LSAT Sophomore and Senior Registration First Semester

Ah, second day and  first day for my Grad Team. Morning was just the typical registration morning but everything literally changed when the registration entered its hell phase. First, a declaration of venue collapse was given to me the night before. It was a blessing for some of us, actually, considering that each team consist a minimum of seven members. SEVEN MEMBERS and the SOH team had FIVE! It was a difficult task to eliminate members from the largest undergrad team, SOM, because the core is expecting more people in this venue than any other team. So the collapse, as of that moment, was good but then we recalled the flaws delivered by collapsing the venues. And those flaws became apparent once again when I visited undergrad venues three times today. SOM/SOSE venue was the most critical. Most of the problems were delivered to the loggers. The team heads on that venue suspected that the number of telephone lines slowed things down. It’s because there are only few lines to relay the problems of so many students in that venue. If you then try to look at the waiting venue alloted for SOM/SOSE venue, the whole rooms was full and there are even people waiting outside. When the day was near to its end, SOSS/SOH venue was able to eliminate quickly the density of people and decided to have the people in SOM/SOSE venue to be directed to the second undergrad venue. It was quite a record for LSAT as it was the GRAD enlistment who came first in closing the venue. We’re actually bracing ourselves for the FREE-FOR-ALL registration on the last day.

For GRAD, typical grad enlistment and assessment. However, one eyecatcher popped out as one of the students came in the assessment venue and started shouting at one of my assessors. It happened that I was in SOM/SOSE venue assisting the assessors’ papers to be processed. Man, that was freaky even according to one of the REGCOM peepz. I hope that things will go well tomorrow.

Oh, these MAGIC Chips, Pita Crunch in Onion and Garlic Flavor… it tastes good and surely with beer but no beer tonight, as I need to wake up early tomorrow. xD

LSAT – Team Captain First Sortie

I admit, I was not performing that well during the registration. It was painfully hard to work as a team captain, especially that my current team is the Graduate Studies team wherein a new set of assessment procedures are given. I even made a terrible mistake, leading the registrar helping me to get a room where I can discuss the team’s constitution to the new applicants as well as the old members.

What else that was there? Oh yes, it was the first time in my stay in LSAT wherein we have to pick people from a bunch of applicants. That never happened before as we always interview and go down on taking everyone into the team. This time, I had to make the core choose their top two among their interviewees and select a few more to get to twenty applicants. It was sad because some applicants did not come, despite being selected by the core. I was thinking of changing the interview procedures.

I was in a difficult situation, given that I am an introvert and I’m not used to be in front of many people. I always care about the impression I give on the assessors. Honestly I am very scared especially there are LSAT “batchmates” there that I was not able to know better and I think they have their eyes on me, looking for errors on the very split second.

Setting that aside, I wanted to finish the job, whatever other people say. I’ll face them after we finish the objectives. However, the job also brought some worrying stuff that concerns us assessors. So I asked again my assessors for any problems every morning, since it was the traditional action done in LSAT. However, I found a fatal flaw in it. No one or only a few responds whenever I ask them and then we’ll end up in a bad situation in the end. So I asked someone who was kind of involved in supervising teams and that was my older brother. He told me stories about his team as well his actions and also the actions done by some of his friends who stay in a similar position but on a higher level. One thing that my brother suggested is to get their feedbacks at the end of the day. The only thing that’s blocking me from doing that is that the Graduate Assessment Team is the team that finishes late. Then my brother told me to give the feedback system as a homework. Although only a few replied to my notice, but it was enough to wake me up and my core. the feedback system was very effective. Those who sent emails, who had their mouths shut when I asked them, suddenly bursted into long paragraphs. Not that I am insulted or mad on the feedbacks, I actually loved them. Two of the assessors commented on the core’s performance and it waked me up. One wondered if a lot of core members staying in one venue is good or bad. The other commented on the attitude of the core inside the venue. I showed this to my core and we immediately made some corrections in the work area. It was also nice as it leads us to think quickly of solutions to these concerns. Then the other stuff were work related, the errors in printing, power issues and online database concerns. All of these were not mentioned when I asked the assessors in the morning, so I was thinking of retaining this kind of system so that I can get a reasonable amount of feedback. It was kind of effective and I am very thankful that there are people whom I can ask for suggestions. I have to learn more supervising techniques!

