Dear Readers,

“As we go on, we’ll remember, all the times we, spent together…As our lives change, come whatever…We will still be, friends forever…” Graduation by Vitamin C.

This will officially be my last blog post ever on the NCC website. It has been great writing and recording my time at NCC and sharing with you through this channel. Thank you so much for all your support and readership all along.

This past Saturday was NCC Class of 2010′s commencement.I graduated Magna cum Laude and a proud member of two honor societies, Omnicron Delta Epsilon and Mu Kappa Tau. The ceremony was held at the ResRec center due to the weather and it lasted about 2 hrs. It was a simple commencement that concluded our years at NCC. The pride, joy and relief on parents’ and graduates’ face were apparent. Our diplomas were conferred as we fist bumped our college president, Harold Wilde- he injured his right hand, therefore the gentle fist bump. Our class will probably be the first and last in history bumping fist instead of shaking hands with the college president. What a moment to remember!

In a way, I’m glad I won’t have to think about homework, assignment and tests or exams for a while, until the time comes when I go back to get my Masters. However, at the back of my mind, I knew I’ll be reminiscing every moment I’ve spent at NCC. The good memories, I shall replay them again and again in my head. The bad ones, I’ll think about it every now and then and laugh about it.

As I embark on a new journey of my life and close this chapter at NCC, I will take with me the lessons I’ve learned and discoveries I’ve made about myself, people around me and life in general and pray that it will take me further and give me strength that I’ll need as I proceed with other episodes of my life. I would like to give special thanks to all my Professors who’ve helped and guided me all along, the staff members at NCC who were always friendly to me and most of all, Office of Admission, a place that felt so much like home for me.

Me, Priscilla, Caroline and Rachel on the last Wednesday of Spring 10′

THE END.

Dear Readers,

Last Tuesday was Honors Day. I was officially inducted into Omnicron Delta Epsilon, an Economic Honor Society. My work-mom, Kathy, came to the event with me. It was nice to see all the smiles and pride reflected on parents’ faces and in my case, my work-mom’s face. Our Finance and Economic professors took turns to hand out the cords and made brief speeches and congratulated us. Overall, it was a very simple celebratory ceremony. I’ve gotta say this though, if I could hand out an award, I’d award Dr. Anstine with the best dress award- If you know her, you’ll know she’s usually pretty laid back and casual.

Work-mom and Me!

I toured a group of high school sophomores and juniors yesterday. The weather was great, a little on the warmer side but the students were very engaging and had some really good questions. I’m always impressed when I hear about youngsters who plan ahead and want to get a head start on important things like planning for their future or planning for college specifically. So kudos to you girls if you are reading my blog!

Moving on, it’s a little less than two weeks and I’ll be done DONE with my undergrad college career. It’s absolutely nerve-wrecking. Speaking of graduation, I have recently developed a ‘passion’ for stocking up NCC spiritwear. I’ve been spending quite a bit on our college gear and the result is…a big HOLE in my pocket. Oh well, who knows when I’ll be stepping into the bookstore again once I graduate. LOL. Yup, definitely trying to make myself feel better.

Well, thats all for now. I’ll write to you soon again! Keep checking! I’m only gonna be ‘around’ on the blog site this much longer.

Dear Readers,

Wonder what I’ve been up to lately that I haven’t been filling you in as often lately? Well, I’ve been busy being sick. =’[ I waited a week before going to the doctor at our Wellness Center at NCC so I’ve myself to blame for the prolonged illness. Anyways, they gave me some medicine and all that. I’m mostly well now except that I still have a deathly dry cough. It’s keeping me up at night and I absolutely do not like that!

Apart from that, few weeks ago, I participated in Relay for Life. It was a fun-filled night to commemorate people who have died of cancer and celebrate those that survived the battle. My friends and I formed a team and raised the third most donation amongst the team here at NCC and won the bronze title!!! Woohooooo!!!!

