My Awesome Experience of Attending Camps with Strangers
For the past year, I have attended four camps that are held for a week or less, collaborated with people of whom I had zero interaction with before the camp itself, and learned some awesome things.
The camps I attended are:
1.) Zühlke Innovation Academy,
2.) KAIST EE Camp 2018,
3.) KAIST SoC Camp 2019, and
4.) Accenture Student Leadership Conference 2019
(More details on the camps at the end of the article)
In applying to the camps:
Trying doesn’t hurt as much as you’d imagine it would.
It’s a provides a fulfilling experience that beats not trying at all.
“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” — Seneca
I completely relate to the quote above by Seneca, a Roman stoic philosopher. It’s not just about applying to camps or job interviews, it’s about anything where our future isn’t guaranteed and may not adhere to the grand plan we have in our minds. We often torture ourselves with overthinking and simulating ourselves into every negative path configuration that may occur. With the deadline of camp applications coming up, I can’t help but throw myself off the self-reflection well.
Am I qualified for this? What if I get rejected?
In these moments, we see our vulnerable and insecure selves in its raw form. Drowning myself with futures that haven’t and may not even occur yet, I pictured myself as Doctor Strange activating the time stone in the Infinity War 😂. The only difference is I’m not battling a purple giant but just a set of application deadlines and online submission buttons.
How overthinking looks like 😂
Turns out, the application processes weren’t as daunting as imagined. I submitted the requirements, answered interview questions, and waited patiently if I passed according to their judgment. When I asked my co-participants on their application experience, a lot of them just tried as well often quoting, “There is no harm in trying”. Not knowing if they’ll get accepted or not, the fact that they tried is what matters since it was the key that brought us in a learning experience together.
This brings me back to the talk Ms. Jen Tuazon gave in the Accenture Student Leadership Conference 2019. She told us, “Do what scares you.” (following common sense, of course, and not to take literally and out of context) Following this line, she discussed her journey of taking a risk and trying out new things inside and outside work. Through these, she was able to discover that she can do things she thought she couldn’t do and in return, these became the most rewarding experiences in her life.
Similarly, breaking through my fear of rejection and becoming accepted to the camps, KAIST EE Camp and KAIST SoC Camp, which led me to Korea became the best experiences of my past 21 years of living. Before being accepted to these camps, I would have never thought about stepping to another country or even riding an airplane in the first place to come this soon. The whole experience was ultimately fresh and surreal for me as it was a package full of my first times. First time to ride an airplane and to travel alone outside the country. First time to converse with people from diverse nationalities (Korean, Kazakhstani, Chinese, Indian, Vietnam, etc). First time to collaborate with people using English as the primary medium of communication and not my native language, Filipino.
Not knowing the future makes life exciting and distressing as well. As a consolation, I remind myself that everyone organically undergoes this feeling of being imprisoned by our worries inside our minds at some point in our lives and it’s how we react to these situations that matter the most.
From the way I wrote this, some may perceive that I seemingly got accepted in everything I applied for when the truth is I also got a lot of rejections from other opportunities. During my first rejections, I tend to blame myself for not being worthy of that opportunity; however, after getting a couple of rejections I realized that there are a lot of other factors involved and it’s not just me. It may be that the other participants accepted are more fitted and deserving for the role they’re looking or it may be that I was lacking something at the time.
Looking forward, whatever I receive in these applications, either acceptance or rejection, I see to myself that in both stances I move forward and grow into a better person.
As a visually-oriented person, I sometimes imagine myself as a plant growing in days of sunshine and harsh rain (endeavors) :)
In meeting people you’ve had zero interaction before:
Connect with a few people in your camp and make your experience 10 times more enjoyable
It is kind of obvious that in a camp of more than 40+ participants, you wouldn’t have the chance to talk to everyone on a deeper level than small talk, but you do have the opportunity to build meaningful connections with some. The rule I followed over the years of studying in my university is to always try to introduce myself to my seatmate during the first day of classes, strike up a conversation if I can, and maybe add them on social media. Most of the time my seatmate wouldn’t also know anybody in the room and if ever he/she knows someone, there’s a high chance that you can join their circle since it’s the first day of classes and what else is formed in the first day of classes? Groupings.
This is a big lifesaver when you miss a class and want to ask for lecture notes and when you’re not sure with the specifications of your project and want to confirm the details with your classmate. At the same time, be a good seatmate too and provide service to your newfound friend whenever she needs something. For a bit, this may sound *scheme-y, *but in truth, it isn’t since you’re following a basic method of survival that goes back generations ago. Survival in companionship.
