Where I Learn is Your Business

Saint Louis University Laboratory High School is where I study and in this particular blog post, I would like to share with you all a very short history and description of my school (Saint Louis University Laboratory High School) and the university it belongs to, (Saint Louis University).

It all started in the year 1911 when a CICM missionary, Rev Fr Séraphin Devesse, opened up a small room so he could teach a couple of young boys. That start was what sparked the development of Saint Louis University. Now, SLU has a college campus with more than just one small room and also, SLU has more than just a couple of young boys as students. Now, thousands of students study in SLU and they’re not just boys, now SLU also has girls studying on its grounds. Now, SLU is about to celebrate its centennial and looking back, it’s really been so far since the start of SLU’s development because the development of SLU is, up to now, ongoing. From a small room to a very large University we can see how fast a developing institution thrives to become excellent and to live up to the title, The Light of the North.

So with all these facts, you can now see that my school started from scratch and now even I am part of it. In every fellowship, group, committee, sisterhood or brotherhood, and the like there must always be a leader who keeps that certain unit together; without that leader, that unit is T-O-A-S-T (Truly Overly And Seriously Toast :). Currently, the leader of the university I belong to is not other than Fr. Jessie M. Hechanova. I am very thankful for him because without him Saint Louis University would be TOAST.

For me, I am currently in the high school department because of the fact that I can’t be accelerated into being a college student because I’m not really that smart. Now each of the departments of Saint Louis University are like branches branching out from a big trunk of a very big tree and for each branch there would be someone who would be holding the pieces together so that he and the leader of the main trunk would work together to make everything work. For the current branch I’m in, the leader is Dr. Joel Cabanilla. I don’t really know that much of the other branches but at least I was able to give you a better understanding of my school.

So for now, enough about the tree talk. Let’s talk about the other things about Saint Louis University.

Every once in a while – whether in elementary, high school, or college –, masses are held to help each and every one of the students to be closer to God and in these masses, our very own parish priests are the ones who celebrate the masses with us which makes me very thankful to them for without them there would be no Christian Spirit in this institution.

In every branch, there are also the teachers and/or professors who are those behind all the excellent students teaching and coaching them for the future. These people are like the muscle and bones that make all the parts of the body move same as through with us, they are the ones who keep the students moving, working, thinking, studying, and doing other things like sports or something. They are there to develop a student’s Creativity and Competence (not one without the other)

So we’ve mentioned the President, the Principal, the Parish Priests, and the teachers. The only thing s left are the… students.

The students are like the blood that flows through the body, without blood – or should I say students – the body can’t live at all. Students are the ones to be trained, to be crafted, to be taught how to be good people for the world and for the community in the future. They are responsible for each other and with each other they learn to be Socially Involved.

So as you can see there are 4 main values that I’ve pinpointed in my previous statements and these are having a Christian Spirit, Creativity, Competence, and being Socially Involved. These four main values are the 4 core values of Saint Louis University. These values are responsible for the honing of not only the student’s attitudes but also that of the faculty and staff’s values and attitudes.

You could probably see that we can’t be what we are without one or the other so I say that we can’t be what we are now without everybody else’s help. As they always say ( I apologize for the cliché) “There’s no ‘I’ in team.”

As expected I’m going to include here my short poem.

School it’s not just about children

That would be just too much of a burden

Everyone is here to help

No one will just sit down and yelp

It’s hard to do things alone

And sometimes we just want to stay at home

But really, we can’t

Then later on we realized that we went

Because in school it’s just like that

We just don’t stay and ask the question what

We stay because there’s the why and why not

And this is what will help us easily untie the “knot”

Image Links:

• http://wpedia.goo.ne.jp/enwiki/Saint_Louis_University,_Baguio_City
• http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/hs624.ash1/27533_130847360269647_9728_n.jpg
• http://www.slu.edu.ph/images/stories/sluimages/frjess.jpg
• http://leafstitchword.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/toasterandtoast.jpg
• http://www.bradfitzpatrick.com/store/images/products/pc046-cartoon-priest-clipart.jpg
• https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhha811Z-2iFTDJcpOjNxd5Muy2XoHk41wLYQ0ytG1wJLgE6KsuRO13f4Ss71Puvo8SUP81nVrLoBmZMbBRVPiKz_dXie09jBzT3y14gzy4TBjti07C1_JpZ127h5Js-VsxOC3tWy8vTT4r/s400/Teacher_Cartoon.jpg
• http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSaTLIMu6nYq3xPKqJBSqqOr_s9hS9zQL9ynaEV0Caz1Vn2vYQ&t=1&usg=__RI-OzqwjrVp9L8aA9rhGs-H8g8k=
• http://comps.fotosearch.com/comp/UNN/UNN396/holy-spirit-christian_~u10620691.jpg
• http://theblissfulsoul.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/2Creativity.jpg
• http://www.gobaguio.com/files/Pictures/slu.jpg
• http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b1/SLUat100.JPG/150px-SLUat100.JPG

Just for You, SLU

I’m just so proud of my school because it will be celebrating its one-hundredth year as an institution of education. Saint Louis University started as a small school teaching the local boys about basic education and about Christian Religion and now it has its own elementary, high school, and college branches. For almost a hundred years, my school has been teaching so many children and young adults about how to be a better person for the community and this will have helped them to have a better future. My school has done so much for all the students who have gone and studied on its grounds. My school has been labeled “The Light of the North” which makes me even more proud of it. My school has helped so many people so as a student of SLU, I am in great debt to it; I must have something to give as a gift to my school, so I could show my appreciation for my school.

