Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it.

Judy Blume

No matter how strong we look on the outside, everyone of us has fears.

Now, it is a matter of finding a way to face them. It doesn’t matter how big or small of a fear it is, we are all facing them. Problems aren’t new to us. All human beings go through the same craps.

If you were to ask me what happened on my week, I am to answer:

RAPPELLING HAPPENED.

Yes, my fear of heights happened. I don’t know why I am not scared of riding carnival rides when I am in an amusement park but this thing surely scared the crap out of me.

The fear of falling on your own.

The fear of letting go of the rope.

The fear of standing on a thin area.

The fear of not being able to hold onto your own lifeline.

Despite all of these, I have realized my worth as a person even more. I realized I didn’t want to die at this age yet. I realized I still have a lot of accomplishments to gain. I realized I still have a lot of fears to conquer.

So who am I to decline this opportunity to face my fears?

Life is so much more than holding onto things we got used to. Sir Fajardo made me realize the meaning behind “Sometimes you need to let go in order to keep on moving on.” Those words stunned me and slapped me on my face that this is not yet the end of me.

He said words I would never forget.

“Rappelling tells you that life is a matter of facing your problems while knowing the solutions already. It is your choice when to face them.”

The problem is my fear of heights. And the only solution is facing them, hanging while holding onto the rope and letting go of everything except your lifeline. Isn’t knowing all these such a blessing already? Why not take that idea into so much more? Why not do it?

ABM SUMMIT 2020

The first ever ABM Summit organized by MSU-IIT JPIA has concluded! Honestly, the event was not as organized as I expected it to be, but I really enjoyed this day. The emcee said one of the objectives of this event is not just to represent our schools but rather, to mingle with others and enjoy the rest of the day as we treat it as a break from the stressful life.

SIR UNDE, THANK YOU!
Sir Unde is not just any ordinary man. He is the best. No, that’s even an understatement. He is more than the best. I have this thought in my head that “Swerte kayng ABM kay naay Sir Unde”. Sana all JUNDE.

I worried about how this event would go. I joined two contests along with the same partner, Christy Ortega. One contest in the morning and another in the afternoon.

Fortunately, I won 2nd Runner Up in Cup 4: Business Finance too! It was never easy to sit there for around an hour and listen to questions involving a lot of computations without having an idea how to do them because most of them weren’t discussed yet and some of them are not part of our curriculum guide as Sir Unde said. We struggled a lot both in Cups 1 and 4 but yes, we did it!

EXAMINATION WEEK

Rappelling.
ABM Summit 2020
And now, exams.

Time runs real fast. This February 2020, we have a busy schedule. There is always an activity after an activity, it never ended.

The next thing we knew…

…it’s gonna be our graduation day! It’s a combination of both happiness and sadness. Whenever I think about this event, I feel happy happy to finally rest after a loooong school year, but at the same time sad because I feel like 10 months is too short for Lucy to bond together. The memories we made will surely be with me till the rest of my life. I love you, Lucy!

This will be the last post for this blog! Thank you for staying with me!

Schnider A. Mutia, signing off.

This week has been very stressful for me, both as a student joining an upcoming big event and as a CSG officer. I struggled a lot to find ways on how I can rest every after a tiring day. The exhaustion I felt was beyond my expectations.

One of the requirements that we needed to submit before we graduate was the Practice Set wherein we are trained to be ready in the future as we walk on the path that we are supposed to go through in order to become a Certified Public Accountant. Surely, it is never easy and I can solemnly swear that this Performance Task is not to be answered alone, you need to be guided or reach out to others in order to succeed together.

Another job I had to take was to distribute waivers to my Equators Club members for we are going to have our Mangrove Planting on Saturday in collaboration with YBC, ERT Club and SciWizard Club. As a President of our club, I knew I had lapses and I wanted to make it up for them whenever I’m free from my responsibilities from being a CSG officer, or at least I wanted to make time for them and actually exert effort for our Club. Sadly, these two organizations that I’m a part of always have activities to be held on the same time and I always had to choose what to prioritize first.

After distributing waivers, I had to sacrifice some of my rest time to study and prepare for the upcoming event next week which is the ABM Summit. The SMC team wanted to be ready for the event so most of the participants visited the library during free hours in order to study. Just before we ate lunch, we decided to take a picture and gladly, we don’t look as stressed out as we actually are.

Just before I could finally say “I’m free”, my CSG duties are calling me. On Friday, 14th of February, we will have a program for SMC’s personnel as a tradition. We had to prepare the stage to look presentable in front of the audience. It was very tiring.