I hope people don’t misunderstand above as an unethical life hack. It’s unethical if you use this and you become a user who only contacts people when you need something from them and disappears when they need something from you.
The same technique applies to other social settings and this does the majority of the work for immediately breaking walls with less effort. Some points to consider when wanting to get closer to people you just met are mirroring their actions, being curious of them and letting them tell stories about themselves, and listening and reacting well to their anecdotes. In real life though, I usually don’t remember all these items as I just let the conversation flow into its natural course. Having said that, I think I was simply blessed to meet people who are also interested in getting to know me as I am with them.
One thing I intentionally do though is adding humor in conversations. It’s always not a bad idea to add a pinch of laughter as long as the jokes used are harmless and culturally sensitive. Most of the times, I exaggerate my way of telling stories which makes my conversation partner engaged with what I’m saying. In other times, I fall into the attractive trap of telling puns and classic dad jokes of which long awkward silences are accounted for (Rest in Peace 🙏jk).
Through making friends with few people in the camps, I got to bond with a diverse set of people from different fields and cultural backgrounds. The experience emphasized the importance of global citizenship. Although I already knew that the Earth is utterly large, it was in this real encounter of other nationalities made me realize that I’m part of a much bigger world and I have responsibilities with it.
I’m proud to say that I made some lifetime friends in the camp of whom I’ll get to catch up stories with and greet with a wide smile when I bump into them in the future.
In creating a better team dynamic:
Teams perform better when they’re open to scrapping bad ideas, compounding good ideas, and have a sense of belongingness_*
In the Zühlke Innovation Academy I attended, I got to be a member of an amazing group of strangers from different college backgrounds (Architecture, Civil engineering, Nursing, Medtech, Math, Philosophy, Computer science). With this team, I got to experience and immerse myself in the ultimate design thinking experience through brainstorming at a retreat house for a week and designing a prototype product with the purpose of answering the question:
How can consumers be more conscientious of their consumption and E-waste generation?
During the ideation process, we were tasked to write and exhaust our ideas on post-it notes. We were encouraged by our facilitator to write crazy unthinkable solutions as sometimes these ideas work out well in reality and might become a genius innovative solution. After squeezing our brain juices, we were asked to share our ideas with our groupmates in order to get a poll of which idea to pursue.
“Why aren’t you guys challenging each other’s ideas?” (non-verbatim)
A curious comment was given by our Mentor Nicole which hang in my mind for a while. Coming from Switzerland with a different cultural background, she provided an outside perspective on our interaction as a team and noticed that we were being passive in criticizing the ideas being shared as probably because we didn’t want to hurt each other’s feelings. Yes, our mind and body was present and participating with the activity, but we were conforming and getting along too well and that we needed intervention by our mentor to get the best out of our ideas. She was definitely accurate and on point with her observations as we might as well be a typical Filipino team illustrating the concept of kapwa (shared identity), which is at the core of Filipino Social Psychology. In 1978, the father of modern Filipino psychology, Virgilio Enriquez defined kapwa as “shared identity,” “equality,” “being with others,” and “unity of the one-of-us-and-the-other.”
2 categories of Kapwa
[direct dictionary translation: fellow human]
[Father of modern Filipino psychology definition, (Virgilio Enriquez):
shared identity, equality, being with others]
1. Ibang-tao (outsider)
Levels of interaction
a. pakikitungo(transaction/civility with)
b. *pakikisalamuha (interaction with)
c. pakikilahok (joining/participating)
d. pakikibagay (in conformity with/inaccord with)
e. pakikisama (being along with)
2. Hindi-ibang-tao (one-of-us) not outsider
Levels of interaction
a. pakikipaglagayang-loob
(being in-rapport/understanding/acceptance with)
b. pakikisangkot (getting involved)
c. pakikiisa (being one with)
Reference: Enriquez , V. G. (1978). Kapwa: A core concept in Filipino social psychology. Philippine Social Sciences and Humanities Review, 42, 100–108.