For most part of the night, my team and I walked, although only one person per team was required to walk on the tracks at any point of time. We, of course, snacked all night long too. In a way, I was accumulating more fat than I was burning them but oh well, food keeps me awake. =D Around 9p.m was the Illuminari segment, a time where we offer laps of silence to remember loved ones and people who have left us due to cancer and celebrate the ones who fought and survived. The most touching part was when Megan Rowe, a freshman at North Central College gave her speech on how battling cancer changed her life forever. I could see tears trailing off people’s cheeks as we gasps and listen in awe to this amazingly courageous young women standing before us.

Graduation is less than a month away. I picked up my cap and gown several weeks ago. It was the weirdest feeling ever. It’s like it’s all coming to an end. And all kinds of emotions are just piling up, waiting to be unleashed on graduation day. Graduation dress-shopping is such a chore. I have a concept of what I want but because of a limited budget, there’s only so many places that I can go looking for a dress. I hope to find something that I absolutely love!

It is Week 4 at NCC. 6 and a half more weeks to go after this week, and it will be graduation. WOW… It’s crazy. I can only remember when I was a freshman, I wanted so much to graduate early or just fast-forward to the future and be a graduate. Now, I just want to go back and live my college years more than I have ever lived. I know I’ll miss it.

That aside, job hunting is as tough as it can be. I’ve had a couple of interviews here and there so please please please keep me in your prayers and pray that I find job soon. A job that would jumpstart my career goals. Unemployment rate is reportedly steady at 9.7% so let’s hope that it stays that way and probably improve from there.

I stress this all the time and I can’t stress this enough. Start early:

(a) If you went in to college undecided, talk to professors, talk to your relatives, talk to various people from all kinds of industries and walks of life. Find out what your passion really lies. Take a free online career test to help you find a direction. Shadow individuals at workplaces and see if you like what they do- one of the perks for being a student.

(b) Once decided, even if you’ve never worked in your life up till now, go to the career development center and start looking for internship opportunities. I, for one, regretted starting late. If I could change one thing, I would have changed how I approached these opportunities that were waving at me all through my sophomore/junior years in college.

Starting early can never harm you in building your career after graduation. I am speaking as a soon-to-be college graduate during one of the worst economies in the last few decades, so take my word for that.

John Michael Montgomery sings, ‘Life’s a dance, you learn as you go, sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow. Don’t worry about what you don’t know. Life’s a dance, you learn as you go…’

These words are so simple yet so profound. I had an awful week last week. And this song helped to make it better =)

Have a good one everyone! Till then…

It’s Spring Break at North Central College!!! It was long due and much awaited. Although I’m really not doing much apart from working, it’s been relaxing. Not having to think about homework, assignments or tests, that’s grand!

I toured a high school sophomore while at work today. Many would think that checking out colleges while still a sophomore in high school might seem a little too early. Perhaps that’s true for the most part but not for this particular high school sophomore.

You know how sometimes you just want something so bad but as much as you tried, things just don’t work out. I guess that’s just part of life in general. But for wanting to obtain higher education, I feel like everyone should receive some kind of help. More often than you think, there are more doors open and more opportunities out there than just the traditional scholarship, grants and loans. Sources from sites such as fastweb.com and inroads.org are some really great avenues where you can potentially receive either small sums of money for all sorts of competition/talent (fastweb.com) and internship opportunities during the summer (inroads.org). You just have to be aggressive about it if you want it so bad.

This girl showed me that she wanted it. She wanted education  and I was impressed by her determination. Hurdles, brickwall, road bumps. Everyone’s bound to face one of these at some point of their lives and all you need is a little push from your friends, family or even a stranger like me. I wished only for everyone who wants something so bad, especially a chance to be educated, to get what they want.

So there, that’s my once-in-a-while rant about life. LOL.

