Sunday, January 27, 2008

The First Alumni Meeting for 2008

As a regular session, which is the last Sunday of the month, we had our first meeting for this year this afternoon. As the president of our alumni association, I presided the meeting, together with the vice-president, secretary, the moderator, and together with some advisers.

It was an informal meeting, though. Because as usual, we had not reached quorum and we th venue was still on the kiosk near the gate of the campus.

Since we had no official office yet, I decided to have a formal office in one of the available classrooms that the school principal will provide. The organizations was established about a decade now and yet each new elected officers were still starting to build up the group because there was still no existing united group to restrengthen. So, our group, the newly elected officers, were still finding ways where to start and my idea is to start it with a formal alumni office to settle ourselves.

Another point I had opened was start the group with a prayer, and that is by praying the Holy Rosary every last Sunday of the the month before we start our meeting. I am a member and a leader of a rosary group and we call ourselves the Angeli Domini. We are praying the rosary every Sunday. Since I am an active member of this group and also a leader, I wanted to integrate the alumni and the rosary group. My idea was that the alumni will join the rosary group but we will be having our rosary at the HCM campus, so that it would be considered as a regular activity of the alumni also. But it was too complicated in that way because if we will have our rosary at the campus, it would be considered only as the alumni activity. Some would say that we will have our rosary at the usual venue of the rosary group and the meeting will be held at the campus after. But I would not agree with this one because the rosary will not be considered as an alumni activity, which I would like to happen.

At the end, we decided to separate the two and have a separate alumni rosary at the campus and those members of the rosary group will have to pray twice every last Sunday of the month then.

I don't know it my idea of having an office first will settle the group to improvement. But I am sure that if we do every possible thing to improve the group, everything will be just fine one day.

May God bless us all!

Saturday, January 26, 2008

I went to Isla Reta

Today I went for a weekend outing to Isla Reta beach resort at Samal City together with my girlfriend and her mother. I was outing for all the teachers in Mintal Elementary School. I went together with them because my girlfriend ask her mom to bring me with her so that she would not be bored. From Davao, we crossed the sea to the island boarding a boat.

I enjoyed swimming in the clear sea of the white sand resort. It is very exclusive because its a little expensive. But the shore is yours to enjoy because no one will ever stare at you.

We've seen some three groups of koreans visiting the resort and they enjoyed taking pictures with some of the folks there.

We only swam for 2 hours since the boat will depart the early and there is only one trip, for one hour, going back Davao.

The trip was exhausting but enjoy. Maybe, we'll back next for an overnight.

Friday, January 25, 2008

I am a programmer

Since 2005, I code my own web software for my websites aside from using free ready-made softwares. Since I am not an IT student, I don't know anything about programming. But since I was very interested in web, especially in building a website, I got to learn about it.

I got familiar with HTML a little because I used a software to create a web design. I used Frontpage of Microsoft to create simple HTML designs. By using this software, I learned that HTML file are only static pages which only handles a single data per page. But I was interested in freewares and sharewares for my content so it means I must create a lot of pages for the softwares. Then I tried researching the internet for better ways to handle data effortless and learn about web softwares that uses database.

At first, I learn ASP web programming. This was my first knowledge in web programming. I modified a ready-made ASP content management software for music and used it to cater softwares. ASP uses VB scripting and I had a little knowledge in VB so it is somehow easy to get familiar with it.

For a greater knowledge, I began to program in PHP and MySQL because I realized that ASP and MSACCESS had data handling limitations. Also, one reason I shifted form ASP to PHP was because there were a lot of better free hosting site for PHP than for ASP.

I can't really tell if am a professional programmer now but I can always say that I am a programmer and I am a programmer for 3 years now.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

I had a career opportunity talk

This afternoon, I had a talk about my college life to the 4th year students of Holy Cross of Mintal. It was my first time to be invited in a seminar and talk about something.

I was actually nervous the whole time because I am never used of talking with a crowd. I held the microphone and talked about my experience, though I never knew what was the lesson I am going to share and what was my gestures while I was talking. Perhaps, I was too obvious to be so nervous. I had an outline which I just made while I was waiting for my turn. Miss Songahid told me to share my experiences in college so I outlined something just for my guide and I told the students about my life in college. Not exactly my whole college life, but only those experiences which I thought would give them a hint what is college life. A few minutes after, I was relieved a bit and continued my sharing fluently and I even cracked some jokes to them. I ended my talk telling them that you could not survive life in college without praying. Isn't that nice?

At last I was fully relieved after my talk when I went in my corner but I was surprise because I was given a certificate and a token. I was actually my first time to receive something like that.

I realize that I was fun having a talk and I wanted to talk some more next time and be recognized. I'll practice more so that I could give nice formal talk next time.