Complementary to the kapwa (shared identity) core value concept is pakikiramdam or shared inner perception as pivotal interpersonal value. This shared inner perception is basically feeling for another or having heightened awareness of others, going as far as detecting non-verbal social cues. It was still in the early in the schedule of our camp week and so, we were utilizing this shared inner perception to be cautious with our words and observant with how our teammates react to them. This was the norm even in my past group experiences that without the outside observation from our mentor, I probably wouldn’t notice how emotionally sensitive we Filipinos are with each other. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t be truthful not to mention that there are still irregular cases of people in a group that have a straightforward/reckless attitude clearly not practicing pakikiramdam.
A more detailed definition is written below:
Pakikiramdam is a request to feel or to be sensitive to. It is a shared feeling, a kind of ‘‘emotional a priori’’. There is ‘‘hesitation to react, attention to subtle cues, and non-verbal behavior in mental role-playing (if I were in the other’s situation, how would I feel)’’. In other words, it is ‘‘feeling for another’’, exercising great care and deliberation (Mataragnon, 1987).
Reference: Pe-Pua, R., & Protacio-Marcelino, E. A. (2000). Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Filipino psychology): A legacy of Virgilio G. Enriquez. *Asian Journal of Social Psychology*, *3*(1), 49–71. \[[https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-839x.00054](https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-839x.00054 "https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-839x.00054")\]([https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-839x.00054](https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-839x.00054 "https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-839x.00054"))
From the numerous words/labels used to describe the levels of interactions in Filipino social psychology, you might surmise that “Hey, Filipinos must be extremely emotionally aware, right?” And that’s actually right as the Philippines was named among the world’s most emotional countries not only in the recent Gallup 2019 Global Emotions Report but also in the past reports.
Going back to our team issue, our mentor told us that if we wanted to be the most innovative team we needed to pass this communication hurdle. This fired up our competitive spirit and right after, she advised us to do a bit of a Six Thinking Hats role-play to get around the difficulty of challenging the idea of our group mates. In this role-play, each one of us gets to wear a “hat” or role that will tackle the idea from different perspectives. For example, if I was wearing a black hat, I would be the team pessimist that looks for the downsides and weak points of the idea. This worked well for us, as we were able to scrap the bad features of some ideas and combine the best ideas we had.
To give you an idea, a typical design thinking cycle consists of empathize -> define -> ideate -> prototype -> test. At the last stage (test), we conducted user testing and discovered faults and oversights in our prototype project. Our group was fast to learn on our earlier mistake of not challenging the current state of our prototype project. We scrapped the parts that didn’t work and adjusted our prototype to meet the users wants. I wouldn’t say that we did those without any argument and bits of emotional wounds (jk), but most importantly we achieved our goal of winning the mini-project competition.
Presentation of our E-ways Jeepney Project. A Jeepney that roams from barangay to barangay exchanging E-waste to E-points and E-points to household items.
Another camp I attended was called School of Computing Camp and was held at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). A mini ideation competition was organized and we were put into random groups making sure as much as possible that not 2 people of the same nationality were in the same group maximizing the “Meet new people” experience.
The instructions were pretty straightforward, we imagine ourselves as business startup owners, think of an idea related to computing that is marketable, and then finally pitch the idea to the professors. What sticks out in my team experience in this camp is how we were able to comfortably communicate and if you ask me why I’ll say that besides the obvious reason of us being active since this is such a rare opportunity, it’s because we were speaking English. In southeast Asian countries, the Hofstede’s power distance indices are high due to cultural legacies. This means that the extent less powerful members of organizations and institutions accept and expect that power is distributed unequally is high. In comparison with our native languages that require politeness and mitigated speech when speaking with someone older or of seniority, English removes this extra semantics and communicates the message straight to the point.
Furthermore, as soon as we decided which idea to pursue, our roles were distributed equally to the members fulfilling our desire to contribute and satisfying our sense of belonging. Everyone in our group comes across as open and engage which is why we didn’t have much difficulty in voicing our opinions in trusting that it will be perceived as constructive criticism to improve our final project.
Our team, Rent & Play, developed a business pitch on making an application that connects sports facility owners to consumers which won the best project ideation.
Overall, in both groups, we had great team dynamics. I just realized this recently but I think one great factor contributing to our team dynamic was our approachable mentors that weren’t commanding, but rather great facilitators and shepherds, slowly prodding us to the right direction. From what I remember in both groups we did have a point person, but everyone became an informal leader at some point depending on the competence of the person on the task at hand. I think this method is great in informal short term group settings. Indeed I can call the teamwork we had as greater than the sum of its parts.