It was not the best start of my term as team captain nor it was the best but I do admit, I learned a lot. Because of the feedbacks as well as the other things that concerns me and my team, I learned a lot and I discovered that I have to do more stuff for this team. I also have to overcome this being introvert of mine. I need to interact more to my team. It was a hard job, but it was exciting. I also got some feedbacks about my performance but I explained it well (I guess). It was the first time to draw the Team Captain from Grad Team, and technically, I forgot all of the undergrad stuff I learned before when I first came to LSAT, I only knew Grad Assessment back then. Then I read that my presence is needed. Yes I know, it’s just that it’s scary to leave my team. Grad Assessment, if I am allowed to say this, is the toughest Assessment I’ve encountered.

Every morning when the prayer is said to the assessors, I add more prayers so that God may give me more strength to push on for the day. Erwin made me seek help from God at all times and it seems that all of those efforts in looking for God resulted to a more calm, composed me.

Being a Grad Assessment Team Head is tough, being the head among all of the Assessors is tougher especially that I’m that sort of person that you wouldn’t think of as a leader at first glance. But some people proved me that I can still do it, that I am worthy of my position. Of course, there may be some people who wouldn’t agree but if that’s so, I am challenging them to exchange positions on the spot. This is one thing quite unique in my stay in LSAT. All the positions I took were all almost impromptu or… i acquired them on the spot. For example, being the Grad Assessment Team’s Assistant Team Head was temporary position until at the end of that day’s registration, even if I’m not an official Assistant Head, I went to join the Core for their meeting. And because I was the Assistant Team Head, I was directly positioned to the Head after the head graduated. Then shortly afterwards, Team Captain position is now in my hands.

Grad Assessment was the best. It was not easy to be honest but, as what the previous Grad Assessment Team Head mentioned before, this is were one assessor can feel his or her position as an Assessor. No other assessor is present in the team like the Grad Assessor. In Grad Assessment, we go under the Graduate studies students’ rule while the undergrad assessment, the students fall into the assessors’ rule. That’s why Grad Assessment is more exciting! We don’t encounter shouting undergrad students, we encounter terrorizing old people! And there’s always a lot of goals in Grad. For example, we ought to set our goal on doing a good job so that no student would go into the assessment venue, where graduate students are not allowed to enter. Most of the time, we fail because it’s either our mistake or the form was already done from our hands and it is not just delivered quickly to them or their problem isn’t just addressed immediately. I’m not saying here that Undergrad assessment is nothing compared to our work. If you have noticed earlier, I mentioned that I know nothing already of undergrad assessment, and I’m the chosen team captain. Undergrad Assessment is also tough not because of bone-breaking assessment procedures but the shear number of people who go there, being persistent and hard-headed and I admit, it can make you crazy.

I hope I can perform better next time, taking note of the feedbacks sent and the mistakes I’ve done in this first sortie. I will ask help from our Lord for more strength and dedication. For now, I shall rest from being a Team Captain and resume the job after a month. 😀

LSAT – Start of Activities:Confirmation and Sign-Ups week

This is what you can see when my phone’s at standby:
See the calendar entries? Yes, a long test and the membership confirmation and membership recruitment for LSAT. Right now, I’m really at a tight pinch and I hope everything planned shall go as planned. Here’s the phone’s calendar:

yes, nothing much but the same entries that appeared in standby. But try to look at the calendar itself. almost all days have tags on them, meaning I have almost non-stop work until this semester ends. Good thing this phone comes in handy. 😀

LSAT – Team Captain Days 1-2

Man, this is actually tough. I never thought that being a captain for a team of assessors, assisting students through their registration with the Registration Committee, was soooooooo tiring. It’s not tiring in the sense that I get stressed out by long nights of working. I get more stress by just looking at the things to be remembered and done. Not that those things take a long term to be finished but they are so many to remember and people from the Registrar’s Office as well as RegCom keep on bothering what used to be my usual routine of being just a head of one of the teams. Honestly, I still cannot get myself together. My body is not yet recognizing this new role of mine as a team captain.