Usually we give gifts, and more often than not, I see that gifts are mostly given during a person’s birthday. In this blog’s case, it’s not a person who would be receiving my gift; it’s for someone – or something – else; it’s for my school.  When someone tries to find a gift to give to someone special, it would take hours and hours and HOURS to find the perfect gift for that someone. Now I’m having exactly that problem. I do not know what to give as a gift to my school.

So let’s try to look at my options:

1.       Money? (not so special)

2.       Food? (schools don’t eat)

3.       A corny song? (one; it’s corny, two; it’s not needed cause we already have a school song)

4.       Fist fight? (not such a good idea, plus I can’t pick on someone not my own size[I’m large])

5.       A cat? (there are too much cats in school [and proof is the poop in places] thank you very much)

What a waste of options. Well, I guess the very best thing I could give (not to mention the best I could think of) is a prayer.

A prayer is nice, right? For me, it is just right and it’s not just because I can’t think of anything else but because one; my school is a Christian school, two; the Almighty Being who would be listening to my prayer – I hope – would be pleased, three; my school deserves to be appreciated, four; I would really like to thank my school, and – last but not the least—five; maybe those who would be reading my blog would actually thank my school too. So I guess it’s decided that I’m gonna offer a prayer of thanks for my school as my gift to it. I’m going to TRY MY best to make the best thanksgiving prayer for my school ever!

                So instead of my usual poem, I would be posting in my blog my “gift” for my school for you to read.

Father God who is good and loving,

My school is one that is very giving. I’d really love to see the day it would be celebrating its very own 100^th birthday. So there’re so many things I’d like to say. But for now, Father, I would like to show my thanks for my school.

I would like to thank my school, because it has trained me with all its rules, because it has protected me from being too ignorant, because it has kept me from being part of chaos that’s rampant, because it has given to me the very best and that is knowledge about the world and how to live in it. These things it has given are what I am very lucky to receive. I would also like to thank You, Lord, for my school has given me the privilege of being called a Louisian and being one is no joke.

Father, may most, if not all, know more about what my school does for them and may they also realize that my school really deserves their appreciation. Father, I also thank You for blessing me with the opportunity to be able to study in a private school known as Saint Louis University Laboratory High School.

May You continue to hear me out and may You also continue to guide my school as it will be striving to achieve another hundred years of service to the young people of Northern Luzon so that it may continue to live up to its title, The Light of the North. Amen.

(Fine! So it may not be the best prayer ever but it’s the best prayer I could give)

Home? Which Home?

My School :D

I spend almost 10 hours every day for 5 days in a week (that makes, more or less, 250 hours a month for 9 months every year) in the same building, same room. This year I am now studying in a classroom called 3 Mapagpakumbaba containing 19 students. I have 11 teachers; each having a subject to teach us and every day we have 2 breaks (one for recess [20 minutes] and one for lunch [an hour]). The 30 people I meet every day were the ones I met the day before today and the day before that. So if you think, “Hmm, I’m thinking that you’re talking about your home, with students and teachers and subjects” you’d be so wrong.

You’re probably wondering why the heck I’m doing all this Math here. You’re probably not minding my blog title and still wondering why I’m doing my Math. Well, I’m doing my Math because I’m trying to give you a better understanding on the school I am currently studying in. My school, Saint Louis University Laboratory High School, is where I study, where I learn.

School, school, school. It’s always that and sometimes, almost always, we just wish that it would be vacation already; however, with all the hours we spend every day with our classmates and teachers, we can’t help but find more reasons to go to school aside from just to get a good education. In time, we get closer to everybody, we form bonds and links that – after time passes – will be harder to break. We are relational beings who, in a way, easily connect with our fellow beings. School’s where we find friends and new family, aside from the one we already have at home.

In school, we get to discover things. Especially in this school, there are many great things that are learned and are put into our minds that would eventually stay in our heart for the rest of our short lives. We find lots of reasons for getting out of bed and taking a cold shower and eat cold food and everything else that’s cold and those reasons aren’t just about learning things. We can call our school our other home.

When I was young, I was always taught that a home is a house but is different from a house because there are people living in it that love each other. To be more technical let’s take a definition from the internet. A home according to thefreedictionary.com (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/home), a home is a dwelling place together with the family or social unit that occupies it. A school is a place where we dwell with social units occupying a room called a classroom, so technically a school is a home.

I consider my school as my other home because right now in my current stage of development, I hate being alone, I don’t want to be left out I need my classmates and teachers to show me the way, and by way I mean the right way of course. My current teachers and classmates now are the BEST that I have had during all the 10 years I’ve already been spending in going to school and having my education, so far, so that makes my life in this school a life in a home.

Let me now bring to you another short poem about my blog post.

My home not house, my school

Some people don’t think it’s cool

Sometimes this makes progress fast as a mule

Everywhere they imply a rule

To be followed and taken seriously

Or else we’ll start to think deliriously

This education we have is a true and useful gift

And might just be the big shift

Form a bad future to a good one

Just like going out from darkness and finally seeing the sun

 Image Link:http://www.friendster.com/photos/10361567/47800166/33633