- More information on Sikolohiyang Pilipino here:
- [Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Filipino psychology): A legacy of Virgilio G. Enriquez](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111⁄1467-839X.00054)
- Below is a great resource for understanding Team Dynamics
- [4.2 Five Models for Understanding Team Dynamics](https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/technicalwriting/chapter/understandingteamdynamics/)
In being mindful of your actions:
Emotional awareness is the ability to recognize and make sense of not just your own emotions, but also those of others
Being able to recognize your own and others emotion is one thing, but reacting to them is another. Be mindful of your actions as it affects the whole group. Avoid negativity and practice conflict resolution.
Remember that time when someone cracked a joke, everybody laughed, and although you didn’t catch the joke, you laughed along with everybody.
Emotion is contagious.
Seeing emotional expressions such as smiles and laughter in someone else often triggers a corresponding emotional response in the watcher. This may be a basic element of social interaction: synchronizing a common emotional state in all members of a group whose brains process what they see of the environment around them in a similar fashion. From: Psyarticles
Similar to the laughter emotional contagion above, negative emotions at the same time is contagious. This may not necessarily jeopardize the group’s success; however, conflict resolution and negativity avoidance are suggested.
Even though I have been a part of hundreds of group works in my life wherein a great deal of those, I was assigned as a leader, I would still say that conflict resolution and is my weakness. A lot of times during high school, I fell into the easy trap of being either passive or passive-aggressive when someone in the group shows unhappiness (maybe sulky) with the majority decision, disrespectfully criticizes the solution without presenting an alternative, imposes his opinions, does not listen or contribute, and etc. Now that I try to remember all the groups I’ve ever been in college, I realize that the worst team member I have encountered was a freeloader, someone who doesn’t contribute to group works, disappears when needed and is difficult to contact. I dealt with those through continuously communicating with them through the available channels and telling them kindly that if they don’t do their assigned tasks, consequences will occur. These instances made me a leader who’s good at distributing and assigning tasks, setting deadlines, and delivering the project; however, the lack of encountering really stubborn conflict inflicting people also made me inept with handling conflicts in a group.
I’ve indirectly become more aware of this issue through the short anecdotes told to me by my co-participants in the camps I attended. From two out of four camps I attended, I keep hearing stories from the friends that I made that in their team, one person’s disagreement to the group’s decision throws the team’s balance off infecting every one of negative emotions. I didn’t hear much of how their team stories unfolded in the end as they were pretty uncomfortable talking about it, but these stories are enough to make me think of how I would have dealt with the situation.
In a conflict management topic I read on the IAPM Agile Project Management Guide 2.0, I learned of what a conflict spiral is and a nifty template on how to react in such a circumstance arise. The conflict spiral starts from (a)misunderstanding. Then, it turns into (b) confusion which evolves into anger. ©Anger initiates the blame game that subsequently turns into (d)alienation, and eventually (e)resentment. It’s quite eye-opening to be aware of these stages in the development of conflict and interesting to observe and dissect the conflicts happening in real life and even tv dramas to its parts to have a better understanding of social interactions. Moving on, the four-point conflict resolution is pretty straightforward. They are (1) identify conflict, (2) address conflict, (3) find solution/s, and (4) implement solution/s.
From reading on the topic, what I understood is that it’s best to nip the conflict in the bud. When you start to recognize a misunderstanding is brewing between your teammates, immediately talk about it with the people involved taking the conflict from the emotional to the objective level. If you’re the leader, be the mediator. If you’re a team member and you’re aware that conflict is in session within your team, inform your leader. And if you’re the one involved in the conflict, just don’t (jk), be cooperative with your mediator at the least and be more open/compromise with the suggested solutions. In short, communication is key.
While writing the previous paragraphs, some questions popped into my mind. During my whole college duration, was I really lucky to be in groups that just bonded well or was the conflict catastrophe well-prevented through the casual verbal communication we had as college students practicing our university’s culture of openness? In the camps I attended, team members would have greater differences in their academic backgrounds and age which I theorize is why conflict arises more. I wouldn’t know for sure, but I’ll know more in the future once I start working in companies.
Some extra notes :)
Observations on common root causes of some conflicts
1. Pride
2. Treating their ideas like their own babies (some people get hurt when their ideas aren't accepted or contructively criticized)
*If you guys have any other advice in conflict resolution, put it in the comments below\~*
Negative emotions do not arise only from conflicts. It can also come from having low spirits for when your team finds difficulty in progressing, misses a deadline, or loses a challenge. I’ve always had a can-do and will-do it attitude so being optimistic isn’t difficult for me — or not. Do you know that time when everybody feels down and looks unhopeful? I’d be lying when I say I don’t get affected on the inside.
