JR's For the Sake of Humanity: Take Action and Unite!

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2011 is a year of new heights and discoveries. For the first time in JR's life, JR is joining this International Schools Cyberfair.... But in JR Late Night Blogs, it is now the time for another Slow Jam The News ;)

Slow Jam Topic: JR's Philippine and International Schools Cyberfair Experience

Unforgettable Moment #1:

THE CHANCE TO CHOOSE A TOPIC

Having been agreed upon by our class that we will join the Cyberfair competition, it is a must to think our category and a topic for that category. During that particular day, me and my groupmates were really thinking so hard on what we should be taking as our topic. But in just a matter of 1 minute, we already fastened our seatbelts and grabbed the Historical Landmarks category. (By the way, the reason for our fast deciding, it is because the categories for grabs are on a first grab all yours agreement.) The hard part was our deciding for the topic. At first, we chose Burnham Park as our topic since lurking in our minds is our sweet and memorable memories with this particular place. Upon submission of this topic, our teacher said "No, think of another topic." So, again we taught of another topic. And with God's guidance, another topic brought upon our minds; that was Session Road. The mother road of all the roads in our city. The road with a lot of stories to tell. The road where we always pass through in order to reach specific places. But, again, upon our submission of this topic, "pughsk", declined again. The third topic we taught about was the Loakan Road for it was really a scary place which might also have a very colorful history. However, we were faced with this particular question, "What if sir would decline for the third time with our topic?". So, our group just decided on a place where we had some memorable memories, a place where its has a lot of stories to tell, and a place where people are scared to go. And, voila, we had Diplomat Hotel as our topic.

Unforgettable Moment #2:

FACING OUR GROUPMATES FROM ANOTHER CLASS

After that gruesome topic thinking, we were given the chance to meet our groupmates when the lunch break began. Our voices was heard by God when our groupmates are the people whom we really want to be grouped with in that particular other class. We were very lucky to have groupmates which we believe are trustworthy, hardworking, and resourceful. Oh, we really leaped up high to the sky upon knowing this.

Unforgettable Moment #3:

THE WEBSITE DESIGNING

Woah, this was our first task on putting up our entry, the website design. Our group (3Science) and their group (3A) were given task to make our individual site designs and collate them up in our free period. The design we planned for our website was based from the WWE website which comprised of the logo, a simple menu bar with drop-down boxes upon mouse pointing at it, a special sidebar on related websites with our topic, a picture and video slideshow at the middle, links to our interviews, trivias about our topic in a small box, a simple login with Yahoo Google and Facebook, a box on the link of our blogs, and finally a project narrative view below it. (Well, it is hard to imagine it but I will try to put up an image here in my blog if ever I have time :) ). Our groupmates from the other section planned on having a plain and simple site with a simple logo, a menu list beside it, a menu bar below it, and the text below that bar. The funny thing here is that we only agreed on one thing to place first in our site, the loading / progress time of our site that will be shown upon opening our site.

Unforgettable Moment #4:

OUR FIRST VISIT TO DIPLOMAT HOTEL

Diplomat Hotel is still as creepy and scary as it had been several years had past. It was I think my second time to go there when we are doing our Cyberfair project. Me, with Aidan, Errol, Micah, Vince, Bianca, Ever, Justin, Marion, and Trevor came to the place of our topic itself. Now, it was our time to face the real thing. We first talked about we should do before we enter that place. First, we should never touch anything around the place especially those areas which are weird and mischievous. Second, we should never curse as it may disturb specific spirits lurking within that place. Third, we should take caution on every place we go to and take into consideration our individual safety. Finally, we should go in two's or three's to avoid unavoidable circumstances. Wow, that was a lot of mentioning. But mind you, it was really fun and exciting lurking within the ruins. We pictured Diplomat Hotel a lot especially its external structure and its garden. After this event, we gone home safely and untroubled even though we kind of violated some superstitutions with regards to that place.

Unforgettable Moment #5:

PROJECT NARRATIVE

In just one week, we were required to finish our Project Narrative. It was really hard to do it since we were literally required to at least write essays for each question with regards to our project narrative. The requirement of the main competition was a minimum of 300 words per question. But our teacher's challenge, at least 200 words per question. That was very hard especially for us students as it was to challenge our knowledge with grammar and idea. Aidan and I worked hard for the project narrative. I would do half of it while he was to do half of it. It took us about 4 hours to finish it (from 8PM to 12MN). I was very happy that at least we finished it.

Unforgettable Moment #6:

VIDEO SHOOTING

Video Shooting of our Project Narrative is, what I think, as the hardest task to accomplish in our Cyberfair entry. Basing from our teachers description of the video shooting of the previous contestants of our school, they were the first ever entry in the International Cyberfair Competition that used a video for their project narrative. It was given as a challenge to us which we should accomplish under 2 days ONLY. Therefore, we decided to ask our teacher if we can take the video outside the school instead as it would become better with relation to the background and surroundings. We specifically choose that of Diplomat Hotel since it was the topic of our Cyberfair entry and it is our desired Historical Landmark. We distributed the work on making the video. The Project Overview Video would be done by me as well as two of my classmates, while the Project Elements Video would be done by the other six of our groupmates. This was truly a fun activity since we really were tested to act accordingly and to speak fluently. The funny thing was it will take us at least six to seven shots before we can get the perfect video because sometimes we tend to laugh uncontrollably. We only had two cameras and four hours of battery usage so we really have to work double the effort and seriously. We plan to collate all of our videos by the Saturday of this week.

