Sunday, April 11, 2010
My Last Project In School
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Over The Drama
Marvin T. Bonifacio a.k.a. Binog is a 6th year student taking up BS Electronics and Communications Engineering in UP Diliman, plus, working part-time in a call center.
Binog equals frustration divided by open parenthesis academic performance plus singing plus writing plus sports plus healthy eating close parenthesis. Simplifying the term, you have breaking free over growing up conservative.
Picture here is me after my final interview at UST Global. After less than a week, I was informed that I was shortlisted. Wohoo! All I have to wait for is graduation day. Conditions before contract signing is getting GWA of 2.5 and of course, doing the march! If I pass my subject this semester, I'm at 2.36, haha - borderline, wahahah! If I pass. Its just a month left, and everything is gonna change. Everything is up to me, how everything is gonna end up, so I'm gonna give it my all, this point forward.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Not So Into Libraries
During my stay in the university (well, not that I'm done with college, its just that its just a bit more weeks, I think...), I can count the times that I went to the library and borrow a book. Let say, not even ten books, not even five. I think that is one of the reasons why I internalized that quality education takes time... Hmmm... Hahaha! But then today, I was forced to grab one. Exams is coming, and I hardly catch up with the lessons. And there I go, to the Library.
The book that I'm looking for can be found in two libraries. First stop, Eng'g Lib 1. Okay! I found in just a bit, but the thing is, the photocopy machine is gone inside the library. Texted somebody and she said, I had to borrow the book, and photocopy it elsewhere. Big question mark on my head - HOW DO I BORROW A BOOK!?!? Last time I got a book, I had a library card, and now I don't. I was too shy to ask around. I tried looking for familiar faces in Eng'g, but I did not succeed...Did everybody graduate already? Fwahahahah! While I was eating my lunch, without the book, the same person texted me and said, I don't need a lib card - TOO LATE!! I'm outta there! STRIKE ONE!!
Next stop, Eng'g Lib 2. Confirmed on OPAC, book is on shelf. I went around the whole place but no trace of the book that I'm looking for. Crap! I went around 3 times, still nothing. Saw TK's and QA's but no call number for TS's! Darn! After a while, I got tired and walked around slower. Okay! There was a shelf, with other call numbers!! They are just few. STRIKE TWO!
Okay, found TS's, but no trace of the particular book I'm looking for. Found Heja, orgmate, in the lib to the rescue. ""Heja, me bobo question ako." It took a lot of courage to go on with my question, but there, I said it out loud. Good thing, a good samaritan was around. Okay, its on the counter! Hahaha! Its in reserved/circulation. Hahaha! STRIKE THREE!
I do hope this is the last time I'll go to that place, please, let me graduate this time!!!
Friday, January 8, 2010
Sunflowers Are To Be In Bloom
I just got off from work, off from the stress of speaking with people who know all about complaining. I think I can write a book about it but I better not. Don’t get me wrong, I actually enjoy my part time job. In my whole lifetime, I finally felt that I am good at something. I can say loud and proud, I am the top agent of my team, and my stats will attest to that. I started out not even able to speak fluently and not say what I mean. Now, before my customer can even belt out a rampage, I nip the bud with a verbiage that sometimes is made up just to get that “very satisfied” rating. I do enjoy all that, and I’m having the time of my life, it’s just that I’m forgetting that I’m still a student.
I go to school to finish my last 3 units when the sun is up and work my ass off when almost everybody is sleeping. Besides enjoying my work, I feel obligated to do my best on my calls because it is my cash cow, it’s why I can support myself. I make it a point to give it my all every shift, but I do forget that after each shift, I have projects and classes to take care of as the sun shines and to finish before the sun sets. Well, I just got my wake up call, last Wednesday, I took my 1st exam and there, I just stared at the test paper even though I knew I studied for that. Well, I am still asking myself why I wasn’t able to do some good with that exam. That exam would not even count on my grade, haha! But hey! I WILL BE GRADUATING THIS APRIL! I WILL! I WILL BE WORKING THINGS OUT TO GET THERE! First challenge – body clock screw-up!! >.<
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Less Hassle on UP Reg
Friday, October 30, 2009
ELECTRONICS ENGINEER LICENSURE EXAMINATION RESULTS - Released on OCTOBER 30, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
SONA Alert: Free Day Tom! :P
Per CHED Chair Angeles, no classes tomorrow. UP Diliman will follow, NO CLASSES TOM. FYI. Tnx. Chan. Cao.