I mentioned earlier that during these moments, we should remember to avoid negativity but to be clear I did not mean it in a sense of immediately expunging our pessimistic feelings. We aren’t robots. I believe, the team experiencing low spirits is part of a team journey. A team’s collaborating experience isn’t always flowers and butterflies, and so I think a good amount of challenges to shake the team’s morale goes a long way as long as it doesn’t occur in toxic durations sucking the team’s energy.
Through my experiences with mostly Asian groupmates, I see when our team spirits are low we cope through dark sarcasm and humor. My Filipino peers and I would say “[Bahala na](http://www.anythingpsych.com/2013/12/the-psychology-behind-bahala-na/)” with a literal English translation of “Come what may” or in Spanish “Que sera, sera” of which may sound imprudent, but in reality, we still do our best at working on the task at hand. Perhaps looking at the famous proverbs in our countries, our Asian ancestors passed down their cultural legacy of working hard despite the struggles.
- Pag may tiyaga, may nilaga. If you persevere, you will reap the fruits of your labor. [Filipino proverb]
- 고생 끝에 낙이 온다. (Go-saeng Ggeut-eh naki eun-da) At the end of hardship comes happiness. [Korean proverb]
- Berakit-rakit ke hulu, berenang-remang ke tepian. Bersakit-sakit dahulu bersenang-senang kemudian Raft upstream, swim to the shore (No pain, no gain) [Indonesian proverb]
In taking care of myself:
Listen to my body and stop eating everything I get my hands-on. Health is wealth 💆
Traveling for the camps has got to be one of the best perks in attending these camps. The transportation part of every excursion from home to venue and vice-versa is something that I really enjoy as I love looking at the moving sceneries. Furthermore, traveling and staying at a lodging far from home unlocked an opportunity for me to be independent and take care of myself. Before these camps, I didn’t have many opportunities to leave home and be independent. The closest I’d get to these type of opportunities are field trips and retreat that are held once every school year in elementary and high school which only extends from day trips to overnight events. After attending these camps, one thing for sure is my respect to my college friends who stay at dormitories striving by themselves have grown. Wait, so that’s how they developed their resourcefulness. Oh, these street smarts!
Anyway, here is the list of my takeaways:
- Know my limits in terms of eating food.
Do you know what Korea is known for nowadays except for their music? Spicy food. Bunch of viral Mukbang videos and challenges of eating spicy Tteokbokki (떡볶이), Yangneyom chicken (양념치킨), Hot Chicken Flavor Ramen (불닭볶음면), Kimchi (김치), and many more are being uploaded by the day. In those two camps held Korea, I didn’t think much of the consequences of eating spicy food. Oh dear, do I regret being oblivious. I forgot in those times that I wasn’t in the good old confines of my own home. I thought my spice tolerance training from years of eating spicy ramen once in a while would at least pay off, but I guess I still have a long way to go.
Spicy chicken + Spicy Tteokbokki + Spicy Fish Cakes + Spicy Ramen = 🌋 🔥 💥
On the day before the first camp, I ate spicy chicken for dinner. Little did I know that I’d wake up early in the morning having an upset stomach. Two months after, I’m back to Korea for the second camp. The spicy food incident was more memorable this time as it was one of the most intense upset stomachs that I had. Yep, I definitely list down every upset stomach I had and rank them according to order.
It was the evening of our first official camp day. I was freezing because of the cold weather but the warm presence of my co-participants kept me alive. For more than 5 minutes we were walking and for 10 more minutes, we were walking, and for 5 more minutes still walking… I thought, so this is why Koreans have low obesity rates. I am used to long walks so I enjoyed it a lot. Our mentor has planned to bring us from the camp venue to a chicken house for dinner. We walked on the cold bricks of the huge KAIST university, to cold concrete of dark alleys dimly lighted by street lamps, and finally to concrete pavers of a brightly lit bustling commercial area consisting of interconnected alleys that seemed like a labyrinth for me.
