it’s just all in the matter of perspective

I was in the middle of writing an essay about anything for our expository writing course and I didn’t know what to write then. I was doing all sorts of stuff like rolling on my bed or looking at the clock rather than playing, Facebook or anything exciting (no dirty thoughts please) because if one of my parents walks inside the room and saw me playing or doing anything exciting while my assignment is done then they might be like:

“Dhale, are you done with your assignment?”
“Nope.”
“Then what are you doing there?! You are not done with your assignments and you are playing?! You really are obsessed with computers and now you are...”

Or if it was in a different scenario that I said yes:

“Oh so you’re done with your assignments?”
“Yes.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“ARE YOU SURE!?!?!?”

I really don’t like people shouting at me and I don’t want repetition much or long discussions unless I enjoyed it. But that’s not the case here. I was mind blocked from doing my essay about anything. I didn’t know which topic was better or which topic will make more impact. So how did I pass through this? Did I just lie down and sleep my way through until my mind finally awoken or something else? It was a matter of faith, trust, and ninja moves and hope that they don’t catch me playing while my assignment was still not done. But it was not much of playing but doing something I enjoy like writing novels. I just continued my story which I haven’t touched for over four months. I woken up when I started and I got really far from where I was when I got bored. Miraculously because of that story, I got some ideas of what I wanted to write for my essay. I was confident that I was able to write anything from something I got distracted at rather than waste my time on the bed.

Maybe distraction is good. We work because we want to achieve that certain thing. We might say that we are fully focused for that objective but there has got to be that percentage where you think the reason for doing the job. We distract ourselves not because we don’t want to work but because we want to remember why we started the tasks or catch some ideas from the experiences we made.

This time, why not try distracting yourself until you get bored and do your objectives first? Take another route that instead of doing your work first you do what you want first. Second things first. With that training, you’ll be learning time management in terms of having less time to do the job.

There’s still one thing I forgot though, what am I supposed to do again?

“It was at this moment that he remembered he forgot to zip his pants.”

3 - What is a blog?

"20. Write about an incident that illustrates shyness. "

“The monster came and attacked him. Then he fought an alien and died in the battlefield. Then he flied to the heavens and then died again.” Sounds like it was wrote by a five year old. A lot of people would probably laugh if they read this and would think that it is too childish. This is one reason why others don’t really write or don’t finish their stories. If I was in this situation and my friends suddenly read this, the more likely possible happening is that I will be laugh at. Some more instances if it was in a different scenario, I would be beat up because of what I have written. Some people don’t really like to write anymore because of anxiety and more likely the immense situation of what the future will bring to them. They already thought that something bad will happen to them if they wrote something they really like. I am getting off topic here; I’ll just come back to the question.

So I have been thinking a lot about what I have been doing about this blog. I checked through my stuff and notice that all of these do not really define me or my interests. Asking me, it’s more of what you think than what it is about you. What have I been doing with this blog? To be deeper, what IS a blog? That made me search through the internet and saw what a blog is. As it turns out, a blog is an online diary. Is it a diary like what you have done for the past day or week? Then I thought that I was doing the wrong thing after all. I should have been making blogs that says what happened to me. But I wasn’t sure enough so I asked my friends.

Here are some of the things that they said...

“It’s a hard question.”

“It’s an online diary.”

“It’s where you write your speeches.”

“It’s a word.”

“Ask Pam.”

“Just search it on the net.”

“Yolo” (That was me)

Originally, blogs are meant for things that have happened to you and writing about that certain object that you have encountered like an online diary. Basically, I have been doing it wrong… that is if it was back like 1990’s or when the blog things started. Nowadays, blog is used to write any topic and talk about them. A lot of people enjoyed them that some people do vlog (Video blogs) and it was freedom. But the problem is that the people who write blogs don’t want to write anymore and I think the first paragraph would explain that. I am not really fond of writing blogs and I never was. The fact remains is that we need to write blogs for our course. Why don’t I like to write blogs? It’s because I don’t want to discuss my life much to strangers or to people I don’t want to or more likely I don’t want people to criticize me. A blog is where you write the things happened to you or what you have experienced. What if they knew about your darkest secrets and suddenly got bullied because of that? What if you suddenly got stalked because of what you wrote about yourself? What if you suddenly hurt someone because you destroyed their reputation about them? That’s why I am not really fond of blogs and that’s one of the main reasons why I don’t participate, I get shy because of what the people would do.