-text message from USC
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Yet Another Year - Did I Learn My Lesson?
Somebody from my organization asked me to write tips on studying. The hell! Hahaha! They totally got the wrong person doing it. But then, he insisted on it. Here goes, hahaha! Hey! I did a lot of thinking here, haha! Also stole ideas from past articles of the same topic, hahaha! Still cheating, hahaha!
Are you new to the university? Check out these tips!
1. Play it safe, aim for a one (1)
Targeting just a passing grade will get you nowhere. It won’t give you the gist of a course. It can also add to those times that you regret all your life – if you fall short from a 3 (passing grade in UP grading system), it will end up you taking removals, worse, retaking the subject. You wouldn’t want to a get a 4 (for removals) and definitely not a 5 (fail), right?
2. Cramming is not your guy, totally avoid him.
Include in your daily routine some time for studying. It makes everything flow smoother. Studying won’t be a drag if you do it little by little. Cramming everything the day before an exam is a mortal sin. Memorization alone will not save you – intensive skills are needed in solving. It is impossible to gain this in just one night. Escape that panic.
If you have breaks in between your classes, sandwich some study time right there. Just find your academic niche in the campus. Engineering Library II is one of the cool spots – nice lighting, air conditioner on and most importantly, that geeky feeling, haha!
3. Practice solving.
So how can you ace exams? Practice solving a lot. It prevents the dreaded “mental block” and it does decrease the time you spend solving a problem. That would buy you time to review your answers during exams. Problem sets, take home quizzes, assignments, machine exercises, plates – just do them seriously and you are in the right track. Learn to do them by yourself. If you can’t, then be sure to understand the method as you try to seek help. Why? Because it’s possible that REAL EXAMS will resemble these given take homes. If you have more time, try more exercises, say those from the books you use in your subjects.
You can never blame not passing an exam to a professor that does not teach well. You have to take into account that still, everything is in your hands. If you think the professor is not doing his or her job well, then it should be your prerogative to study more – so, practice more! Yay!
4. Learn to manage your time, prioritize & plan ahead.
List the things that you should accomplish, both academic and extra-curricular. Rank them according to priority. Of course, studying should be on top of your list. Take note of the dates of your exams. Sometimes, everything is on one day. Better do something precautious rather than cram everything in one night. Remember, you are a student. However, chances are, when you do nothing but study, there comes a point that you will be saturated and toxic. Its either you lose your concentration or you just get fed off studying. Take your time off. Release your stress. Strike a balance.
Stick with your plan as much as possible. Avoid diversions. Assume that you easily get distracted with stuff that tickles your curiosity and desires, hahah! So be strong!
5. If all else fails, call for backup
Consultation. If you misunderstood a concept or two, why look for someone else when you can ask it directly to your professor. Be sure to take note of their consultation hours. They expect students to visit them in those times. He/she will gladly answer any of your queries. By any chance, that you can’t seem to find time with your professor, find somebody else who could help you. You could even drop by ERG tambayan to grab a copy of sample exams or even books.
Group study. Generally, studying in groups works well. Keeps you awake. Gives you a hand with difficult concepts. Finds you somebody who share your misery, haha! Just be careful with choosing your group. You might end up doing something not so academic. Stick with the reason why you are together. And very important, be sure to read ahead of the group study. Make the benefit mutual, have something to share to them. It could also get you alienated in the discussions if you don’t know a thing they are talking about.
6. Check your standing.
Let’s say you did your best, and yet, you are in the brink of flunking a subject – don’t panic. Recognize where you are standing at and do some action. Compute for your target grade to pass the course. It will serve as your motivation to do better. Dropping is not a mighty solution. Don’t fail yourself before your professor does. Realize the domino effect it will take on your road to graduation.
However, miracle does happen. I mean, if you did your part and still troubled, majority of your classmates might share the same burden. Your saviour, the curve, just might save you. Hmmm, but don’t count on it.
7. Be physically and mentally present in class.
Listen to your teachers. Usually, teachers in our department are basing their exams in their lectures. Take down notes. It serves you another purpose by the way – not sleeping in class. Doing advanced reading will help a lot. It is not expected that you should have already understood it before class, but it will more or less give you a feel of what to expect. Trying to list down what you don’t understand while reading would be a bright move. Ideally, after a class, these questions would have been answered.
