(This is my output during our workshop. The editors got a lot of observations as to the composition as well as the grammar of this article but I'll have it posted anyway...)

ARE YOU DEPRIVED WITH YOUR RIGHT TO BE HEARD? How far are you willing to go to express your opinion, thoughts and ideas? Will you settle for the local arena or go beyond your boundaries? Do you wish to address your message to the majority or to some selected few? These are challenging questions that each one of us should take into consideration when we want to exercise our freedom of expression.

Expressing our freedom of expression knows no limit. We can go as far as we could imagine, not literally but technically. We can use various forms of medium in sending our message. In return, we can receive feedbacks from the message we sent. That is how communication goes. It is a two-way process. In the communication process, we can either be the sender or the receiver. If the receiver becomes responsive, it could only mean that the message was interesting enough. Otherwise, we need to reconsider the significance of our concerns before sending it out.

We might have that freedom of expression but with that freedom we must have that sense of accountabilities. We are accountable of everything that we said, of every message or opinions that we expressed. We must uphold honesty and integrity for every word that we expressed. That’s real freedom. It is exactly contradicting to what most people believed. Freedom may mean doing things in accordance to our will but its consequence is beyond our control. Of course, no one would wish to spend the rest of their lives behind bars, would you? ETHICS is the keyword for that freedom to be fully exercised.

All these insights I learned not just by merely sitting on the corner and doing nothing, I learned all of these from the two-day seminar workshop in Basic Journalism sponsored by the Corporate Affairs Office of Mindanao University of Science and Technology (MUST). The activity was initiated to equip the university with pool of writers from various departments that will bring the latest updates of the university to the global community.

We have to write to EXPRESS, not to impress. Otherwise, we might end up so depressed.

Happy writing!

I am very much privilege to be a part of the Seminar-Workshop on Basic Journalism initiated by the Office of the Corporate Affairs in our school. It is a two-day workshop pre-loaded with a lot of inputs in journalism. I totally appreciate this kind of activity. Writing has been already a part of me. I've been writing in many forms but honestly I don't have basic knowledge in journalism. Though I am not into news writing but the fact that I did vital documentaries that has something to do with the procurement process, I knew that this one would really be of great help.

Ms. Imma Rae Gatuslao, Chief of the City Information Office (CdeO) was our first lecturer on Writing for University Affairs. I learned a lot from her about corporate communication. I learned that  the corporation's voice and the image it projects should go along well together. We should be able to maintain the integrity by being honest with all our inputs. She emphasized that ETHICS is a necessary component in corporate communication. In writing, we should consider our receiver as part of our constituencies by giving them an appropriate messages through an equally applicable medium that suits their need and situation. 

An effective communication should have the following criteria:

Our lecturer put it simply this way:

Sender --------------->     Message    --------------> Receiver

Medium

after the message was sent through an appropriate media, the receiver may have his feedback which in turn will make the sender as the receiver this time (it's a two way process just as shown on the figure above). The presentation was brief but concise. I also learned about 5Ws and 1H (What, Who, When, Where, Why and How). Informative, indeed!

The second topic was about The Basics of  News Writing  by Mr. Ismael Talili. He gave us our first workshop in straight news writing focusing on our new enrollment system that was recently adopted by the school. After the challenging group activity presentation, a rigid critiquing/editing was done which concluded the first-day session. One powerful point that I learned from his discussion was that, in news writing we should  Keep It Short and Simple (KISS)...

Now, that's what I considered as the essence of journalism!

I am looking forward for another challenging task tomorrow....

2 days more to go and it's gonna be a judgment day for all the aspiring candidates of the AUTOMATED May 2010 election...

The COMELEC said everything is all set for this Monday's nationwide activity...Many apprehensions, speculations and confusions (all synonyms?) were made by the public, especially by the lower class society who were not able to get the opportunity of educating themselves with the current method. Even for those who are knowledgeable enough with computers still need further understanding about the new procedure. From filling up the ballot to feeding it to the PCOS machine is still an issue... With my little effort to inform us all (this is also available to the COMELEC's Official Website), the following are the methods in accomplishing the ballot:

HOW TO ACCOMPLISH THE BALLOT

Pursuant to Section 35 of Resolution No. 8739

1. The voter shall, using a ballot secrecy folder and the marking pen provided by the COMELEC, fill his ballot by fully shading the oval beside the names of the candidates and political party participating in the party list system of representation of his choice.

2. The voter shall then approach the PC0S;insert his ballot in the ballot entry slot and wait until the ballot is dropped into the ballot box. The BEI shall monitor the PCOS screen to make sure that the ballot was successfully accepted. Thereafter, the voter shall return the ballot secrecy folder and marking pen to the chairman.

3. The chairman shall apply indelible ink at the base and extending to the cuticle of the right forefinger nail of the voter, or any other nail if there be no forefinger nail.

4. The voter shall affix his thumb mark on the corresponding space in the EDCVL.

5. The voter shall then leave the polling place.

Please be guided. Vote with conscience.

I've got a lot of things to thank God for:
1. for the life of Meryl Ajan who committed her time to study the Word of God with me through PDL series;
2. for the opportunity that God entrusted on me to share His message of Patience/Impatience to my fellow brethren;
3. for my Lighthouse family and their prayers;
4. for the wonderful things that God has in store for me... for the things that is yet to come...

I am positive and firmly believe that something good is about to happen to the community and to our nation as a whole right after the national election. (AMEN)

Classes will resume soon... need to buy new accessories like bags, etc... But why buy when I can have it for free! (if given the chance!)
Calling all moms, single ladies and bloggers out there! My amazing  Ate Grace is turning 1 in the blogosphere... As her way of thanking all of us (being her follower :), she's giving away bags, Viuctoria's Secret Lotion (no longer a secret because it was revealed already lol!) and therapeutic bracelet! Check it out!
Promo runs until June 15 only.... hurry!

I'm back for Tuesday Couch Potatoes! Before I will feature my choice of movie for this week's theme, let me say something about Novel-based stories... (I didn't mean to spoil anything, no pun intended :)

 Sometimes, novel-inspired movies doesn't convey every detail that we have read from the book.. Well, of course, considering the scene that only a pen can mightily do, it's actually understandable. Most of the movies that I were able to watch left me hanging, not because the movie wasn't good enough but the story is a little bit different...Well, CREATIVITY comes in. Let's consider the "choreography" thing....

Anyway, I've seen a lot of novel-inspired movies, I have there The Notebook (which I already featured on the previous edition), Lord of the Rings (wasn't able to follow completely), Twilight Saga (my students has a lot of comments about this-they love the novel more than the movie), Harry Potter (wasn't able to complete this as well) and a whole lot more!

But, this week, I'm gonna feature ♥INKHEART ♥ with Brendan Fraser on the lead role... I wasn't able to watch this movie yet but I have a book written by Cornelia Funke (soft bound,quite thick)... this is more on more on fantasy adventure movie. But mind you, it's a very interesting story, somehow scared me a bit... I just do hope, the movie speaks well for the novel. Here's the synopsis:

Author Cornelia Funke's best-selling children's novel comes to vivid life on the big screen with this family-friendly tale about a bookbinder whose storytelling skills possess the curious power to transport the characters he speaks about into the real world. When a nefarious villain from a bedtime story that the father is currently reading to his daughter emerges to kidnap the stunned storyteller, it's up to the young girl and her adventurous friends -- both real and imaginary -- to bring dad back home and close the book on the dreaded fiend once and for all.

My merely watching its trailer, I guess this is promising....


See for yourself and explore your imagination.... Consider this on your list!
God bless....
Parental Guidance is highly encouraged ☺