It was Saturday morning when I saw many students by 10:00 A.M. flocked to the very ground of our school and formed at least eight distorted lines. Some were rushing to the stairs while some were busy figuring out which line they would fall. I figured it was the start of our first documentation that day— the "Ice-Cream-For-All" Birthday tradition.
Every year, our school president celebrates his birthday with free ice cream for all bona fide students. Our school has four sister schools and our president always make sure the five schools, including ours, get to celebrate his birthday with this little act of kindess. We are over 3000 students in the main school so imagine how many galloons the president has to prepare for all students in the five schools. Mind and wallet blowing, isn't it?
When I arrived at the quadrangle, some students already had their ice cream in cone while some were ascending to their respective floors. Different flavors of ice cream were displayed so we get to eat variety of flavors. We began our documentation by taking random photos of the crowd and sometimes random students would ask for a photograph while holding their sweet and frigid ice cream.
The funny thing is that some students would go back and forth to the line for another batch of ice cream or go to another line to taste another flavor. Some also brought big and bod water tumbler and ask for ice cream to be put in it. Some would joke for an ice cream date while some just sits alone while enjoying their ice creams. It must be a funny thing to witness but also a beautiful news to know we had a fun celebration of the president's birthday.
We were actually having a discussion in the morning before I saw the students already forming crowd on the quadrangle but I aksed my teacher if we could have a break to join the celebration on the ground floor. Some were having their preliminary exams while others are still reviewing. But regardless of the busyness, we still made time to get our share of free ice cream. It was a good break for this tensed week of examinations and everybody cooled their minds I guess. I just hope those who ate ice cream found themselves more focused during the exam and passed it.
Here are some other photos of students enjoying their free ice cream, in groups, by pair or in solo flight.
The president go out to his office which is situated just right beside the ground and we sang a birthday song for him. The voice of the students sang and stretched to the hallways of every floor and the rhyhtm they blew reminds me of the unity and kindess we have in our school..
I go back to our classroom for continuation of discussion and had my mind at ease for another hour of class.
During lunch, I didnt join to my classmates daily lunch out rather I stayed in our office and just asked our working to buy me foods since I have to prepare myself for another task which is video shooting for our recruitment. We planned to have it quarter 12 of lunch time so I had to be quick in eating my lunch and fix my journalism uniform after then.
My co-writers were all in the office except our Editor-In-Chief as she was sick of her menstruation. We had to push through the plan even without her to not delay the posting of our recruitment.
We were all finished preparing by 1:00 P.M. and our timeline is not obviously followed. I guess it was a Fiilipino time and I really hate doing it.
We searched for places we could shoot our recruitment videos somewhere students wouldnt be able to see us and know our recruitment before posting. We found a good place in the third floor but the natural lighting is not giving us some good video quality. We then descend to the second floor but still no progress of good lighting. We arrived at the ground floor but students were flocked there and I cannot stand the embrassment of being watched during the shoot.
We headed to the left front of the school where the school logo and a word MAROONS are situated. It was scorching daylight that time and exactly it burns us where the writers are facing towards the camera. We have to sacrifice our faces amidst not sure if our sunscreen could still fight over the radiation. A little while later, we cannot persevere on the heat because it was very hot and furious that we could faint to each other. We squeezed in on a small spot and I angled the camera inside a bush to make a good meme for our video shoot struggles.
We decided to go inside the next building known as Maxwell and there on the ground we finally had our shoot. It was quite occupied with cars but we have some little spaces left between the parking and we occupied it for our shoot. For the shoot, we had to have atleast four recruitment videos and we made sure it is aligned with the trends now so we could market it interestingly. Engagement in our page matters to us and it is a good way of persuading someone to join our publication.
We then shoot our first video then the second one then the third and the fourth which I cannot share because I cannot upload videos here. They were all inspired from tiktok trends to make sure our followers would watch it and have a good likes and shares.
I saw this little cat while our shoot is on going. She was sleeping heavily but I am afraid she would sleep under the cars and someone would start the engine without knwing a life is sleeping under it. Luckily, she got out of the area and looked, I guess, for another sleeping spot because we were so loud as we laugh to our videos.
We brought some printed text as a props for our videos that says "We Are Looking For" and " Join Us". We also printed the available positions because we dont want to speak on the video nor recite a line do a printed text would greatly save us.
We finished our video shoot after an hour and a groufie concluded it. These are writers and artists, we are tiny indeed but the skills these people have is guaranteed to be flexible. They are very brilliant and I have learned many things about journalism over the years from them.
We headed back to the office to prepare for another task on 4 o'clock of the afternoon that day which I will share to you in my next blog. It is a documentation for the main celebration of our president's platinum birthday and I was very honored to become part of the media.
That is all about this blog dearest Hivers! It was a busy day indeed knowing we had our task from 10 of morning to 10 of night. I only shared about the first half of the timeline and soon Ill be sharing you how the night went. It was crazy, funny, and lively to witness. I hope you get to read it soon.
Ice cream and a video shoot might be a little thing but for us, student journalists, it is a heavy tasks. From crafting the right caption, photo editing and marketing, and video editing, a day is not enough to finish it. Regardless, we have to do our best and become responsible media artists and enthusiasts. I was just happy to know we are having good engagment now with the students and it keeps me motivated for suggesting interesting media contents.
Thank you dearest Hivers for reading this! See you in my next story telling section! This is Whosee and my Journalism Diary.