At the end of the day, just reflect on why you are in college. Everything will fall into place if you are determined to realize your goals. These tips might not apply to you, but as long as you know what you want, you will come up with your own set of tips that is tailor-fit to you. Every thing is a case-to-case basis after all.
If you haven’t thought about it, you better start thinking. Have a mind set. Brainwash yourself if necessary. You have to reprogram your lifestyle while you still can. Start drawing those patterns for your five yours. Have it tailor-fit.
I'll try to digest this. :))
Friday, March 30, 2007
Yihee!

I'm not a total loser after all!! Haha! My target grade for the finals was 79 in ME63. I thought it was not feasible. Imagine, like I got 11-50-55-70, how am I gonna get a 79. Its all in the concentration. If you have this drive in studying, you're really gonna get there. Its not the length of time you spent studying, its in the amount of concentration you alloted the time you studied.
Congratulate me!! I got 93.3!! Hahaha! Weeeh! I'm not a total disaster!! Weeeh! Thanks to everybody who pepped me up! Love you all! :D Mwaaah!
Thursday, March 1, 2007
I guess its a yes...
I blew it again!
I really need a miracle to pass now! Someone! Help! I hate number '5'!! Huhuhu!
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Yet another week
Also, Good Luck to Mary Grace Santos, Loulou Zamora and Christine Anne Barrera! Please vote them as you EEE Representatives! :D
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Beat that!!

Haha! More than a month past!
I'm starting to lose my self-esteem. Lately, everything is going wrong, with my acads in particular. I just made a new record! 11.7/100 in an exam! Haha! Beat that! How I wish I could make it through this semester! How could I reach my 4.5-dream! It gets harder and harder to reach, but I'm still holding on. Never in my mind was I convinced to drop the subject despite my scores.
But there's one thing this week that made me ecstatic. Haha! I made it speaking in front of a class in CBA! I was able to shoot speeding-bullet answers to my classmates. Here's a proof of the success of this reporting that I say. A picture with UP President Roman after our case report. All of us plastered bright smiles! NOW! BEAT THAT!
Thursday, November 16, 2006
"It makes me shiver!"

I can’t believe what I had done! I just pushed an add matriculation for a BA 101 subject that met two sessions already. And guess what, do you know who my professor is? Look to the right, it's just the University of the The fear-factor episode started when I was feeling guilty that I, after accomplishing my registration, had an ideal schedule, ideal schedule to sleep. Imagine this, during Tuesdays and Fridays, I supposedly had a 4:00 to 6:00 pm class, and that’s all. I could sleep the whole day and just wait until the clock strikes four til I leave my sanctuary. I’m just not so use to it.
And here comes the hours of chattering with my roommate Ramil. The topic went to my guilt and had me convinced mailing the Dr. Emerlinda Roman to admit me in her BA 101 class. That was like 8pm, November 15th. I waited for a response til 1:00 am, but it end up vanquishing my hopes in thin air.
The next day, my persistence began aflame again. The thought won’t leave my head. After lunch, I checked my mail using Mark’s laptop at the 3rd floor QZ in the department. My eyes became bright at the sight. I just received a reply from the UP president, and she let me in her class. A thread of mail made my mission impossible possible.
I couldn’t forget my knees shaking the moment I stepped on the Office of the President, and still, they won’t stop, because tomorrow is yet another day, my first day in room BA 303.
Sunday, October 8, 2006
Step In
I can’t imagine how frustrating my academic life can get! I am deprived to do all that I can all the time (Haha! Which I think is also my fault oftentimes). When I have a lot of time to answer the examination, its either I’m on a mental block or I forgot to review a particular concept. On the other hand, if I am
confident that I know how to answer everything after I browse the questionaire, as the end time of the exam is at the nick of time, I’ll be left with a number or two blank O my gulay! The latter just reiterated a while ago! This was my chance to get a 1.0 in a EEE subject, but it flew away swiftly, out of my reach. EEE 21 is so frustrating.
We shouldn’t let these flip flops stimulate depression on us, we wear them!! Hahaha! Let's rejoice! We literally rule over them!!
Saturday, October 7, 2006
Blog-Boggle
The time I heard about blogs, I wanted to publish one of my own. I find it as a venue to practice what I enjoyed doing during high school – writing. But why is it just now that I published my blog?
But why now?