Spring break actually started last Wednesday right after my final exams for winter term. On the same day, it was St. Patrick’s Day. My friends and I, all nine of us were proudly dressed in our green shirts and we walked around downtown Naperville before heading to dinner at Chipotle. It was such a fun time but sad at the same time because three of my friends graduated early and therefore will not be around during Spring term. I’m definitely gonna miss them very much =’[

A friend of mine Ashtin came to visit few weeks ago. It has been too long since we last spoke or met in person. Although I only got to see her for a little bit, I enjoyed every minute of it.

Ashtin and Me

Despite my crazy schedule on Saturday, I went to the musical, ‘Tell Me Truly’ with a couple of my friends. Being the over-enthust audience I’ve always been, my friends and I, of course, took the front row seat. So the show came on, we were enjoying it so much, so engrossed in it, until the funeral scene. My heart sank. Tears started rolling down my cheeks. Embarrassed about it, i tried to keep it down so that no one will know that I was balling my eyes out. But guess what? All my other friends in the front row seat were balling their eyes out just like me! Then we started chuckling and elbowing each other a little bit, trying to get over how heart-wrenching the funeral scene was. Overall, it was the best musical I’ve been to this year. I love all the songs- all written and composed by the cast members themselves. Had I been in the music business, I’d offered them a contract there and then! No joke!

Sometimes I wished I was in the theatre program too. I remember how I used to love dancing and singing in front of the mirror when I was little. Of course, what you want to do doesn’t always come to terms with what you can and know how to do. But hey, it could always be my secret hobby/passion right right?

It’s Week 7 at North Central College. Where did the time go???!!!! I had a friend who used to go to North Central come visit this past weekend. Things have changed so much I could hardly recognize her anymore. It’s been two years since I last saw her and I loved how we could still reminisce the times we spent in Rall Hall, staying up late, waking up our not-so-friendly roommates and getting into all kinds of mischiefs.. Ahh.. im getting old…

Alright… its slumber time for me. I promised pictures of the crafts im gonna make for Relay for Life. I’ll definitely have it up on my next post. Till then, keep checking in!

Peace!

Dear Readers,

It’s been a while since I last blogged. I wasn’t particularly busy with school, yet I was kept occupied with everything else that’s going on around me.

My professor for Econometrics (Economy-tricks), Diane Anstine has the best humor that I’ve seen in an Economics professor in a while. She gets excited over different parts of the courses and you can just see her glowing in excitement and hoping that we feel the same. Fact is, when she turns around and look at us, she probably saw more confused looks than excited expressions.And she cracks a smile. Personally, I just love individuals who are passionate in what they do and that’s what Dr. Anstine displays.

Relay for Life is a little more than two months away. My goal is to reach the goal of $150 and probably a little bit more. My plan is to make some crafts and sell it to staff, faculty and friends.  Names of these people who bought the item or donated to Relay for Life will be posted on my blog as my way of saying ‘thanks’.I will be putting up pictures of the crafts in my next blog so keep checking back with me. If you’re interested, I might be able to take your order!

I would like to end this blog with a surprise! Click on the link!

I wish you all a good weekend!!!

I was tossing and turning for a couple of hours and before I knew it, I had fallen into a deep sleep. I woke up in a daze and could not for the live of me move any part of my body except for my head. I was paralyzed neck-down! My eyesight was still blur and couldn’t figure out the silhouettes that are slowly moving into my room. Without any warning the light was turned on. It was brighter than I could ever remember. It took a while for my eyes to get use to it and I realized who these people were- Eleanor Roosevelt, Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Martin Luther King Jr and so many more strangers that I can’t name. WHAT ARE THEY DOING IN MY ROOM??!! WHAT is going ON??!! Then came Amelia Earhart slowly resting her hands on my shoulder asking me if I WAS OK!! I tried to respond, to speak, something that should come naturally for me. But I couldn’t, not even a shriek. My voicebox somehow broke down like the rest of my body parts. I started to panic and sweat profusely. The bell rang, people in my room vanished one by one. All of a sudden, all the energy I had attempted to use to get up from my bed earlier got jumpstarted. I half sprung up on my bed and sat for a few seconds examining my surroundings. My alarm clock was still happily singing on my desk as I gave it a relieved yet forceful pat to turn it off. It was 8.00am on a Monday morning over D-term at North Central College. I was taking a Leadership, Values and Ethics class and the above mentioned people were discussed in the books, except for Amelia Earhart. I saw the movie over the weekend and was greatly inspired by her story. One of those dreams where what you read, see and think about haunts you in your subconscious mind.

