Today, a very important event in Mindanao took place as Mindanao Conference of Information Technology Students was held at Holy Cross of Davao College. Different activities were carried out in celebration for the said event, and one was the Mindanao Wide IT Quiz. This day marks one of the greatest days in my student life because I was one of the participants of the quiz bowl, together with Mr. Christoper Pelayo who represented our school University of the Immaculate Conception. Different schools from Mindanao have gathered together to celebrate the event and there were about 19 participating schools namely AdDU, UM Main, USEP, UIC, HCDC (host), STI Davao, STI Digos, UP Mindanao, SPAC, Notdre Dame of Kidapawan College, Notre Dame of Midsayap College, DMMA, Brokenshire College, SPAMAST, MSU and others.
I am happy to say that we placed 2nd runner up from the competition and ranked 3rd out of the 19 participating schools. The competition concluded with USEP’s victory having a total score of 41 with their outstanding performance on all rounds, followed by Ateneo de Davao University with a total score of 36. We placed next to them with a total score of 34 and I think it was either UP Mindanao or STI Davao tailing behind us.
The questions were solely based from the Philippine National IT Standards or PhilNITS exam and were provided by Sir Aloysius Torres of PhilNITS Center Davao. We have undergone review for this certification exam along with other participants from other schools which gave us the advantage. We also did a quick review the other couple of nights and this morning which really helped so much. The quiz comprised 3 rounds, each with different levels of difficulty from Easy, Average and Difficult. The easy round was composed of 10 questions with 1 point each, the 2nd round also with 10 questions with 2 points each and the difficult round composed of 5 questions with 3 points each. We managed to answer 9 out of 10 questions one the first round, with one question, which, only us got the correct answer. We took the lead on the easy round together with USEP with scores 9. We unfortunately misinterpreted one question about system availability in relation with RASIS and we somehow regretted.
We started fine on the average round and answered the first question correctly, but suddenly, things started to go bad. It was on the average round where everything went into uncertainty as me and my teammate got confused with the questions and ran out of time to carefully analyze them. Anyway we managed to score half of the total scores from the round, while USEP led followed by ADdu, UP Mindanao and STI Davao. Our anxiety and remorse were intensified as we had our supposedly final answers replaced by a wrong one after swift deliberations which turned out to be incorrect, not to mention that my teammate was troubled in account to the call of nature or jingle bell time (if you know what I mean).He drank a liter of water before the competition started to ease the tense which unluckily brought him into a uncomfortable condition. We didn’t lose hope in that round as we saw a chance to get to the top 5 because the score intervals were not really that far, except of course for the leading team who were 10 points ahead of us, getting a perfect score in that round.
As the final round approaches, my teammate still couldn’t chill as he tried to suppress with all his might the distressing force of nature xD . We finally had a glimpse of hope as we answered the questions correctly and eventually reached higher ranks. We managed to redeem ourselves on the difficult round and were the only team who perfected all the difficult questions. As the tabulators were about to announce the final scores, I called up one of the watchers for the second time (called her up from the average round) to acquire permission for Chris to go wee wee…hehehe. So, the results were proclaimed and we were happy about it. I really did enjoy the event, all the nerve-breaking questions and all the thrilling and exciting competition. Well, we did our best and everything went just fine for us.
One of the highlights of the activities in the afternoon part was the presentation of Student Researches which also gave way for Ronald Borla, Joseph Rey Sator and Sean Lester Benitez to showcase their Open Jive Entry system the Multi Website Management using XML-RPC with special mention and image display of PIXELS 4(yes, P4 was in the big screen!) in the demo. The activity ended with awarding of winners and distribution of certificates.
I would like to thank Mr. Exander Barrios for choosing me as the representative of the event and for motivating us, Ms. Sheena Rhea Maranguit our coach for facilitating and accommodating our needs, Sir Roy Manseras for the lucky prediction (Lolz xD), our class A family for the early cheers and prayers and for everybody especially the lower year students Lara Cada for guiding me in the venue, Therese, Jona, James Guardian (a former UICian now at HCDC), Meloraine Vicedo (thanks mel :D), Molly Nuera, and everybody who supported us. Thank you very very much! It was an honor to be part of the event and it was our pleasure to have your support.
Are you feeling the Christmas season now? I bet you so do! There are Christmas trees, lights and lantern already set up in the houses and cute kids caroling. Well, it really is the time now to show our love and share what we have with the world. And as we celebrate this yuletide season, let us spread the spirit of selflessness. And with that, it is our tradition to give gifts to those we love and to those who needs love.
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