This semester, I took Sociology 10 under Nicole Curato. In this course, we are required to submit think pieces. Luckily, I got a 1.0 on the second one! Haha! It boosted up my morale that I too could write. Also, my friends started creating their blogs. Suddenly, there wasn’t anything that holds be back from publishing. Bwalaah!! This is my blog!
Later, I just realized that I don’t care if people would not appreciate my writing, why I really wanted to make a blog is for it to be an outlet – both for my frustration as a writer and for my depressions. Writing makes me forget about my worries.
Here is my Think Piece #2:
When I stay in the dormitory during weekends, I wake up at around
Indeed, corporations rule my world. Unconsciously, they imposed on me my lifestyle via mass media. I live in the one-dimensionality that television and cyberspace enforces, as Marcuse would put it. And certainly, I am not alone in this experience. Through exposition of certain choices on screen that you aren’t really choosing, you tend to manifest your preferences from this slate. In the end, you still are a finish product of the conspiracy of these corporations.
On the other hand, the much visible authority figures are the helpless ones. Ironic as it may seem, though the government has a number of agencies to exercise power, the people’s compliance to the order they are trying to establish is not achieved completely, unlike the corporations’ ‘Propaganda Model”, if I may borrow the term from Chomsky. The question of legitimacy even adds up to the resistance to the current administration. The government even uses the resources and media of the corporations to advocate their aspirations. The Department of Tourism needed to be hand-in-hand with SMART to boost its WOW
Since the administration is enthroned by the elites, the elites have the faculty of supports to maintain an administration, and the elites have the judgement to the termination of an administration. Evidently, the government maintains a good atmosphere and a good relationship with the foreign investors and businessmen to attract them. We still haven’t exhausted all the assets the country has, so for the meanwhile, we loosen up things for these investors for them to flood in. Take tax incentive for instance. Where is the quality of Phillippe Legrain’s so-called ‘control’ there?
Filipinos proved the world the genius in their foreheads, and yet, the government had taken them for granted. It’s already gold, yet it slipped from our hands. The basket of the corporations was just directly underneath. Sampaguita is our national flower, yet we can’t have the patent of its scent. It is a symbol of the nation but still it was bought. Many scholarships are being awarded to the best students and but they don’t have the choice where to work after they graduate. Even a number of researches in our department, DEEE, are already alloted for the sponsor companies like Intel. Before the country could ever behold and hear the projects, the corporations already are reserved the rights to mass produce such because they funded them.
People may subject that money is not the world, but look at the status quo, is it really not? Who isn’t a victim of “media’s bread and circus” (Marcuse)? With the power that corporations possess, they were able to manipulate our way of living discretely. We are starting to lose our distinction, such evident culture hybridization driven by these companies. Even close family ties are being broken by the high mobility of the employed, still brought to us by companies. We are starting to lose our identity and country. We are indirectly being run by these corporations. What do we have that we can call our own? Care to have a critical lifestyle check?
Before I end this entry, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my Socio 10 instructor for an eye-opening semester. I now do not look at certain events flatly, from the words that reverberated PH 108-110 in
Tuesday, October 3, 2006
My Dose of Sleeping Pills
Two weeks more and its over, the almost sleepless nights will end. No more worries. Nothing will lay doubts on enjoying leisure any longer. At last, another semester will pass!
But before celebration, a pile of work is in front of me. Four long written examinations. Two lab reports. One design problem. One practical examination.
Every night, my head is parting. One half says that I have to start doing the stack of paper on top of my desk. I have to make every minute of these last two weeks worthwhile, but the other part is arguing that I shouldn’t be studying all the time. When the clock strikes one in the morning, a battle rages as the dawn is approaching. A forbidden battle through the LAN connection of the dormitory. People who know me would surely get what I’m saying. The circumstances leave me defenseless. Like I can say no… Free network gaming – a haven for somebody like me. Another distraction – ANIME. I didn’t do well in the 3rd exam in EEE 41 because I spent half the night before the exam watching FATE/STAY NIGHT (Chapie boy!!! Arf! Arf!)! How I wish I could turn off the PC – I’LL DIE!! When I start reading lectures, around three to four pages, I'm already sleepy. I don’t know what to do. I guess it becomes my dose of sleeping pills. What am I gonna do!?!?
Studying is fun. I have to convince myself. Studying is fun. I do love studying; I really have to convince myself!