To compensate for this, I got myself a handy thick notebook where I can write all things I need to do. Plus, this role led to the full utilization of my new phone’s calendar. So now, my calendar is jam-packed compared to last year’s…..empty calendar. I don’t use my phone’s calendar, only now.

SO my first day as a Team Captain started when the Former Team Captain contacted me as anytime soon, the RO would try to reach me regarding the upcoming registration. And her prediction was quite right. Just after she texted the date of “TEAM CAPTAIN ORIENTATION”, the secretary of the Registrar was clever enough to send me the details via Chikka. MEEEHHNN, talk about people being immersed in latest communication technology…. So I went to meet the Registrar, who was surprisingly a cheerful person. And so he reminded me to get my team ready for the upcoming registration, gave the numbers of the important people in Regcom, including his, and told me to coordinate with them with regards to the activities to be done on the registration week. I was with the Team’s Secretary General and I was thankful for that because he would be able to hear the things I might be able to forget since my mind is not yet set for this. Although, I’m striving hard and working on it.

Second day, the Assessment Supervisor came to meet me and thank God, she was able to give me immediately the date of the Dry Run for Summer Reg. 😀 Which was nice because for the past few registration periods, the dry run dates are always late which leaves the assessors unprepared and set their priorities before the registration. She also asked me how things are going on during dry run and so I told her everything I know about it. Then I set off to temporarily tell my fellow heads to prepare. Although I forgot that it was the GA of the org wherein most of the heads are members. And so the emergency meeting was postponed but I just posted the things I have on the groups.

Man, I can’t believe I’m doing all of these things. Nevertheless I have to meet this challenge. This would probably be the start of one of the things I would surely cherish in my entire college life. 😀

Just noticed one thing…

In my team of Assessors, I think all of them are great people. My team consists of freshmen, sophomores as well as juniors who surely excel in their field. Actually, I accidentally lined up Chem majors together with my assistant who’s known for being a “kwatro-kid”. Then a couple of ME (Management Engineering) people who are tough-ass people because their department has a retention requirement which is not to have any single “F” mark in their grades given that they have tough Accounting subjects. My gulay, I cannot do that especially I’ve been struggling with my majors for the past three semesters.  Then there are Legal Management and Management students who also embark on the evil of Accounting subjects. I also have an assessor who came from my high school and she’s with her friend serving under the accounting under SOSS team. Then I have another assessor from Health Sciences who’s really great when I saw her First year, first semester marks…nosebleed. There’s so many of them! Their background makes it difficult for me, then, to tell them to do certain stuff. I can only do that to them since they are in a different field but still. You can see their aura of being WISE around them, so bright~!

LSAT Fun

FUN? Of course not. But it doesn’t mean all the time. 😀 We also had fun together with the Regcom. 😀

1. DAY 1 – The BUFFER MOVES – Just before we left for lunch, the Bufferers went to do something with their terminals. I noticed why those people turn their monitors around. Then when I came back, the screensavers said “I love LSAT”, divided into 3 monitors

2. DAY 1 – Free Assessors? – Just to get the assessors working. 😀 I did what Kuya Kalil did before. I saw that the people were idle and some of them were sleeping. And so, as I walked along the path on the side of the room, I shouted “Free Assessors!”. Mean me. 😀