Unforgettable Moment #7:

RESEARCHING

Researching is truly the challenge of time, truth, and reality. With the limited amount of time, with the searching for the truth, with the different problems in reality, researching was the hardest part of our site making. Even though it was kind of tiring, going to the Public Library and our school's archives, we really had fun searching for relative books that we can use for our background of information. Also, in addition with researching for related information, history and data about our topic, we also researched for some personal articles, blogs, or journal entries which included our topic - Diplomat Hotel. Fortunately, we discovered three blogs which has an individual story regarding their experiences at Diplomat Hotel. Some are somewhat scary while others are just merely their opinions on what Diplomat Hotel is all about. Also, we discovered a video footage of a ghost hunting done in Diplomat Hotel by the Ghost Hunters International (http://www.syfy.com/ghosthuntersinternational/). It was really awesome because our topic is very well known by foreign individuals as well. Me and my groupmates were very happy to discover such a remarkable foreign video coverage of our topic. Thanks to Ghost  Hunters International, Thanks to YouTube, Thanks to the Baguio Public Library, and Thanks to the Archives of Saint Louis University.

Here is the part 2 of the GHI Video Footage of Diplomat Hotel:



Check out the Youtube Page of eraposadas to see the full footage of the ghost hunting of The Ghost Hunters International in Baguio: http://www.youtube.com/user/eraposadas

Unforgettable Moment #8:

FINAL TOUCHES

Days are dying too fast because there was about four days before the deadline of our project submission. We should already be doing our final touches with our site, but voila, we are still starting up some basics for our site specifically that of our the project narrative, bibliography, historical background, and stories of mystery. It was really a teamwork and at the same time an individual work since we all worked individually with the coding but as we submit and submit our ideas to our site it becomes a team project. Well, for you to understand it better, we work individually but we set up our ideas in our site as a group. I worked on the Flash part of our website (which includes the Header, About Us, and Index Page). One of my groupmates worked on the Videos for our site (specifically that of the Project Narrative, Introduction and About Us). Two of my groupmates worked on the Images part wherein they edited and uploaded the images that we used in our site. And one of my groupmates worked on the Javascript part. We all worked together as it was really a rush hour before the Cyberfair Competition will commence.

Unforgettable Moment #9:

THE SITE ITSELF

On February 27, we received our official .info site. In our case, our site is http://historyonahill.info. Thanks to Sir Vincent Tabor since we don't need to pay anymore fees to the web host. We really are proud of our site since it was really a unique one. Our group helped each other. Our friends supported our activities. Our teacher supplemented our ideas. The site is composed of the following:

THE ENGLISH PAGE:
Home
Project Narrative
Historical Background
The Gallery
Stories of Mystery
About Us
Bibliography

THE FILIPINO PAGE:

Home

Salaysay ng Proyekto

Ang Nakatagong Kasaysayan

Ang Galerya

Mga Kwento ng Misteryo

Tungkol Sa Amin

Biblyograpya

Click on the links to discover our site.

Unforgettable Moment #10:

OUR SUBMISSION

At least, at exactly 08 March 2011, our teacher submitted our official and final Cyberfair entry. This was really the time we celebrated as it was really the end of hardwork, the end of necessary requirements, and the end of sleepless nights. It is now the start for our wait before the official results of the winners of Cyberfair Philippines 2011. I hope that we win as well as our classmates who also submitted an official entry to the Cyberfair. (Cyberfair Philippines Official Website: http://www.cyberfair.ph/)

WHAT I LEARNED?
Cyberfair 2011 is a first time in my life; from the start of the category choosing to the final submission of our Cyberfair entry, it marked the start of a brand new beginning as we start to explore new things in the internet. The internet is a world of a lot of things - experimenting, discovering, and speaking up. The Internet is a world of experimenting. It is were we try new things and activities that are online and not much physical. The internet is a place of gaming, coding, editing, and watching. It is were we do things that are new to us. It is where we do stuff that are new to our individual world (life). The Internet is a world of discovering. It is where we learn new things. Wikipedia, Yahoo, Google, etc. - These are some of the sites made for the distribution of information and news. The Internet is our own personal teacher, it is our second choice of school and it is a place of discovery. The Internet is a world of speaking up. Opinions are already scattered in the internet world. Many personalities give their point of view in this technology. The Internet's newest features help us to speak up our heart, mind, and soul. It is where other people realize somethings that are not really in their own principles. Cyberfair 2011 did not just taught us about balancing our time, effort, and money; but it also taught us on using the Internet in its intended purpose.


Cyberfair 2011 taught us to use the internet in a new way which is through experimenting, discovering, and speaking up. The Internet is made for one purpose and that is to have a fast and improved living. It is not just a technology of storing but it is a technology teaching proper etiquette in this world.

-- JR Late Night Slow Jam The News

16 February 2011