A Balance of Life

How do college students do it? When you really think about it, college students have a lot on their plate; they have to maintain good grades while trying to balance extra curricular activities, boyfriends/girlfriends and having a social life. In my opinion, the one thing every college student needs is a good sense of time management. College isn't about how smart you are, college is about being well-rounded, although some students can get carried away with partying, which us. Many students think that companies are looking to hire the person who graduated at the top of their class, but they're WRONG.

Companies are looking for people who have experience and can get the job done. They want to know that you can multi-task and work well under pressure in many different situations. A great way to gain experience is either through a job or an internship. I would highly suggest that you start applying for internships the summer of going into your junior or senior year because then you could have a set job right after you graduate with the place that you
interned for. A lot of college students don't do internships because they usually don't pay you, but like I said before it's about the experience and what you gain out of it. I know it might be a difficult decision to make (choosing between a job or internship) due to our economic times and it doesn't help that we're broke as it is. But this is how I look at things, I would rather be broke for a summer and do an internship with an unforgettable experience because it would then benefit me in the long run. Within that broke summer I would be able to build my network up, which to me is way more important then making money. In one of my previous posts I said that life's about networking and who you know and it really is. Everyone will learn that at some point in time.

So, my point of this post is to let people know that it's important to be well-rounded. Don't just stick to one thing, try something new each year. And it's okay if you're not book smart, if you sit back and observe, the reason why people are successful is because they are sociable and personable. Having people skills is important in life too, so don't think you're not going to get anywhere in life if you don't have a 4.0 gpa.

My Reflection

Boy did time fly by, it seems like the beginning of the semester was yesterday. Never would I have thought that I would be blogging about campus life and extra curricular activities, as a matter of fact, I would've never thought I would enjoy a class as much as COMM 366. It was my favorite class this semester and probably the only one that I've liked so far. COMM 366 introduced me to so many new types of technology, it's awesome! The class brought the creative side out of me and I loved it because I love to express myself. The only thing I didn't like about the class was how short of a class we had. Fifty minutes flew by fairly quick, it felt like we were only in class for about ten minutes.

Looking back on my posts, I would have to say that I am proud of the work that I have published onto my blog. I put a lot of time and work into writing my posts, however, I know I could have made them extravagant. This semester was really hectic and stressful, I wish I had more spare time to go out to venture, explore events beyond campus and write about them. Hopefully I'll be able to create even better posts this summer, if I'm not too busy. I have 2 internships this summer so I know I'll be pretty occupied, but I will definitely have a few posts about my experiences.

But in all, Blogger is great! There are so many neat things you can do with your blog (I plan to spice mine up) I wish I knew about this earlier!

KAHAPON at NGAYON

"Yesterday and Today"

The title of my blog post means "yesterday and today," which was also the theme of the annual culture night held by the Filipino American Student Association (FASA) at Old Dominion University. The show was on April 18th inside the North Cafeteria of Webb Center. The students started their day at 11am and ended it around 2 or 3am on Sunday morning. The show was put together at the very last minute, but somehow they pulled it together and had a successful night.

Each spring semester for the past 18 years FASA has celebrated their Filipino culture by putting on a show for the students, faculty and Hampton Roads/Virginia Beach community.

The students started putting the show together in the beginning of this semester with practices at least 4 times a week for the traditional dances, writing the script, making/decorating props, etc.

Instead of writing a re-cap of the show, I've decided to write about what went into making the show a success and what we could've done differently because many people don't know how much stress goes into putting a show together.

To be completely honest, I don't think a lot of people cared about this show compared to last year's. We didn't have many committed or dedicated people and the practices were unproductive until the very last week and a half before the show. I was actually really surprised to see how well we pulled everything together at the very last minute, I guess people DO work better under pressure. I feel that we should've had complete run-throughs of the show a week before the show or at least a few days, but we didn't until the day OF, and it wasn't a good one either. And of course, what's a show without DRAMA? That was one thing that we DID have and A LOT of it. I tried to stay away from the drama, but when you're working with a group of people it's a little hard to. There were conflicts over unproductive practices, not having enough (committed & reliable) people, and time management. We had a lot of frustrated people who wanted to give up and quit at the last minute because they felt others didn't care about the show as much as they did.
The main thing we need to work on for next year is our transitions and communicating with the tech crew. I would also advise that we have the show a bit earlier because towards the end of the semester is when our workload is upped and it just stresses people out even more. Also, the practices need to be made MANDATORY and not highly advised to come to. On a positive note though, when it was time, everyone came together and worked as a team. Now we know what we need to do to make the show even better next year.

Below is a slide show of pictures from the show. Enjoy =)

Relay For Life

On April 17th, ODU students came together in the fight against cancer. The event was called "Relay For Life," so what exactly is it?

Relay For Life is the American Cancer Society's signature event that is held annually. Student organizations formed teams and stayed in the Webb Center from 7pm-7am. Each team had to have at least one member running or walking the tapped out path. Aside from walking the path, each organization had their own table/area where they set up their own fundraiser such as: selling hot dogs, hamburgers, pancakes, candy and international food. Not only were the students selling food but some areas had games like the Nintendo Wii, Rockband and Guitar Hero set up and you could pay $1.00 to play for a period of time; one organization even had people cutting and styling hair.

The night was filled with tons of fun, it was great to see hundreds of college students coming together in the fight against cancer, especially with our economic downfall. In the cyber loft area WODU Radio had their music blasting and in reaction students were dancing and even formed a circle for a dance off. The most exciting part of Relay For Life was Ms. Relay. Ms. Relay was basically a pageant where a male team member had to dress up like a female. The contestants had to answer questions such as: "what is your best quality and why?" The men had funny satirical answers and they even went up on stage to show everyone their best dance moves. At the end of the pageant, each contestant was given a purple bucket and they had to walk around for an hour to see who could raise the most money.

Below is a video footage of the contestants from the Ms. Relay pageant



For those of you who missed out on Relay For Life I highly recommend that you all check it out next year. It's a great way to connect with other students, bond with your team members and it's for a good cause.