Apart from taking a class and being haunted by it over D-term, I pretty much worked during my spare time and hung out with some friends. For me, the most interesting activity organized by the school over D-term was the trip to the Blue Man’s Group! We, the students only paid one-sixth of the ticket price and we had second and third row seats!!! The performance was awesome and I would go again in a heartbeat. There were other activities including open gym volleyball, basketball, flag football, trip to the Bull’s game, ice skating and many many more. I was really impressed with NCC’s D-term agenda this year- the variety, the affordability and accessibility.

Enough about last year. It’s brand new 2010!!! My new year’s resolution is to get closer to people I love- to understand, to share, to have fun and simply create memories. I never feel like I have enough time to do anything, to tell people how important they are to me or show that I really care. I hope I’ll learn to do all that better this year. I wanna take this opportunity to wish you all the best no matter what your new year’s resolution might be.

Give

Remember I mentioned that I was the VP of Communications for American Marketing Association (AMA) at NCC? Oh c’mon, I know you REMEMBER right right right? Oh well, we had our last meeting of the term today. For the rest of the school year, we will be having a ‘Clothes and Food’ drive as part of our community service. So at today’s meeting, we decorated boxes and divided them up to be allocatedat all the dorm rooms on campus.

Take

The one thing I always take away from activities like this is a sense of satisfaction and pride almost. We were in classroom Goldspohn 30, nothing fancy, but everyone had such beautiful and sincere smiles on their faces while we were decorating the boxes. To be honest, I’ve never seen all of us so united, at least not with a smiling face~ lol. I felt good being around a group of people who honestly and innocently care for those who are less fortunate.

One more take on a personal level is that, I believe everyone cares, to a certain extent. But they give excuses such as, ‘I don’t have the time’, ‘Who’s gonna help me?’, ‘How would I know if I’m helping the right person/people’, ecetera… Perhaps our views on charity and serving the community have been fogged up by scams of big, so-called non-profit organization that did not put their gathered resources to appropriate use- *clear throat*. Perhaps all of these and bigger problems in our lives have made us lose faith in the good of humanity. But if we all contribute in some small ways, it would definitely make the world so much better, much less complex. That’s just me saying. =)

Me, Ashley and Liz rocking our PJs!

Dear Readers,

We’re going into Week 7 here at North Central College. WOW! Time flies!!!

Week 5 was Homecoming Weekend and hereby I would like to congratulate our new Homecoming King and Queen, Nico Nepomuceno and Antonia Jankowski!!!

This term, classes are more challenging than I had expected. Seems that my method of studying for one of my classes is not working out at all. And I’m still trying to figure out what went wrong- No, I did not procrastinate. I’ll definitely have to meet up with my professor and seek his advice. That’s definitely something that our professors here at NCC strive to do. They have office hours where students can come and meet with them without making an appointment, and students can also schedule appointments out of those office hours.

Enough on that, I recently found out something about the Lederman Scholars Program where top-high school students around the area can earn college credits while still in high school. To me, this seems like a golden opportunity for students who are ambitious and wish to graduate early from college. I know I would have jumped to it had this opportunity came up when I was still in high school!

I was not feeling well on Halloween and did not get the chance to really enjoy it. However, my friend had a costume party and I dressed up as  a football player! Did you do something fun or outrageous? I hope you had a great Halloween celebration regardless!

That’s all for now peeps! See you next week!