In
our upcoming Field Trip Seminar this month of September, we students who
enrolled in the subject must undergo to the “Interpersonal Skills
Training”. It was held at the University
of Southeastern Philippines Dorm Hostel last July 4, 2015. In our training, we were divided in two
batches because the facilitators can’t afford to handle the number of students
which has the total of 78 students. I
was grouped in the second batch of students who will take the interpersonal
training. I was a bit excited to join
that training because I believe that there will be a lot of lessons that I will
learn after the training.
In
the interpersonal training we are about 40 students in the second batch, the
day before we join the seminar I feel so excited about it because I am looking
forward to the activities that will be given to us to help us mold our
socialization with other students who also enrolled the subject. I am happy to join the interpersonal skills
and seminar because it will serve as our medium or our bridge to build
friendship with other students in Institute of Computing, because honestly
speaking, up to these days there are still a lot of students that I don’t know
the names only their faces and it is a bit awkward sometimes to be in their circle
because we don’t know each other due to we are more comfortable on sticking
with our long time close friends or classmates in our courses. If we are going to count the names of those
persons that I know, well I wish that you will not be shock by the number, only
a few of them. I keep it that way
because I believe that the anonymity still is sacred for Information Technology
student like me who eventually will become something at the future. But I also know that it is not good
especially if I want to become a successful “technoprenuership” at the future,
being a businessman requires a great number of friends that might help you in
your business plans.
Way
back to the happenings in our interpersonal skills and seminar meet up, I
really love the aura there because it is my first time to enter the University
of Southeastern Philippines Dorm Hostel, though it is a part of the university
it’s still so hard to get inside without any solid reason, well we understand
the safety measures that is why we are happy to be there. The seminar call time is around 8:00am but as
we start it is already around 8:30am due to unnecessary things happened. We were ask first to write our names on the
given identification cards so that it would be too easy for the facilitator to
call our names if there is an activity that needs student’s participation. We formally start the seminar by a prayer
followed by the singing of the national anthem.
The very first thing that the facilitator asked as is, “What do we
expect in our interpersonal activity?”
Well, commonly we all replay the same answer which is we expect the interpersonal
skills and seminar to be fun, lots of learning and memorable. We are all excited because we know that the
activities could help us. Our
facilitator’s second activity is to make us right the things that we promise to
do during the activities. Of course I
wrote there that I will give my full cooperation and participation to every activity
in the seminar so that I can really feel the seminar and gain a lot of
experience. I want to give my full
cooperation because I don’t want to become just like a mediocre and do nothing,
what might be the purpose of the interpersonal skills and seminar training if I
will not give all my best to the program.
After
the pledging, we were group into 8 persons per group. Each person in the group that was made is a
total random people. Some know each
other but the majority is we don’t know the person, so starting from there is a
great challenge to deal with because we will work together for the whole day of
the seminar. We have done a lot as the
activity progress.
One
of our activities is to find our self in one of the characters printed on the
given bond papers. I chose there the one
who doing the single hand stand on the branch of the tree. It was a bit of me because as I reflect on
the gesture of the character, it portrays balance, confidence and risk-taking. I relate my chosen character to my course, as
I begin my journey in Information technology course I can say the my starting
years were not that good because I did not give my all, seems like I was only a
mediocre and the results are a lot of failures.
An experiencing which I find not worth remembering and made me realized
that I must change for the better. I
must become more courageous and studious in my course. Information Technology is not a simple course;
I must be a risk-taker in this very challenging course. I have learned from my action that being a
mediocre brings nothing but leads to your own failures. I am glad to share that now for years I have
no failing grade and wish to continue until I graduate, at least I have 20 more
subjects left before I finish and graduate this course; it is quite a journey
being enrolled in the University of Southeastern Philippines Information
technology course.
I
am glad that every activity that we made serves as the bridge to communicate
with other students, because every activity requires a lot of talking and
sharing with your team mates. I have
made a lot of friends during the activities in the morning session. I also have the opportunity to introduce
myself to my team mates and of course to the whole participants of the
interpersonal skills and seminar. I also
had a lot of fun dancing those prepared dance video by our facilitator, “the
skeleton dance” have marked in my mind because the dance steps were too funny
and amusing. I can see through the faces
of my classmates that we all had a good time, our stresses from our school
subjects have been released, we forgot everything that is happening in the
outside world while we are doing the interpersonal skills and seminar, it is
very relaxing inn there because we just have to participate, learn and most
especially eat. I want to thank our
facilitator during that time because she is so pleasant and we can really share
to her. We took our lunch around
12:00noon and back before 1:00pm. While
having the lunch, I and my classmate have talk a lot of topic about the morning
session, all were very happy about the seminar.
