UPIE Talk

One thing that I would remember January 2010 for is that this is the month of my first ever speaking engagement.  Whee!

I received and email on Jan 13, inviting me to be one of the speakers in UP for the IE Days celebration.  I've wanted to do this kind of sharing since last year, and now that there was a opportunity, I actually hesitated.  The usual concerns of stepping out of my comfort zone... But I remember what Em said about becoming Yes People.  Meaning, say yes to opportunities and open oneself up to new experiences.  I called Rich to tell him about it and to my surprise, he discouraged me.  I was disappointed that he wasn't supportive so when I came home, I told him about it.  And it was a good thing I did (and not sulk/tampo over what he said).  He thought I said 'mag-sticker', i.e. putting on stickers and not speaker.  Haha!

So I confirmed.  It was a go for my first talk.

I prepared my outline and looked through it every so often.  I was actually busy the week of the talk and didn't have time to go over the flow with Rich...

Friday came.  I left the house a little past 9AM.  After two jeepneys and one MRT, I was in UP, with a few minutes to spare.  I went to the shopping center, which still looks the same, bought some necessities, then walked to the Eng'g building.  The forum that was supposed to start at 11 started past 11:30.  Apart from the delay, the thing went smoothly.  I just shared with the students what I know and tried to give them as much information as possible.  I hope they learned from my talk and consider OR as a future career.

And as far as I could see (without my glasses), nobody dozed off. =)

Here's to saying YES!

PROOF

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Filipino Friday 3: Reading Habits and Book Formats

Image
Reading Habits and Book Formats . Where and how do you read? Can you read anywhere and everywhere, or do you need a certain place/mood/state of mind to get reading? Do you read more in the morning or at night or any minute that you can? Where and how do you usually read? Are you exclusively for print, or do you go for ebooks more than print? Have you ever tried audiobooks? I am old school.  Even as most books now have digital versions, I still prefer the physical, ink-on-paper variety.  I like holding a real book, flipping the pages and being able to see my progress based on the thickness of read/unread pages.  Somehow, I feel more engaged and focused reading a physical book vs. from a gadget. I very rarely reread books so most of my collection just sit on the shelf after I'm done with them.  I feel it's a waste of precious trees if they are not shared with others.  So I started a Google doc at work where the team can list down their collections and anybod...
Read more

Trivia and Reading

Image
I am currently reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and I am inspired.  It’s about the author’s year-long quest to be happier.  It’s purposeful and practical and has lot of tips that I can apply or have started doing. Rubin focused on different areas every month and for May, it was Be Serious About Play.  The author was trying to go back to activities she enjoyed as a child. This led me to also think about a favorite childhood pastime, which was collecting trivia.  The Philippine Daily Inquirer used to run a trivia section by Bong Barrameda and I would religiously cut and paste them onto scratch papers, which I would then collate and read again and again.  Nerd zone! Not only that, I also kept a trivia notebook where I researched and wrote down interesting information like areas of study, capital cities, historical figures, scientists and discoveries, everything!  That was fun for me.  I was about to say they were useless info, ...
Read more

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

Image
There is something to be said for collective recommendations like bestsellers list.  I found this title on such list at Fully Booked, read a few pages and decided to buy it.  I was intrigued by the theme of the book which is memory, specifically, how the author started as a journalist covering the US Memory Championships and ended up as a contender in the finals of the same competition one year later. It claims that with proper training, one's memory can be improved to be at par with the top mental athletes of the world.  Memory training has become an esoteric discipline because we practically do not need to remember a lot these days.  Information is very easy to retrieve from electronic devices and what not.  You just need basic search terms and the Google provides the information you need and more. Photo from Rainy Day Books I have to admit I rely on external memory a lot.  I can recall birthdays of my very close family members but outside of tha...
Read more