Every Monday, I’m at school an hour and a half earlier before my actual class starts at 2:30 PM. The reason? well, I have DebSoc training that day and even so during Wednesday and often times at Friday. It’s starts at 1 to 2:30 in the afternoon.

    The art of debating is really hard to master, especially if you’re relatively new to it, having been exposed to it once when I was in the 5th Grade (and that was like 5 years ago). So debating is something that, for me, is challenging, and I wanna try it.

    My course is not really related to debate since the common belief was if you’re a member of the intelligent elite, and if your course are like Tourism, CDA, BusAdmin, etc.  It’s not usually the case. Debate is open to all, reagrdless of any course or intelligence level, as long as your are openly aware of the things around you.

    I chose CSB DebSoc because I wanna try a new thing. During the STAR Week, there wasn’t much interesting orgs with interesting things to offer. I only chose two, MediaMax and DebSoc. Of course I wanna try MediaMax’ sister orgs like Kino Eye and Optic View but MediaMax is a mixed of these two orgs so I felt it unnecessary to do.

    I came to know initially some of the senior members of the org, Phil the team captain, Ate Che and Nat,  and a guy I can’t real the name. Well, they are of course full 0of experience, being representing the college in countless tourneys from here and abroad. At first, I was rlatively shy to talk to them with comfort but nowadays, I’m  getting a bit comfortable with them lalo pa’t madalas na ang pagkikita namin kaya nagkakilanlan na.

DebSoc training is very rigid if not difficult. Since DebSoc is also a varsity team, we have training on sereavl times of the week with Saturday, the org devotes half of the day nosebleeding with their debating skills (for the senior members I think).

    Debating is not really hard to do, the hard part is when you get to apply what you’ve learn from it on an actual debate. I for instance have some knowledge on one of the previous notion given to us frosh recruits during oe of our early trainings, Globalization. if you know how to speak for and against it with the structure of your speech intact you can go a long way. Althoug I do have my limitations.

    There was one time that I have absolutely no clue on this particular notion given and the worse is that I have o speak against it. Problem is how to defend my stance against that notion but at the end, I failed to do so. One problem also is that my tongue’s getting dry as I go on with my speech. That only happens if I don’t know what say next and I have to think about it witoutwasting the 7-minute limit given to us by our superiors.

    Thanks to Che and Nat, I can somehow manage what I should do and what I must do. I really have to improve my debate deficiencies, plust my speech problem wherein I start strong but get weaker as I go on and my skills to rebutt, argue, and clash against the side of the opposing team (govt or opposition). I need so now with the impending of my first tourney this Friday the 20th, the annual CSB Open whererin me and the rest of the frosh recruits are gonna battle our guts our with the neophyte members of DLSU-Manila DebSoc.  So in preprartion for it, I’m gonna train with the rest of the varsity this Tuesday from 6-9 in the evening.

So I wish myself and from you the best of luck for me.  :):):)

An encore ensemble of the proud people of DV1.

An edited video made by Jerico Bonzon

Labanan ng mga debsoc froshes ng La Salle at Benilde. Sino ang magwawagi?

here it is!

The newly-awaited debut on multiply has finally arrived!

Walang iwanan, siguradong tiyak na maasahan!

    It is very much surprising that for being in benilde for only more than 5 weeks, I have already made myself busier with 2 orgs and a CoP commission plus being president of a block section. Now I’m gearing up on the possibilty on adding two more ocupations under my belt!

    During the Frosh Orientation, I have encountered Mediamax, an student organization for whcih they give its mebers training session, hold special events, and the like. Likewise, it is sort of a big advantage for me since I’m majoring Multimedia Arts, my course in CSB. The reason for it is that in time for my majors in my later years, I’d be able to be well-familiarized with the software programs like Photoshop and Dreamweaver. Sort of like a big pre-major prepartion kind of thing. They don’t have,as far as I know, regular training sessions for all members but consultation are available on the SIU office (at the MMX cubicle that is), the block sections have their assigned gurus so that these gurus can help their assigned members on different things.

    Next is the CSB DebSoc or Debate Society. the org is divided into two, one is the org itself with set of officers and members, the other is the DebSoc varsity wherein they represent the college in various events in and outside the country. The varisty can pick any member of the org to its roster of debatees but of course they have to train their members on the field of debating. I’m currently “enrolled” on a Monday training period of 1:00-2:30 in the afternon just before my class in Filip11 would start. Once I’ve settled my schedule in Benilde, I could ad another day of training for me to catch ahead. The org itself is the varisty although the org selects members to represent the org itself and the school.

