Tag: June 3, 2004

A COLLEGE of Education (CE) senior placed first in a national public speaking contest at the Far Eastern University (FEU) last Jan 28.

Claude Despabiladeras, a fourth-year English major student, took the top spot in the oratorical category during “The 1st Dr. Nicanor Reyes Challenge,” an inter-school public speaking contest sponsored by the FEU Oratorical Debate Council, in line with the university’s 75th founding anniversary.

The category was based on the theme “Resolving the Dehumanization of the Common Academic Mission Today.”

IN AN extraordinary political move, the University urged the Philippine electorate to vote conscientiously, bind candidates to their word and choose those who would uphold solidarity with the poor and the socially weak.

The exhortation, in which the University urged the people to work for truthful elections, was released in a one-page advertisement placed by UST in three major national dailies. A Filipino version of the statement originally written in English, also appeared as a one-page advertisement in tabloids.

WHEN I was a kid, my family would usually go for summer vacations and recharge on the beach. One time, my brother and I gazed at a distant lifebuoy and wondered how far we could get from the shore to reach the it. At first we were hesitant and scared to swim because the water was too deep and the lifebuoy seemed too far, but we took the dive and swam toward it.

MY FAVORITE writers, Josie Gellar (Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed) and Jerusha Abbott (Jean Webster’s Daddy Long Legs), agree that a writer is most convincing when she writes about something she knows.

This article is nothing but about what I know—at this moment. Thinking that this could be my last article for a publication makes the nerves on my hand conquer my thoughts. It seems to me that years of scribbling so much and so hard has been encapsulated in this one-shot “this-is-my-moment” column.

Change is the only permanent thing in this world.

I thought the column I wrote last issue would be my first and last. But it was an awful buzzer beater that paved the way for this overtime. I forgot that in this world, there is this something we call a “second chance”. Everyone gets another shot.

***

Days dwindle fast. I am getting sentimental each passing moment here in the office as I layout the final Sports page I have to do for the paper.

LORD, it has been five years since I walked the hallowed grounds of your dear Catholic institution called UST. I was hesitant about entering the gold-and-white walls back then. Everything was bleak for me since I had never really wanted to be here. UST was my last choice.

I felt pathetic then, since I lost the golden chance to become a “man for others” and spend the most important days of my youth in the “hills between the earth and sky…the land where Loyola’s colors fly.”

A ROSARY with the UST seal for every Thomasian.

In response to the Pope’s invitation “to rediscover the path of Christian contemplation,” the UST Center for Campus Ministry (CCM), together with the Public and Alumni Affairs Office and the Institute of Religion, launched “A Rosary for Every Thomasian” at the Santissimo Rosario Parish last March.

ONE OF the country’s youngest children’s book writer and illustrator, Jose Miguel “Jomike” Tejido, is the new host of the television program “Art is Kool.” The UST Architecture student replaces the show’s creator, Robert Alejandro.

Formerly aired over GMA 7, Art is Kool, claims to be the first Philippine Art workshop for children on television.

“It’s a show that makes use of usual everyday household items and turn them into unique, creative, and enjoyable art projects,” Tejido said.

Tim Burton, the visionary behind Ed Wood, Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands, brings us a saga like no other in Big Fish—a buoyant and evocative, hard-to-believe, but easy to embrace story of life, love and whatever else is under the sun.

A BAND which has proven its worth through unique musical styling, Incubus, is back again with the 2004 release of A Crow Left of the Murder and the promise of more melodic instrumentals and captivating lyrics.