When
we came back to the USeP Hostel, the facilitator saw that I brought a guitar
and she asked me if I can play one song before the afternoon session starts. Well it is my pleasure to perform so I play
my favorite song which is entitled “I love you too much by David Gustavo” and I
am glad that everyone liked it. As we go
on in our afternoon session, the facilitators distributed a bond paper that everyone
must get one, before we do anything she instructed us on what to do with the
paper. She instructed that we must draw
a simple illustration of our family members and at the center must be the table
and we must also add symbols to each family members, it is up to us what would
it be and it must be colored. So we
scatter and begun to work with our drawings.
I find it a little bit hard to put symbols on each family member that I
have because they were all unique and we are all ten in our family and I am the
youngest one. So I decided that I will
just minimize the symbols, as for my father I draw the tower as his symbol
because obviously he is my refuge in so many things especially in love and
money. For my mother, I draw and great
elixir as she was our source of great love and strength, a never fading love of
a mother is like an elixir that gives strength to the mighty soldiers. For my brothers, I draw a Spartan helmet
because they were all strong and brave but have control on their actions, so
behave but has a sense of humor when talking.
As for my sisters, I draw a bow and arrow because they were also has a
great spirit but also have a great heart.
You can observe that I incorporate my family symbol with the warrior
type symbols, well I have to say that my family is quite strong in personality
but behave in a way that if you are not going to talk we will also not going to
talk. We all finish our drawings in
about thirty minutes after that the facilitator asked us to go back to our sits
and group ourselves into three person per group. After we managed to have our groups, the
facilitator asked us to share to our group mates of what is the meaning our
drawing? Each member was given 10
minutes each to share. From each group
mate that I listen to their sharing is I can really say that we can’t really
judge a person in just one look, we can’t say a thing without listening first
to their story. A lot of student has
been so happy on their outside appearances but the truth is they were
struggling inside their hearts due to a lot of family problems they were
facing. I can really feel their
struggles because as they share their tears were falling and I was moved by
their stories of separations and broken families. I am just so thankful that up until now I
still have my parents and siblings sharing the same roof, because unlike my
other group mates their parents were dead already and if not were broken
already. A lot of emotions were bursting
during our sharing, everyone turned into serious-mode and I have a made an
apology to one of my classmate whom we always thought that it is just ok to her
that sometimes we make some fun with her because she really is a strong woman
but after I hear her sharing I feel ashamed and guilty so I make a move to have
an apology. She is so strong in
personality but the thing that we don’t know is, it is her defense mechanism to
keep her weak heart that she gets from her broken family. I am so glad that I have attended the interpersonal
skills and seminar because this activity teaches us a lot about life.
As
we go along the activity, we were task by our facilitator to go back to our
first group which is the 8 members per group because there will be an activity
that will test our talents. Each group
were asked to have a representative that will pick a single task, the task were
dancing, commercial or advertisement, rapping, singing and acting. I am very excited to do that task because the
one that goes to our group is the rapping which is very favorable to me because
I am a bit fond of making songs. At the
first minute of making the rap, I admit that I had hard time dealing with my
group mates because the majority does not know how to rap or make a freestyle
song so it was a great challenge. We
were given only a forty minutes rehearsal and everyone must have to
participate. I am glad that my group
mates were taking my suggestions and also giving some additional suggestion
that made our rap presentation. During
our performance, I was so happy because we really caught the attention of every
audience, they were so shocked because they don’t know that my group mates can
have the guts to rap and perform a song.
I am so blessed with my group mates, I can see the through team work,
great things will happen.
We
are so happy in all our activity, as for the closing ceremony, we made a bit of
a “ritual”, we made a circle each one holding a candle. We pray one by one saying all the things that
we will do things that we will change and the things that we will remain to
ourselves and after the prayer we must pass the light of the candle to the next
person in our right. The ceremony was
done heartily, It almost take an hour before it was finish, everyone really
took it seriously. The activities were
so amazing that teaches us to build friendship to everyone; the we must not
just stick to our comfort zones. After
the prayer we shake hands each other and say “Hi I am Rondie, I can be your
friend” the feeling is bursting because I am so happy that I have a new lots of
friends. As an ending ceremony, we sing
the song “If we hole on together” the song to me now has a new meaning, the
interpersonal skills and seminar gave it a whole new meaning. I must thank the facilitator.