Oh, boy, was I fascinated. “There isn’t a place like this in the Philippines!” The streets were brimming with people, mostly university students wearing black puffer jackets. People were walking on and off the unapparent road, briskly moving to the sides whenever cars pass by. Lights from the different establishments like restaurants, pubs, milk tea shops, karaoke rooms, PC rooms, arcade, barbershops, stationery stores, convenience stores, and also street stalls fill the place and set upon every surface of the alley. You probably wouldn’t see a single star from this place.
With eyes of fascination, we have unknowingly arrived at our place of nourishment, the chicken house. In Korea, they call restaurants that serve chicken 치킨집 with a literal translation of _chicken house_. Our mentor ordered and our food arrived on the table soon enough. The food was visually satiating. Young kids these days would say it’s Instagrammable. The food was a mixed spicy chicken, tteokbokki, fish cakes, and ramen. It looks delicious and tastes delicious, but it was spicy as hell too. For some reason, I have the habit of continuously grabbing food when I’m using chopsticks. Even if it’s spicy, I ate a lot while gulping cups of water every bite. By the end, I was full, happy, fulfilled, and one kilo heavier.
Together with my fellow countrymen co-participants, we walked around more to digest the starchy foods we just ingested. A stationery store called Artbox sold a lot of cool items so we checked it out. I bought a hot pack which is like a nifty pocket heater. We also entered a mini grocery store to find for snacks to buy and bring home. Interestingly they were selling Filipino snacks too. Anyway, my roommate and I turned our attention to the ice cream freezer and got our own swirly ice creams on a cup for a round of dessert. Everything was fine except the night got deeper, the temperature dropped, and our bodies were tired calling for a retreat to our dormitories. With masks and scarfs wrapping our faces, hands inside our pockets, arms close to the body, and fast large steps, these men and women born and raised from a tropical country walked again.
My roommate and I arrived at the female dormitories named Sarang Hall (Love Hall) and the sudden shift of temperature brought by the heated room floor made me dizzy briefly. As I looked into the mirror I realized my ears and cheeks turned red and my face was very dry. I immediately took off my extra layers of clothing and went to the common shower room to freshen up before sleeping. There was some type of uneasiness in my stomach, but I brushed it off as nothing serious because it was that time of the month. I went back to our room and began organizing my things. As I was folding my clothes, my stomach began aching. It wasn’t unbearable, but it was terribly uncomfortable. I thought a few trips to the bathroom would solve it. Even my roommate started to worry about my situation. I kind of groaned, griped, but laugh it off in the end since I just wanted to be done with the aching by myself. My condition worsened and my menstrual cramps were getting the best of me. My mind wandered off thinking of reasons why I’m feeling this way at the worst timing when I’m seas beyond the comforts of my home. I felt weak, but I knew I had to do something to relieve my pain. I drank lots of water and prayed. I glanced at the hot pack I bought earlier at a stationary store and suddenly got an idea thought to use those as cramps reliever. I don’t have much experience in severe cramps like this one so it was my first time to utilize such a common home remedy. Immediately afterward, I lied on the bed and put the hot pack on top of my lower abdomen. With my eyes closed and brows furrowed, I wished the pain gone lulling myself to sleep.
The next morning, after a trip to the bathroom, most of the aching was gone. I slowly gained momentum by immediately getting ready and dressing up for day 2. Looking back, I realized that the combination of being tired, eating too much spicy food, and triggering my lactose intolerance symptoms through eating ice cream resulted in that nightmare. Nevertheless, it’s day 2 and it’s time to get back on track with the camp.
From this time forward, I learned my lesson of being wary of eating spicy food and dairy. Drinking lots of water usually solves my dairy issue, but I have still yet to find a solution for making my stomach feel better after eating a very spicy meal. When I eat spicy ramen at home, I drink Yakult (probiotic drink), but I don’t think it’s doing much to help me digest the food. I also monitor my bad habits of overeating and drinking by limiting the amount of rice I eat every meal and limiting myself of the number of milk teas and coffee I drink every month respectively.
- Water > other drinks
In some of my previous field trips in high school, I experienced acid reflux and vomited because of drinking other beverages like bottled green tea, soda, and juice in substitute of water. Because of this, I did become aware of my water drinking habits in my first years of college, but not enough to change it in the long run. After a while, I became forgetful of drinking water when not at home. I also found the bottled water sold in stores too expensive, and even though I keep bringing bottled water to school, once I finish it I can’t be bothered to refill it.
