Unlike my past uncelebrated Valentine's Day, this year's has been quite busy for me. I purposely wanted to celebrate the season because it was the first time I would be doing so as a person-in-a-relationship. Besides, there was another reason to celebrate and that was the birth of the Music Club.
Or should I say rebirth?
The organization was established late last semester and the responsibility of moderating the club fell on my shoulders. Unfortunately, I was not able to handle my job pretty well. Last semester's performance was way below our standards. Since I am the kind of person who hates committing the same mistakes, I promised we would come back with a vengeance.
And when I say Vengeance, I mean it.
That was why I worked my head off, and asked the kids to do the same thing just to have an event solely for the Music Club. I reckon we learned and experienced a lot of things from preparing and performing in our first Concert: Love Stories.
In the process, I saw real talents under pressure. Those were the ones who brought instruments during rehearsals despite their bags were already full and heavy of books and academic materials. They also initiated decorating the venue, and inviting their fellow students to watch their performances. On the other hand, I also saw raw people who were not yet ready for a full blown performance. Quite a number of students were dropped from the performance because of their attendance and behavior in the rehearsals.
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| JL the guitarist |
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| Jen, guitarist |
I also received support coming from different people. Russ and his family gave me encouragement. Our nameless Band even provided additional equipment and performed in the concert. Teachers and the Admin Staff invited students to watch. Ms. A and Syme actually supported me from the very beginning.
So how was the concert?
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| Syme, singing his head off.haha |
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| The Sit-In Band hehe |
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| lovely ladies of the club |
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| the dashing emcee of the program, Syme |
As part of the audience, I was quite subjective to say that it was successful. Having the commendations of my co-teachers and students strengthened the belief that it had been great. However, the proofs that had sealed all doubts out of my head were the speeches of our administrators:
"This concert is a proof of the passion of the Music Club. I would like to thank the initiative of the club for celebrating the season because this is the first time Valentine's was celebrated in WCC."- Ms. Moral
"Next semester, we will have a room for the Music Club members and we will fill that room with equipment."- Mr. Gonzales
How did I feel?
I felt proud of, first, myself for successfully putting up the concert and of course my members who exerted their best. I also felt victorious because I was able to fulfill my promise to give them a better stage. Lastly, I felt a sense of accomplishment that I had not felt before.
We were able to make the audience happy and entertained.
We were able to satisfy our administrators.
The greatest achievement of all was the smiles on the members’ faces after their last song number. Those smiles were of triumph.
We were able to redeem ourselves.
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jl, wendy, meryll, moi, jen, madel, johnray, christelle, syme, chacha, jane
The Music Club |
To God be the Glory.
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| gerard, russ, moi, rye, chuck |
The English Department had a film festival. The movies lined up ranged from action, to inspirational, to horror ones. Every now and then, people passing by the AVR could hear different exclamations of happiness, shock and grief coming from the audience.
The same department held a seminar last Thursday. I was one of the two speakers and I talked about the roles of Language Educators in social reconstruction. The second speaker talked about Teaching to Change Lives which surely inspired our future educators.
The Criminology Department prepared an awesome and worth-visiting booth. Working the Students' Lounge to their advantage received two thumbs up if not three. They had an anatomy corner for forensic purposes. They also had a documentation section where they showed the differences between real money bills and certificates, and fraud documents. Nearing the exit were exhibits of illegal drugs (wrapped so carefully so nobody would be tempted to use them), bullets and guns (students in-charge showed us how to assemble a pistol), and a lie-detector machine (unfortunately it wasn't working)..jpg)
As for myself, I thought it was great. Seriously. When I was in college I kept wondering how such activities had materialized and I was quite guilty of not participating in them. Now that I am a college instructor, even if I was only half-forced due to my responsibility, I had to immerse myself in experiencing college week from a different angle. And I loved it. 
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