March 2019 (SE27 Weekend)

It's been a year since I joined the Singles Encounter and I remember how I was in a very dark place before that. I found myself in a church community that helped me find the light in the dark. Now it was our turn to pay it forward and invite people to encounter God in their lives as well. I invited my friends and I am very happy that they are now part of the church community that I am in.

Prayer Leaders for Vigil night on Valentines Day.

SE26 Sponsoring Class

My friends who are now part of SE27 as shepherd and lambs

I am getting there! Praise God for changing me little by little every day. 

March 2019 (Boracay)

Before I start posting about ISTE updates (which is happening in a few days!! *stoked*) ...

I want to go through things that happened last March.

My friends and I went to Boracay and a few hours layover in Cebu.

My trusty travel minion. 

Just gotta love the beach!

night life

 

loving the breakfast view too!

layover at cebu city 

February Speaking Engagement in Cebu

I had a quick trip to Cebu City last February for Design Thinking in Education. 

And then took a photo op at the Tutoring Club Cebu branch. 

I had so many memories in Tutoring Club;

as a tutor in Alabang Branch and as a director in the Pasong Tamo branch. 

Tutoring Club has contributed much of my experiences and learnings in the Education Industry. 

A life update #ISTE2019 #EdTech

Is this serious?

My last blog post was in January 2019 and I was talking about how I'm trying to control my emotions? Wow. Where did the time go?

I've done a bunch of things over the past months, I'm probably going to just create a separate blog post about that to summarise

February - went to Cebu for a speaking engagement
March - went to Boracay island for a short vacation
March - sponsored the Singles Encounter 27 Retreat (this kept me busy for the month of Feb)
April - attended the TED 2019 Conference Live Stream at Marriott Manila.
May - registered to ISTE 2019 Conference which will be held in Philadelphia, PA USA.

At the moment - planning my trip to USA & Canada!

Basically I just wanted to make a blog post to update my non-existent readers that:

"Hey world, I'm attending ISTE2019!" 

By invitation special event for international participants.

Monitoring twitter ISTE19 activities and I got to grab a free Philly Cheesesteak!

Excited for the Global Scavenger hunt! 

Received the hard copies of the newsletters

A taste of Philly food tour experience!

I AM SO EXCITED ON SO MANY LEVELS.

1) International Conference
2) Philadelphia
3) Travelling
4) Potential new friends

God keep me safe in my travels!

Emotional Day Off

I have spent a day being mad and annoyed at almost everything. Something was indeed wrong because I couldn't extend my patience on things I normally would try to be more patient about. I wake up mad, and even dream of being mad. I needed an emotional day off. I needed to shut down everything from the outside as a form of protecting myself and others from my attitude as a result of my emotional outrage. Translation: It's been really easy to annoy me these days.

Thankfully, with my psychological background, I always use my own behavior as my own guinea pig. How do you regulate your emotions? How can I regulate my own emotions? How can I manage my anger? How can I now be easily irritated?

I want to develop a habit of prayer that instead of bursting my emotions out and ranting to my friends, I take a minute and pause and call on God to help me control myself. That's one part of my habit, the other part is learning to emotionally regulate myself and change my reaction to situations.

I'm reading an article from psychology today "5 ways to get your unwanted emotions under control". and I hope I am able to keep this in mind.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201502/5-ways-get-your-unwanted-emotions-under-control

1) Select the situation - avoid the situation that will trigger my unwanted emotion, close my ears, pretend to be in a different room or better yet, go to a different room, block messages, keep them unread, don't look at your phone, don't answer the call.

2) Modify the situation - how do I modify a situation in any case I am not able to avoid it? This is hard, I'm better off with just shutting it down and closing my eyes and ears. But let's think of ways I can modify the situation, change the topic? pretend to be nice? or maybe just dumb down the people around me and just come to the conclusion that these people will never understand so I have to lower my expectations of their understanding and forget about explaining and move on. Manage my expectations.

3) Shift your attention focus - Shift my attention to things that are MORE important and things that I can actually have control of. Find other things to talk about or other things that I should be noticing. Taking a break and pausing and being more conscious of the things I feel and the things I see at the moment. Live in the present. Feel that pain, the comfort the cold, the heat and listening to every bit of sound that I hear at the moment. Live in the present and take advantage of the moment to feel and hear in your surroundings. That will help me shift my attention.

4) Change your thoughts - Changing my perspective on how to view things. Force myself to find that silver lining. That all these annoying situations are just temporary and there is always good in everything. What are the things that give me good feelings? What would I be doing after I overcome this situation? This is not a permanent state but it will pass. This too shall pass. Pray to God to give you strength to overcome the situation.

5) Change your reaction - You are no longer that reactive person you used to be. Your nature does not have to define you. You can control how you react to a situation. Focus on changing your thoughts. Shift your attention. Close your eyes. Call on the Holy Spirit. Do not behave the way you naturally would do. Do not react if its only going to make the situation first. Swallow. Think. Count. Cover your ears. Be mindful. Recognize your 5 senses. What do you hear, see, feel, smell or taste? Amplify your other senses and recognize their functions. If you think you're going to regret whatever you want to do, then don't. Let them win. As long as you were able to regulate your emotions, you're a winner in your own standards.

I've Got Mail! #RoadToISTE2019

I just received this from the International Society for Technology in Education!

I love receiving mail from overseas and I am so excited to be part of this year's international conference in Philadelphia! Woohoo!!!!!!!!

Who's super excited to take things to an international level? 

Me!

I am a Deputy of our Movie & Television Review Board

Excited to do my duties as an appointed deputy this year!