                But that doesn’t mean I hate blogs, the fact that I am still writing isn't because it's required to our course but it’s because I enjoyed it. Yes, you heard me, I enjoyed writing blogs though it's time consuming too. I later realized that a blog is not just about yourself but it is also about what you want to write about to connect with people who would like to relate to you and maybe let them connect with other people too. Not because you want to ruin their reputation or something but because you want to inform your readers what you are interested in. I would think that a lot of people are making fun of me right now though some of the things I wrote here are funny (the fact that some actually are unless you don’t think it’s funny buy her, YOLO, right?). But hey, at least you enjoyed writing. We all started as noobs and some of us wrote strange stories or drew strange monsters and aliens when we were little or a little younger. Don’t let them lead to your downfall; let their responses help you to become a better writer. Let their responses push you forward not just within your limits but in theirs too.

                It is up to you now. Will you stop writing because of the people around you or will you keep writing and see how much you will accomplish?

2 - Yes or maybe?

"115. Write about a difficult decision you had to make."

I have a simple request guys. Read these questions and answer them as best as you can and I will grade you based on your choices. Pretty Ironic since the title states “Don’t Read” and now here I am asking you to read it. Well, here are the questions!

Would you rather eat chocolate or vanilla ice cream? That seems easy… right? Here’s another question. The left road seems lonely but you will find the one you love who loves you back and the right road is a crowd but will never know if the one you loved loves you back. Pretty hard … right? Now in terms of strength, who do you think will win, Goku or Superman? Now that’s a hard question since we know that in the Anime world that Goku is the strongest, in terms of strength, Anime character and Superman is the strongest cartoon character there is. It’s now for the last question. This is going to be the hardest hear and you will have to use your skills in getting the answer. What is the animal that has 4 legs, and when he crosses a street he only has 2 legs, and when he goes back, he has 5 legs? Erm… yeah that is really hard. So that’s what I have been struggling this week.

Not really that case but somehow you can relate how hard it is. So I thought making a blog would be a breeze and just say “I can write anything I want. YOLO!” and I have already made a list of what I am going to write to keep the movement flowing well. The first blog post went okay but then the week after that, we were asked to do something else. It seems that people will just do what they want and write anything that would not really interest blog readers. So they made us pick seven topics from this site to start off our blogs (The quotation below the post title is the topic I picked). “But I already made my first blog post!” still they allowed me with that post but that means I have to pick six more posts. How hard can it be to choose from these topics? It’s quite easy unless you need to choose from 194 topics. Huh, and I was like… dun dun dun!!!  Oh well, I think my topics would not be inside this page. I bet that I only have a few topics here which I am interested to answer.

Oh yeah, narrow the list to only 85!?!? I didn’t expect to choose 85 topics. They really caught my attention from those 194 topics. I’ll just cut to the chase. Eventually I have narrowed them down to the ones that seemed useless to me and then got like 67. It took me 5 hours in the bedroom to narrow it to only 54 topics. I know that this does not sound like a big deal to you but I am aiming to get the best topics that suit me. I’m sure you had this kind of problems. For the boys, you always pick which character to use in your game (Mainly League of Legends for you). The characters you pick hold a vital key in winning the game, right? As for the girls, you had to pick from fifty handsome boys to be your boyfriend, just kidding. But you get the point.

Decisions are everywhere and whatever you do you will never run out of decisions. You may not notice it but every action you do is always a decision chose. Even the last question I asked you to answer has a decision. First things first, I want to congratulate you that you have perfected the questions I asked you. I didn’t say that you must find the correct answer, all I said is to answer the questions (Unless you did not answer any). Going back to where I stopped, the only choices you have are to either answer the question or not answer the question. Those are two decisions already.

Like I said, decisions are always present in every action. People just say “I don’t have a choice.” as a form that they must choose their top priority but in reality they always have choices and never a choice alone to decide. But there are always tips in how to pick the best decisions to get the best endings. But one way on how I have managed to pick the topics I wanted.

So I looked back to the topics I have left to choose. The fact is that I really liked to make the topics I wanted in order but was unable to do it because of these ones. But then when I looked at these topics, I realized that some of them are quite close. All I have to do is to edit it. So in just an hour or less, I have managed to have the remaining 15 topics. What the heck just happened there!? I have removed 30 topics in 1 hour or less but earlier I have only removed 20 in 5 hours. I think that’s what they call “Improvise”.

Improvising is a process of doing things unprepared or make up something from any available resources. This is what we usually do when we have forgotten what to say especially in speeches or suddenly chocked in front of our crushes (Which never happened to me). I guess I just really got close to my topics that I just wanted to put them instead of the topics given to us. I thought I only had two choices but I actually had three… and that is to combine the topics given to us and the topic I have already given myself to.

If you choose between an answer from yes or no, there is a choice not to answer any of them at all. If there are three choices, there will be four. If there are four choices, there will be more. If there are no other choices, there are always two and that is to either take the offer or ignore it at all. Now you have a choice to make. This decision will not apply to anything but this question is quite large. Will you answer this question?