My Junior Life :D

To be a junior student of Don Bosco Technical Institute Tarlac is full of challenges. Challenges from studies, from vices and other personal challenges. Being a junior Bosconian is a year of fun experience. I met new friends, new teachers, enjoyed events and did stuff like I never did before. It is also a year of hardships and tough responsibilites. I got harder subjects, requirements, etc.

I’m thankful that I reach third year high school, because for me this school year is a wonderful year. First because of the new friends and teachers I met. Second the arrival of St. John Bosco’s Relic in our institution. The sections are classified by their respective courses. I saw many new faces around. As time passed by we strengthened our relationships as friends. Our class, III – Ricceri, even had our goal, dubbed, “Ricceri: United together as Juan!” This was mostly true during our beginning as a class. But it slowly disappears as time flew by.

I had fun this school year because of the different activities that our institution held, like the Intramurals and the Founder’s day celebration. I ran for Student Council for the position of the Public Relations Officer (PRO) for next school year against my best friend. Though I lost, I am still proud of myself for running and of Gio for winning. I experience also the many projects and requirements that our teachers gave us. I learn how to write and read an equation in Chemistry, to do flash in Computer Elective and to install wires and bulbs to make a parallel circuit in our Course. The teachers were more strict and sometimes more sensitive. Requirements were very much a hassle. The lessons were hard. But all the hard work payed off as the school year ended.

As a third year, the events were memorable. The recollection was fun and exciting.. We got to stay overnight at a place that I never knew existed. The challenges we faced were hard, but worth it and the lessons we learned was meaningful and very useful for our future life. The intramurals opening was very enjoyable because we were the “kuyas” of our houses and we influenced our younger brothers to be the best. The Marian Rally was different this year because I saw my batchmates in organizing it and seeing it successful makes me proud of my batch.

Another school year has ended. Junior life is a year worth it and one of the most memorable years in my stay in Don Bosco. I hope my senior year would be as fun. To all of my teachers, thank you for teaching and for being patient to us and to my classmate thank you for this wonderful year.

Active Sports over Cyber Games

Active sports over Cyber Games.

Over the last two decades the growth of youth sports has reflected the popularity of professional sports in our society. Sporting events and news are available to the public twenty-four hours a day on television and radio: sports are an enormous industry. The outstanding popularity of the sports industry has profoundly affected youth sports organizations. An estimated twenty-five million children age six through eighteen participate in at least one school or community based athletic program. These numbers increase exponentially as the age of boys and girls entering sports keeps falling. In order to supervise, teach and manage these athletes about 2.5 million coaches spend an average of eighty hours a season with them. The majority of these coaches volunteer for programs organized by the community, religious organizations, and recreational facilities. Without a national agency to coordinate sports programs, there exists great variation in the manner in which sponsoring agencies organize their teams, thus leaving plenty of opportunity for too much parental and coach control. Agencies have quickly moved American youth from unstructured play to highly organized competition. Here are some benefits of sports

1. Physical Benefits: Boost immune system, healthier body image, promote bone density, lower high blood pressure, and develop stronger muscles

2. Social Benefits: Improve mood and reduce the chance of depression, earn attention and respect, be with friend and make new ones, opportunity to be a leader, increased self-esteem and self-confidence

3. Personal Benefits: help relieve stress, reinforce values (Sportsmanship and hard work), Learn time management, Increase self discipline, learn to deal productively with criticism, experience success (winning), learn to deal with disappointment (losing), Provide a sense of control, learn healthy habits (such as staying fit)

4. Things you learn from sports: soccer (foot work and speed), baseball (eye-hand coordination), football (agility), tennis (shoulder movement), basketball (quickness), track and field (coordination and technique), cross country (endurance)

Now, with the popularity of cyber video games increasing daily, it's important to know the effects that the cyber game world has on the youth. While these games have documented positive effects on the youth's cognitive skills, there are negative impacts on the youth's development that can't be ignored. I can list up to six negative effects of cyber games.

1. False Problem-Solving Skills

Children who play cyber video games tend to believe they can solve problems quickly and with little involvement from others, because in the cyber world, problems are solved with the click of the mouse or a keystroke. Kids with this false sense of problem-solving abilities may have a difficult time adjusting to real-life problems that aren't as easy to resolve.

2. Aggression at a Tender Age

Various studies have shown that violent cyber games increase aggressive cognition in children. Many cyber game settings involve aggressive, violent plots that include weapons, physical altercations, shootings and even killings. Playing these violent cyber games could be linked to the aggressive behavior exhibited in school bullies and kids that do not get along with others.

3. Rewards for Violent Behavior

In many violent cyber games, the ultimate goal is to defeat an opponent by overcoming him through violence. Once this is achieved, the player is rewarded with bonus points or winning the game. This can send a message to children that overcoming or even killing an opponent is necessary to be rewarded in the real world.

4. Stifling Personal Imagination

Because cyber problems often are resolved by eliminating the source of the problem altogether, a child's personal imagination and creativity is not used in the cyber world. This lack of personal imagination can impact the child's ability to use personal morals and ethics to apply problem-solving skills.

5. Reduced Social Behavior

Many cyber games involve little room for interaction with other kids. Accordingly, the child is not forced to interact with others when resolving issues posed in the game. Such isolation at a tender age could lead to poor social skills in life.

6. Insensitivity to Others

Many cyber games involve some violence. Seeing such violence on a repetitive basis as the child works through a cyber game could cause him to adjust his emotional reactions to acts of violence in the real world. Specifically, when posed with real-life violence after having seen it in the game repetitively, the child's reaction could be similar to his response in the video game due to the loss of shock value.

I’m not saying that cyber games are bad, all I’m saying is that we, the youth, should participate more in sports, and less time playing cyber games for it is what’s good for us. Thank you and have a wonderful day.