The suggested glasses of water to drink a day was eight, but in my estimation, I was only drinking 5 glasses more or less. What came as a slap to my face that reminded me once again the importance of water happened 3 years ago at a camping class. We were instructed to hike a mountain in my camping class and as we were reaching halfway from the peak, I felt more and more nauseous making me unable to continue anymore. I was left behind with my other classmates who also weren’t able to continue anymore and realized my mistake of not drinking enough water to stay hydrated for the taxing activity. I think it was from that day that I started making small increments to continuously hydrate and prevent my body from having too much acidity.
Gradually, I became conscious of my drinking habits not just by myself, but also with the unintentional help of people around me. I noticed how people around me care about their drinking habits and this has inspired me to do the same. Instead of drinking soda for drinks, I only drink juice or water now (I still drink the soda if I got a meal with soda for free though since I think it’s a waste if nobody else drinks it). I substituted coffee with tea as tea doesn’t make me palpitate and actually provides health benefits. Recently, I started limiting myself with 2 milk tea or frappe or any sugar-heavy drinks a month. And finally, I get to reach the recommended amount of water to drink every day through drinking 2 glasses of water each as soon as I wake up in the morning, right before I sleep, during meals, and in between meals.
Drinking lots of water that is well-provided in the camps I attended also further validated my belief that hydration is essential in making our mind and body operate. After all, the body is about more ore less 60% water. I thought it was foolish for me not to monitor my drinking of water in the past.
- Maintain physical fitness to prevent illnesses
Those who are close to me know that I’m prone to having a runny nose, especially during the rainy season. In recent years, I have a suspicion that I might’ve developed allergic rhinitis as a response to the increase of dust mites in our dilapidating house. Due to this condition, when I come in contact with an allergen I uncontrollably sneeze and cough which is uncomfortable not only for me but also for people around me. This is one of the reasons why I always carry a handkerchief whenever I go out.
My condition has gotten better now since we’re having our house reconstructed but during the camps where I was exposed to shifting temperatures, especially when I went to Korea on Autumn/Winter, I was struggling with my runny nose all the time.
Now, to prevent any type of illness in the future, I came up with concrete steps to keep my body healthy.
Drink vitamins
Drinking vitamins is something I neglected in the past but through research, I got to understand its importance as nutritional supplements. Some doctors suggest that if one can eat a complete healthy balanced diet every day, vitamins may not be necessary. Since I don’t really get my dose of vegetables every single day, for example, I think multivitamins fills that nutrient gap for me.
Pick up a Sport/Hobby
I exercise only when the situation requires me to. In elementary and high school, Physical Education classes were exercise for me. In college, commuting was the exercise for me. One to three hours of public transportation every day was the norm so I treated all the walking and chasing of jeepneys and UV Express as exercise. My brother told me that this ain’t exercise and I didn’t want to admit that he’s right so I strongly defended that commuting is enough for me to keep a healthy body when it’s not.
On my birthday last February, I asked my mother that if she bought me shoes, I’d use it to run. My mother did buy me the shoes but I haven’t used it to run until two months ago, I remembered my brother suggesting to me to use an application called C25k (Couch to 5k) if I really wanted to pick up running as a sport. Basically, this application is perfect for couch potatoes like me who don’t do much exercise beforehand. Since that day I ran 3k almost every day. I’m about three-fourths done in the running program and went through a lot of changes. From not being able to run for merely 30 seconds straight, I’m now able to run 24 minutes straight without stopping. I’m feeling a lot better and healthier than before and I also don’t have frequent allergic reactions. I have a good feeling that I’ll be able to have a good relationship with this sport onwards. What’s amazing with this application also is that it has an existing and active Reddit community online which inspires me more to continue running.
Monitor Diet
Cooking is something that I occasionally enjoy in the past. Currently, it has grown more into me especially now that I’m in the process of changing my lifestyle into a healthy one. I’ve always loved eating food and I think the reason why I love it so much is because my mom is a good cook. These days I’ve been cooking various Filipino delicacies making me more knowledgeable with the ingredients used and their health benefits. I was refreshed with basic concepts on nutrition like macronutrients and micronutrients. It’s funny to think that I care about these concepts now, 8+ years after these were introduced to me in elementary. Ah, I’m getting old. Anyway, because of cooking, I can say I’m a little bit more aware of what I put inside my body. I can also now do a rough estimate of the calories that I eat every day.