    Now being block president is not what I call an easy job. Add to the fact that there wasn’t a class election to select our president and instead have my blockmate Ferdz Lanusa say my name that made me president of the class. back in as early as high school, I have run for several political position in the classroom level but I didn’t aspire to become a president of a class. Now, I have this moral obligatio to control the behavior of my blockmates from further chaos and mayhem than it is now. It’s driving me nuts like crazy and be able to remind them on important stuff like homework, projects and the like!

    The good side on being president is that I’m automatically a member of CSB’s Council of Presidents, on their “Block Commission” for which we recently elected the block presindet of DV2 as our block commision chairperson. We discuss things on the block level but so far we don’t have any meetings as of yet. The block commission of CoP is expected to exist around the time that our block sections for the first term (or possibly until the second term) are abolished/dissolved.

Now for the possibilities:

    I’m planning on continuing my quest of joining the official school publication, moving my sights from SJA’s VOX to CSB’s Press Corps. this time, I applied for a position on literay writing. I have existing literary pieces (short stories, poems and personal narratives) for which I previously passed them as my entries for Palatak, a collection of literary works of the students of SJA (parang Literture Delight dati nung Grade 5 ako), which as of now I’ms till clueles as to when will it be available to us almunis of Batch 07. In case, my entries (plus 2 new pieces I made last week) went through the Literary editor of the Press Corps without a hitch, I’d be getting acall from them saying that I need to do a literary exam to rpove that i’m worthy to become a literary writer for the press corps. If ever I made it to the Press Corps, expect me to be all aorund super busy.

    Add to that si my intention on joining Benilde’s Taekwondo varsity team. Although my coach back St. James allowed me to continue on training in malabon, i don’t think it would be right for me to continue on since my team in SJA would represent the school on PTA events. I’m no,onger a sudent there so that would’nt be too fitting. According to the coach of the varsity, they have (like the varsity in La Salle Manila) trainings from 6:30 to 9 in the morning (M-W-F) at the La Salle Sports Complex (and the Bro. Andrew Gonzales Building of DLSU) in La Salle U. It’s a kind of good and bad thing for me. For the plus side, they start just before I have regular classes at 2:30 (Mondays), 9:20 (Wednesdays), and 10:30 (Fridays). the minus side of it is that I have to sacrifice waking up late on these three days to go to training, worse, waking up as early as 4:00 to gte in school before 6;30. For me to do that, I need to live in a dormitory but that’s plain exaggeartion and totally out of the question.

One I’m not so sure of, but the other depends on my decision to go on with pursuing it.

I have to make a choice, be busy or be no busy.

    It’s been already 4 weeks since I have become officially a Lasalista, este, a Benildean (in Tagalog, it’s Benildano), but now I think the way I speak is getting pretty affected with the so-caled  “Lasalista” accent.

    At home, I unknowingly speak English more often especially during dinnertime where the whole Habitan household would gather (plus on family outings). I can;t really help although I still speak as much tagalog as then. Even so, me spekaing English is beginning to scare me.

    There was this time when we are having dinner that I began to speak Coño English, the most disgusting that I would have say is “Well, they make turo on the subject eh. We can’t do anything tungkol that…” but thank good ness I don’t. Just the extent that I make ideolectic terms when speaking in English. Good thing that my mom is a UP graduate so she knows how I’m experiencing (that’s why I call this series THE CSB EXPERIENCE right?).

More often than not, in class, I have the tendency to speak English more often when reciting than Filipino. I’mo not really sure if there is a provision in CSB where English is used as the medium but like I said, I can’t help it. Many of my blockamtes are from well-off families and they have English as a first language (this is the very subject that I used for my high school thesis).

    If my environment is very different to the one I’m used to, I have no choice but to be adapted to it in order to survive. And that is the exact thing that happend to me.

    I don’t find it wrong, it’s just that it’s very disturbing. Orally disturbing I mean since I don’t find it a problem if I my written English is what I’m more used to thsan my written Filipino (I can even type English fatser than Filipino which is, for my part, surprising, at an almost zero-misspelling probablity). On orgs where I’m at, English is the first language so just like what I’ve siad, I have to adapt.

What am I gonna experience next?

The best among the best