3. DAY 2 – ‘San si _________ – One of the members of RegCom who’s working on the printing area was shouting names of assessors like a boss because of FIRE scholarship regforms as well as other problematic ones. She even called me “LSAT PERSON”, probably I did not have the chance to introduce myself since I was late. 😀 First victim was Jan Rico. She shouted ” ‘SAN SI RICO?!” and we all turn to him,and saw his shocked face. 😀 Hahahah~! Same goes with Joan Sy and Eric Sy. More laughs to Eric since he puts a letter c beside his surname on the Assessment form. Then the regcom girl shouted again “SINO SI SYC?! BAKIT ITO S-Y-C?!” I was laughing when Eric gave his explanation, just like a kid being punished for eating the cookies in the cookie jar without permission. 😀 The “C” was suppose to be a distinguishing factor between him and Joan since they have the same surname.

I just to thank some people (some are “again”)

-Ma’am DinDin – without her (and without knowing her during the first sem nstp processing session

-Accounting Personnel, especially Ma’am Lani – for persevering in seeing my face every now and then because of numerous questions. But when she stood up to assist the FIRE Scholars, I attended to her concerns and I hope I helped her a lot.

-Sir JJ – I fear him a lot. I even had to stop the people talking when he’s around. Maybe they don’t know sir JJ yet.  But I hope I made a good job for him. I thank him for observing us a lot because that would mean discipline to the assessors. 😀 even me.

-RegCom – The regcom person. (revenge~!) that shouted my assessors’ names. 😀 even mine in LSAT person. 😀 But Regcom people were funny and helpful. I want to thank the OIC? I think they call them OIC or Officer in Charge? I forgot. I forgot the name of the second one since I was late but the first one was Ate Gen~! She was so kind. I also want to thank Ate Les for looking after our problems. See yah, she said, in two months~!

-LSAT Core  -for making fun of me while I’m suffering inside! hahaha but I love them, it was fun having them around especially Ate Ja, who checked us every now and then.

-My Team – So far so good. Good job peepz~! I hope I made I good impression, though I’m not expecting that I did. I think I was a bad Head at start but I hope I can recover all the mistakes I had for this summer reg.

LSAT Second Registration Day

Ok, was the same target obtained? No.

Anyway, I was fscking late today so I already had 2 liability points up my ass. I feel even worse when I saw that I was able to assess only three students for the day. But it can’t be helped as I had the team with most of them as new members and I had to attend to their concerns, after giving them one of the reminders “When in doubt, don’t. Ask Regcom, your Head, Asst. head or the accounting personnel”. Damn, it was pretty hard. Today, we were pretty much idle in the morning and just 2 hours before the real lunch time, Ate Les from Regcom told me that the FIRE scholars were now being arranged downstairs. To give you a little bit of information about FIRE scholars, they were one of the people who come in big batches and had their registration forms with problems. I think the FIRE scholars did not bring their regforms. I think they brought problems. Take note that the batches only had ONE representative which means the actual students were not present at the waiting venue. Just look at the facts:

First Batch: Comprehensive Examinations -> First take or Retake?

Second Batch: Section in  Theo 205 does not exist.

Third Batch : Not a problem. Actually the first one to be finished and no anomalies reported

Fourth batch: Only two people in the list, one of them has section problems.

Fifth batch: Section problems also, I think, and they came in like small bullets from a shotgun. Does not have a list as well.

Good thing, Ma’am Lani had the Master list and I was able to check the Fifth batch. We also had problems regarding the JEA scholarship people who were included under the FIRE batch list. It took Regcom almost an hour and a half to obtain answers to the batches especially batches 1 and 2.  Happily, Ma’am Dindin was very nice to do the checking for Compre exams as well as the advisement for the THEO 205. The Theo 205 subject should have the “dot” beside 205 for the section to appear. This was hardly a problem during the assessment days of the AISIS ver. 1.0 because there’s no need for the assessors to access the advisement database through ORACLE or the program used for the database of the students.

