Gawad Tulong-Dunong

Kuya, hindi ko makakalimutan ang legacy mo.

For the last 5 weeks, I have taught some 4th year scholars from Ateneo, Miriam and St. Scholastica a very interesting subject (Physics) with a class period beginning at 8 and ending at 9 in the morning.

Last Friday, May 23, 2008, I was given this art-filled award made by my students in recognition to my teaching duration. A lot of work was done in the process of making it by the way it was constructed. 25 rolled notes made of 1/8 construction paper were placed inside a glass with some art sand. A monkey stuffed toy was placed right on top of an improvised lid with my nerdy picture on top of its floating,extended aluminum tail.

I was deeply touched by what Gary, one of my students had said about yours truly.
It is written on top for your reference.

Teaching is such a noble profession. So noble that I would do it free even for the rest of my life for such noble people.

P.S. My personal condolences for Alvin Espinosa, one of my first students, who had died last year due to a terminal illness

FOPC Fund Run (the event)

Last Saturday, May 25, 2008, FOPC held its highly anticipated fund run in the academic oval. The fund run proceedings ran from 6 to 11 in the morning. Representatives form different member organizations ran number of laps following their collected pledges. At first, it can be seen that it was pretty difficult for some organizations to finish with the pledges ranging from 10 to 40 exhausting laps. Even though they can the work with the presence of multiple org representatives, the stress level still ran high as the sun's blistering heat drained the most out of every runner. Several organizations finished first as early as 7 in the morning, but for some, 4 hours were not enough because of the lack of presigned runner.

Fortunately, very generous sponsors from Burlington and 100 isotonic drink gave out free merchandise (through a raffle) and free refreshments respectively for the runners once they had signed up. It really wasn't an easy task if you consider the maximum human physical capacity to move around the oval even though one valid lap in the oval equates to two credited laps for the run (AS to NEC building/one lap, NEC to AS/one lap). Everyone was made to wear a rubber band corresponding to each lap that a runner had undertaken.

For the record, in the duration of the run, one man actually had 20 rubber bands in his wrist by the end of his session.

How's that for a pledge run? A marathon perhaps.

The event ended in a very peaceful manner with just 2 organizations left running for pledges (and several boxes of isotonic drinks left untouched...gulp). Hopefully, friendships were made and perhaps, reinforced in this event.

With asphalt-stomping, sunlight absorbing, isotonic drink drowning, rubber band accessorizing, and perspiration bath glory, we can say that UP students truly immortalized the saying mens sana, corpore sano meaning "a sound mind in a sound body".

Note: Better watch Chariots of Fire for more inspiring quotes on running.