At the end of the program, we had to chase Sir Unde as he was about to leave the school. Maybe he wasn’t aware that St. Lucy prepared something for him. My classmates prepared for this surprise as we, 4 CSG officers, became very busy for the program. Everyone was participating and you can see the happiness and the sincerity from each other’s eyes. We screamed “Calda, Calda, Calda” as a joke and Sir Unde ate our bait and he really told us to come on 4pm for he will treat us there.

At the end of this tiring week is a heart full of love. We may not celebrate this day with boyfriends and girlfriend but surely, this day is not only intended for couples. We love as a family in St. Lucy and together we achieve success. I live far from the city, but it did not really bother me to go home late after 7pm because I knew I would not have any regrets because I enjoyed this day and it is one of the most memorable days of my high school life. It was an afternoon full of laughter and joy just like how we usually are as St. Lucy.

Before I end this blog, I just want to greet you a HAPPY PERSONNEL’S DAY, MA’AM MONSANTO! Thank you for bringing laughter in St. Lucy. Every meeting with you is never a boring one! Salamat kaayo ma’am sa pagsabay sa amoa and I hope you will never change your perspective of St. Lucy. We love you, ma’am!

For this blog, I will not be updating you about the happenings in my life this 4th week. Rather, I would share to you my own idea and my own view about approaches in relation to Environmental Ethics.

Environmental Ethics is the study of the relationship of human beings and the environment and how ethics play a role in this. The approaches for this branch of Ethics can be humans (anthropocentric), animals, living things as a whole (biocentrism) or even the combination of both living and non-living things (ecocentrism)!

Biocentrism

The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.

-Charles Darwin

I have always believed that God gave soul to living things. And living things gave life to non-living ones. Although we cannot create them without God’s will, they won’t come to life if no one uses them. You cannot call something a writing material if you never tried to use it to write. The point is, they become useful through us. Living organisms are the ones who label the non-living things. We can use them how we want them to be and we can innovate them to how our ideas push us to do so.

As much as I would love to become more ecocentric than just biocentric, I cannot deny the fact that I value living things more than non-living ones. Before doing something completely, I always categorize my priorities. This time, I have come to realize that living things is my top priority and that Biocentrism is what I grew up to become as.

This approach simply does not see non-living things to be as important as living ones. Of course, I know for a fact that we would not be what we are today without the existence of non-living things because they are part of us now, but just like what I am trying to emphasize here, my top priority would always be Living Organisms.

In a situation wherein my business would affect non-living things, I don’t think it would concern me that much since I don’t see them to be as important as us. I would still go with my business decisions even if some of them are harmed as long as the living ones are safe. It would honestly put me at ease to think that I am not harming any of the living organisms although I harm the non-living ones. Just like what I said, we can do what we want to do with them since we brought life to them. But, it doesn’t mean I would always ruin non-living things without the need to do so. There will always be time in our businesses when we will need to choose whether to continue what we are about to do even if we harm non-living things or we can insist on cancelling our plans for their sake. From where I am right now, I would always choose to proceed to earn a living. As I bring harm to them, I save my life as a living organism.

I don’t think this is an ideal way of thinking as a businessperson but I wanted to be as honest as I can in this blog since I’m sharing it to everyone who may see it. The point is, since I’m here, it would be better to express my thoughts through honesty without sugarcoating my ideas.

To make everything clear, I love both living and non-living things. It’s just that, I don’t see them to be of equal value. If there’s always a way that I can choose not to harm any of them, of course I’d choose that path. But to be practical, still living over non-living for me.

Overall, at the end of the day, living things are more important that non-living things for me. But who knows, my ideas now may not be my ideas a day from now. Our perspectives are highly influenced by what is around us. Maybe, if I get along with people who value non-living things as much as they do with living ones, I may adapt their point of view and borrow it to form mine again. This is a proof that our way of thinking will never be permanent. I may say that “I am not the same person I was minutes ago” just like how we speedily delete tweets that we regret after 2 mins of tweeting. Lol.

That’s all for today, see you next week!

The highlight of my third week was the Retreat that was required for all Grade 12 students. We are the last batch of this Retreat and it took months of wondering what would happen while I am away from home.

From the experience of my friends from the previous batches, they told me it helped them a lot. So, while I was on my way to the retreat, I sat beside my close friends in the bus which made it more exciting because I am not used to going somewhere away from my family so I kept on wondering what would happen to me and what I would gain after this.