I found that I was lenient this Reg, probably because the new members were testing me as well. I can see some of the new members were playing games which is not allowed. I also saw some members who were not raising their hands when Regcom calls for free assessors. That was the reason behind the 3-ID no. assessed by me, I can hardly sit in front of my terminal because there were a lot of questions as well as looking after the new members who were doing nasty shit. Anyway, they have liability points for that. 😀 Good luck for them.

Now, I can say that I can be more strict with them as we will not include new members. I was happy that Ma’am Lani was able to keep her patience seeing my face every now and then for questions but I also told the assessors that if ever they had problems with their regforms, they can proceed directly to the accounting personnel and ask.

I can’t believe I was able to manage the Reg, well for now. I am still waiting for numerous errors. Now, I can rest. Thanks for the new people as well as the LSAT Core Group.

But most of all, thank you GOD. You made me persevere. 😀

“LSAT”

Stands for Loyola Schools Assessment Team. It was my first day, today, as the head of the Graduate Studies Team and the first part of the assessment was a pretty big battering ram that hit me.

You’d expect that Ateneans with the cramming culture and tradition would certainly have their papers, including the batch people, be processed by afternoon. Surprisingly we were pretty much idle in the afternoon and was very busy during the morning. I had a target that day that no Graduate student would come up to the Assessment venue to check on his or her registration form. The thing is, the students were isolated from the assessment venue and just let them wait in a specific waiting area for them. Unfortunately there were at least 5 people who went up, waiting for their papers to be processed. Hmmm….

Of course, like any Grad Assessment situation, the first wave of batch regforms was totally a great shock. This was the batch of AMF students who came in jigsaw puzzle pieces and left the job for regcom and lsat to rebuild the picture. They were complaining a lot but if only they knew that they just brought problems and not their regforms… And there were a couple of mistakes already made. Although I’m still deciding if I’m to give liability points to all since the error was committed by a large margin. It was the decision to choose the NONE OF THE ABOVE option for others but there was another option for SCHOLARSHIP FROM ANOTHER AGENCY. Good thing the regforms were not yet passed and Ma’am Lani said all we have to do is re-assess the forms to the appropriate option and we don’t have to reprint the assessment forms since the resulting assessment form will still be the same.

The AMD SH*T lasted until we had lunch. In fact it ate our lunch time by 30 minutes but I was glad that the assessors were back exactly 1 pm. After that there were idle moments most of the time. I even shouted “Free Assessors” and I saw how the assessors like to do something. The buffers were the people who enjoyed most of the time since Minotz was one of them, and the two other people having fun during the assessment were two new boys. 😀

I noted some of the events where conflicts came, just to make sure. Ate Ja and the others were surely laughing at me since the four schools did not have any work most of the time, only in the afternoon when the krammerz came by a huge basket. Tom actually told the people not to tease me and I might burst out in the conference in meebo. Hahaha, don’t worry Tom, I’m used to those things and I’m actually used to it ever since high school. 😀 I was really tired and ate Jarylle was able to notice the immediate attack of stress into my face as we walk towards the cafeteria. There, I only ate cheesedog on stick (I still feel Good Friday without the abstinence but fasting) a bottle of orange juice and a back-up water bottle for the latter part of the registration period. Hayz

It was a good thing that I knew some of the people and I met new ones. First, there was Ma’am Dindin (who still remembers me! I was touched!) then there was kuya Arnold from MIS who assisted me most of the time with the hardware and Aisis problems. Then there was Ate Gen from Regcom who was kind of nice. 😀 then ate Lesly whom I met last sem’s reg. She probably predicted that Kuya Alec would throw me into his position as the replacement. 😀 Hahahah! And of course, last but not the least, the new members of my team. I think I would love this bunch since most of them are energetic. Hahaha!

“When you want to give up and your heart’s about to break, remember that you’re perfect, God makes no mistakes. ” – Bon Jovi