Currently, I’m cutting down on rice through eating at most 1 cup every meal and am limiting myself of the number of calories I intake every day (just a rough estimate and not to the decimal point). These days I’m trying to lose weight so I tried a trending diet method called 16⁄8 intermittent fasting which involves eating only during an 8-hour window and fasting for the remaining 16 hours, but … I’ve been failing (haha). I get pretty hungry at night and even though I try to drink water to satiate my hunger, I tend to pace back and forth in the kitchen until I get a bite of some food.
I don’t know if I’ll get to succeed in that diet in the future, but it did wonders to my very close friend and she seems quite healthy too. For now, I’ll just trust that my calorie limiting and running activities will continuously help me in losing weight.
Conclusion:
These camps are such big blessings for me. I’ll eternally be grateful for the organizations that provided me with these opportunities. On the outside, the camps may seem just like a fun outing, but when reflected properly one can learn so much from them. Out of everything in the camp, The most important and special aspect for me is the people. It’s always amazing and a pleasure to meet a diverse and unique set of people from different parts of the world. We would talk about our worries and concerns, our interests, our views on life, purpose, and vision. The experience makes me wonder about how big yet connected the world is and at the same time wonder about how small of a spectacle I am in comparison and yet, I am an alive moving, thinking, conscious human being. I have no words enough to praise how great our God is.
If I was born 50 years ago, at age 20 the first web page of the World Wide Web would have been just served and I wouldn’t have any chance to join any camps/workshops unless I walk out the house, go to the local library, look for posters or flyers for advertisements, grab the recent newspapers, and search manually if there’s any available opportunity to grab.
So much has changed since the launch of the World Wide Web and today, with just a click of a submission button my application form would reach the servers of South Korea from the comforts of my home in the Philippines for it to be reviewed by the organizers. Such convenience! When I asked my parents if they ever thought in their youth that technology would soon run the world, they said that they didn’t expect or think that this could be done.
Remarkably, someone in the past has predicted the existence of the internet.
In 1962, the author and media theorist, predicted we’d have an internet.
That was the year McLuhan, a professor of English born in Edmonton, Canada on this day in 1911, wrote a book called The Gutenberg Galaxy. In it, he observed that human history could be partitioned into four distinct chapters: The acoustic age, the literary age, the print age, and the then-emerging electronic age. McLuhan believed this new frontier would be home to what he dubbed a “global village” — a space where technology spread information to anyone and everyone.
Source: http://mentalfloss.com/article/502962/marshall-mcluhan-man-who-predicted-internet-1962
I am glad that I was born in this age of the internet.
T̶h̶e̶ ̶I̶n̶t̶e̶r̶n̶e̶t̶ ̶g̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶m̶e̶ ̶o̶p̶p̶o̶r̶t̶u̶n̶i̶t̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶a̶u̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶m̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶o̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶s̶.̶
The people on the internet gave me opportunities and taught me a lot of things
It’s not the internet that gave me opportunities and taught me a lot of things. It is the people who created the networks, set up the servers, developed web pages, wrote content that provided us with knowledge. I got reminded to practice gratefulness and not take things for granted just because they’re on the internet.
The global village consists of people just like you and me. It’s also a place where you can meet strangers in the right communities. With the right online community with members continuously inspiring and supporting each other, one can also grow and have similar learning experiences like me. Considering as to how the VR community grows steadily, I believe it might be used one day to conduct workshops or lectures online. Anybody can learn anything now with the free resources we have online. Sky’s the limit.
Awesome pictures of the camps & details:
Zühlke Innovation Academy is a week-long Design Thinking Workshop held at Cavite, Philippines. For the most duration of the academy, we learned and experienced the full-cycle of the design thinking process. Sub-topics on global citizenship, global trends, and cross-cultural skills were discussed too.
2018 KAIST EE Camp is a 2-day visit camp to KAIST’s campus at Daejeon, Korea held last November and organized by the KAIST School of Electrical Engineering. Participants were introduced to graduate program opportunities through campus and laboratory tours, research talks, and meeting with School of Electrical Engineering professors and students.
2019 KAIST SoC Camp is a 4-day visit camp organized by KAIST School of Computing held this January where participants get to learn graduate program opportunities and experience KAIST through staying at an on-campus dormitory while attending to research talks and team discussions at designated building on-campus.
Accenture Student Leadership 2019 (SLC2019) is an immersive two-day conference for graduating students in the Philippines held at Novotel Manila Araneta Center that aims help young student leaders discover their power to lead.