When we arrived, it was a WHOLE NEW WORLD. We were told to maintain silence whole throughout our stay there which I am so not used to. I can stay silent but not the whole day. I was expecting at least a bit of noise would be fine, but Betania says NOPE. Even the noise of the spoons and fork were strictly observed.

Despite this, I survived and I have heard a lot of encouraging words. I recommend this retreat to those who still doubt themselves and those who needs to hear “Go on because life never gives up on you”. Even if we have a lot of insecurities, we are not alone. God is with us, whoever we believe in, He won’t let us down.

On our way back to Iligan City, they gave us our palanca letters prepared by those who wished to let us know how they feel about us. I am glad to receive them and realize that there are people who loves and admires me without me knowing. I have been blessed to be loved without doing much effort and be surrounded with people who appreciates me. To those who are planning to give me another set of letter, I STILL ACCEPT THEM. Lol

When we arrived home, I expected only 4 people to welcome us. I did not expect there would be 11 of them (some were out of the picture). Honestly, we prepared a single box of Krispy Kreme but the number of persons outnumbered the number of doughnuts. Glad we bought more than a box and decided to sacrifice them instead of keeping them to myself. Lol again. I love you, guys!

This second week of my blog, I am updating you about my daily life. This is entitled “Mixed Emotions” just like how my usual week passes by. Unlike the previous week, this is not full of happy surprises. More like, there are lots of unwanted events but the thing is, we don’t want to be stuck with the negative vibes. Rather, we choose to find ways to escape the reality.

Birthday Celebration

Alimah just turned 19! Indeed in our squad, she is the mother figure. She is the eldest among us too. And to tell you, she has more experience than her age. We may think like she is just an ordinary teenager but nope! She is more than your expectations. A day before her birthday, our squad declared that nobody will go out to eat tomorrow because the first day of the examination is on the next day. We promised that we will use that time to study instead of hanging out.

Unexpectedly, Alimah announced that she will treat all of us to eat out as a celebration for her birthday. Unfortunately, after the Business Plan Seminar held on the same day, our close friends went straight home. The people on this photo were the first group of people who went to Good Frydays together. The fun part is, we did not spend money for transportation expenses, instead we exercised through hiking.

Finally, we had more people to come and join us to celebrate!

Hell Week

The following days were stressful. It was examination day and everyone haven’t moved on from the celebration yesterday. Especially that we went home late and we were all tired enough to choose sleeping than studying. But of course, we wouldn’t risk our future with such reckless behavior. We made sure that we can answer the questionnaires and we somehow survived. Yay!

Spontaneous Hangout

A sad news came for one of the members of our main squad. Everyone felt the need to enjoy and unwind after crying for a couple of minutes and overthinking for hours. And so, we adopted April Bihag in our squad! The funny part is, because it’s spontaneous, we didn’t plan where we’re going. Instead, we just went with our guts and decided to go with the flow. After minuted of hiking due to indecisiveness, we finally decided to drink milktea. We’re glad that she had fun and she thanked us for this day before we went our separate ways to go home.

You passed!

It started with a good news. First, I passed the Xavier entrance exam surprisingly. I did not study a bit of my reviewers because I never really intended to study in Cagayan de Oro City, away from my family. I got used to seeing my parents and siblings every single day of my life since I was little. I thought it will be hard to make some adjustments. I was overwhelmed when the university texted me with a content saying that I am qualified to apply for SFX Scholarship wherein I can receive Php 25,000 every semester. These past few days have been confusing me if I should apply or not. I am still waiting for the SASE Results because since I was in Junior High, I have always dreamed of MSU-IIT wherein I can spend less money. As of this moment, I cannot decide yet.

Welcome to Legality

January 14, 2020, my closest friends in Senior High School surprised me a day before my birthday. I did not expect them to spend a lot of money for me. I am not a fan of surprises because I am always afraid that I’ll be in a “hot seat” when I am at the center of attraction. But it was indeed a happy night. I did not feel awkward for the rest of the night and I am very overwhelmed to have those people set aside some of their priorities just to celebrate with me. I am very thankful especially to Alimah Minalang who has always been a mother figure to me since the beginning of this academic year. I am always blessed by God, but I never thought the blessings were beyond my expectations. Above all, I thank God for giving me another year to live my legal life.

My actual birthday came and my families from different group of friends gathered together to once again surprise me. They did it yesterday so I was not expecting they’d do it again consecutively. I am already satisfied with the celebration yesterday and after this day, I couldn’t ask for more. I never felt being this loved before although I have always known that I am blessed with good friends because I choose what kind of group I enter in. Overall, today was another blast. This is the best entrance to the age of legality that I could ever have. Thank you so much!