My first Monday at the office. Monday meant: I had to wear my school uniform and to arrive extra early to attend the flag ceremony. No one will tell you that it will be hot. So if ever you plan on joining the flag raising at Marikina City Hall you should always be prepared with a handkerchief, if you want you may also bring a fan.
I finally saw Mayor Del that morning. And not on of the Marikina Newsletters or handbooks.
I didn’t know what to expect from him. I’ve heard a lot of different comments from my aunt and uncle ever since I started my OJT, but I wanted to make have my own impression of him to be fair. After attending the ceremony though, Mayor Del, I must say is not good with public speeches. We have something in common. But with the various projects he has helped implement I have to give him some chops. But anyway, back to the flag raising, I remember it was around 9am when we started heading back into the offices. Apparently Mondays at the City Hall was meant for announcements of programs and other related activities to be expected of the week or a recap of what happened the week before. Every Monday, one department from the City Hall took turn in being in charge of facilitating the Monday announcements such as the master of the ceremonies and usually they would also be promoting an event that was happening at the City Hall or somewhere in Marikina.The last sentence I heard from Mayor Del (because I unintentionally zoned him out, it was hot and he had a habit of fluctuating the volume of his voice throughout his speech), “Don’t worry this is nearly the end of my speech, I will only take 2 more minutes” He said that in Tagalog though and I think a lot of other people decided to zone back in as well because they laughed. The flag ceremony took longer than I expected but with the looks of the employees lined up at the freedom park, they were used to it already.
On that day, the City Hall prepared an exhibit to celebrate Earth Day (That Friday, April 22). Many booths were set up inside the City Hall, I recall booths from Maynilad, and even Parang High School, the High School near my subdivision. At one of the booths, WWF, I saw ate Pfiona from MC. It was cool meeting MC alumnae outside of the campus. I always hear about successful MC graduates, someday I hope to become one too.
When we started working, my first task of the day was to make more labels for Ms. Sallie. Then, I arranged the memos and office documents into folders and filed them into her desk. I assisted in other office support. Which only meant something along the lines of this task: “INSERT INTERN NAME HERE~ could you hand me that thing over there”. I am not complaining, because at least I wasn’t being told to buy food or anything else. Thank God for MC’s rules. :))
As I was filing office orders and memos, I came across a memo that was issued the same day regarding the Gawad Galing Marikeño to be held later that evening in the Kapitan Moy. I was not invited to come. (Not that I was a staff member...)
April 21-23
On these days, I spent most of the time between the office and the theater. I helped organize the theater for the workshop classes like make sure there were enough chairs, stands, tables that the kids would use at the workshop. I also checked attendance for the workshop. When I was at the office, I’d photocopy some more office related documents(I’m assuming they were).
Because it was still Earth Week at the City Hall, I amused myself by visiting the booths (stacking up on brochures) to increase my awareness of the eco-friendly projects that the Philippines have undertaken as well as general information about our environment. I tried to guess the right answers to the quiz (multiple occasions) about our environment at the WWF booth. I failed miserably. I don’t know enough about our environment :(( On the bright side, I got a sticker that had tips on waste management? :))
Ms. Joey, the one who dragged me to the exhibit in the first place, suprisingly cared a lot about our environment and that made me admire her more. I wish that other people would show the same enthusiasm for our environment. Here’s Ms. Joey with one of the prizes from the WWF. (Picture grabbed from Joey Curry)
Ms. Grace, who was assisting Sir Jeordell, the person in charge of SAW, started plotting the committees needed for the culmination day. I was assigned the task of preparing the AVP. I started drafting the audio-visual presentation. I had to find the perfect summer layout, ironically without the theme of the program. The office hadn’t decided yet what they wanted. So I scoured through the internet for the photos I’d use. And the fact the internet connection went on and off in periods so I couldn’t get it done quickly.
I would have preferred to stay more at the theater because I didn’t have to stare at the computer monitor too long and also because there was more room to walk around there than in the office. It was crammed enough with just the staff with around 10-11 people working there with a ratio 11:9 (11 people to 9 desks) plus we were four OJTs that regularly went to work (Me, Erica, Raffy and JC). On Wednesday, I got assigned by Ms. Grace to work on Saturday to help take photos of the students of the SAW.
April 24
We started the day off with the photograph session for the kiddos. We took both solo photos and group photos of Ballet 1 and 2, Drawing, Drums, Guitar, Modern Dance Basic and Advanced, Painting, Piano, and Violin classes. In between snacks, I got a pep talk about the working life from Ms. Grace. She did it by telling me about what she went through after college and about her family background. She asked me, why did I choose to OJT at a government office, I said I wanted to know what it was like. She was probably trying to discourage me from working there, or testing how much I actually really wanted to work in government. Hehe. I really appreciated her opening up to me, because it showed me that she trusted me enough to share her life story with me. It’s funny how a few weeks can change how people interact with one another. And she basically told me that we won’t always be able to get a job that we spent four years preparing for in college but if you work hard and are determined you will become successful and great at whatever you end up doing. I suppose it’s all a matter of not giving up and being disappointed at what may happen.
When we came back from the snack, Ms. Joey was still taking photos of the kids. Around 12, the earlier classes started leaving and we ate lunch at the theater. Ms. Joey and the other OJTs left to eat somewhere else. After lunch though, I unexpectedly took over when Ms. Joey did not come back. I suppose she went back to the office to finish the rest of her day there. I look back now, and I think I probably looked like a weirdo sitting on the floor or kneeling in front of the kids to take their photos. Or maybe I looked like I was trying to hard. I wish I had a photo of me so I could tell.
April 25
Saturday came around and arrived extra early. The office was still locked. And I ended up being earlier than Sir Jeordell, which is funny because he is always early. I suppose it was different because it was a Saturday and well, Saturday’s weren’t official work days. We got the camera and other stuff we would need and walked over to the theater.
All the instructors for the SAW were told in advance about the shoot so we were expecting the kids to be there already. Well I think we waited a while before everyone showed up. The stereotype “Filipino time” never disappoints. The students and instructors were given a color to wear on that day. I had memorized it the day before so it would be easy to identify which classes’ photo would be taken first a lot of the kids that were supposed to be photographed earlier ended up getting photographed last. Some didn’t even bother to show up. :))) It was a problem when I started adding their photos to the AVP. Some kids weren’t flashed on screen because I didn’t have any photos of them to begin with and I didn’t know whose picture belonged to whom, that was also a problem that we faced.
SN: it’s hard taking photos of children, especially if they have a short attention span and are shy; taking photos require that you can visualize a way to make sure every person is seen in a photo, especially if there is a large group; taking photos also require you can retain the attention of the subjects or you’ll spend a long time trying to get a good photo.
