When I was in first year high school, my Values Education teacher asked the class to read the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. The book itself is actually integrated in our curriculum that our exams will include some questions based on the book. Being a devotee of the Iskol Bukol philosophy, I didn’t read the whole book and survived the subject by using the ever-reliable book summaries and outlines found on the internet. Almost 7 years later, a company I worked for as an intern conducted a 7 Habits seminar for us interns. Being the Nah I Already Know That Student, I listened as if it’s just a repetition of things I already know.  Now, almost a decade has passed after my first encounter with that book and I decided to read its entirety. I can now say this—I should have followed the instruction of my Values Education teacher.

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Observant people tell me that I blog more often than before. Well, I think it’s even an understatement. I rarely blog every day, or even every week–I think I blog only twice or thrice a month. And this is a justifiable excuse because of the different justifiable forces that prevent me to do so. If something justifiable inhibited you to do something, then the direct causes of inhibition would also be as justifiable. This is the kind of logic I sustain in my values stream that kept me breathing. But I guess this won’t work in the crazily fast-paced lifestyle of the 21st century.

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Most of my recent (an overstatement) entries here at my personal blog were mere links or teasers for my academic blog entries. This is reflective of the fact that I don’t have a personal life since most of my hours were spent for the thing called academics. Now I feel the pressure to tell stories I weren’t able to tell during my leave of absence. To lessen my thinking time (because my crazy brain is tired), I will be posting pictures and I will be telling a short story behind each image.

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A rainy Saturday. I’m here at the bus, blogging about my internship revalida at Unilever. Of course, I won’t be pouring so much technicalities about it since I might be sued for breach of contract. Anyway, there is an undying emotion about what I felt about the revalida–I felt I delivered a mediocre one, I felt I left too many loopholes. My panel consisted of relevant people: My bosses and supervisors, and of course, the guys from Human Resources, Learning and Expertise.

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If you are about to have your internship or post-graduation job hunt, one of the things you do is create an account in some popular job search engines such as Jobstreet and JobsDB. These two services ask for your Grade Point Average or your GPA in percentage. You would be then disappointed that our Grade Weighted Average (UP, UST, etc) is of a different form (1.00 highest possible and 3.00 lowest possible passing grade). You would realize too that you are so lazy to do some math magic to convert your GWA to GPA Percentage. Fret not, here is a conversion table that would prevent you from wasting pencil lead and scratch paper in finding and computing for a solution.
This table has three assumptions:
Only a flat 1.00 GWA could yield a 100% GPA.
1.75 GWA (The lowest possible cum laude standing grade) yields an 85% GPA.
3.00 GWA (The lowest possible grade to graduate) yields 60% GPA.
Possible FAQs:
Why do you use whole numbers for GPA% in your conversion table?
Base on experience, most job search engines and corporate application forms ask for whole number GPAs
Why do you assume that 60% yields 3.00? Some subjects have lower standards i.e. 3.00 yields 50%.
True, there are some subjects that the passing grade is 50%=3.00. But the reference point of this conversion table is this: 1.75 GWA yields 85%. The rationale behind this is most companies regard 85% as the lowest possible GWA with honors i.e. 85%=1.75.
Why are you doing this?
During my pre-internship period, several of my classmates ask me to convert their currrent GWA to GPA percentage. Now that we are graduating next year, the same friends could ask me again about it so I am making a convenient tool for everyone in general. :)
DISCLAIMER:
You cannot blame this table (and me at that) if your prospective employer says that your GPA isn’t reflective of your GWA because you used this. However, I assure everyone that this is based on basic mathematical logic.

If you are about to have your internship or post-graduation job hunt, one of the things you do is creating an account in some popular job search engines such as Jobstreet and JobsDB. These two services ask for your Grade Point Average or your GPA in percentage. You would be then disappointed that our Grade Weighted Average (UP, UST, etc) is of a different form (1.00 highest possible and 3.00 lowest possible passing grade). You would realize too that you are so lazy to do some math magic to convert your GWA to GPA Percentage. Fret not, here is a conversion table that would prevent you from wasting pencil lead and scratch paper in finding and computing for a solution.

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In a nutshell:

1. The usual breakfast :)
2. Marketing Module Game
3. Marketing, Branding and Advertising 101
4. Healthy AM snacks!
5. Plant tour (While I am enrolling at UP Manila, sadness)
6. Lunch!
7. Trade Visit at SM MOA, Puregold Sta Mesa and Robinson’s Otis
8. High-school-field-trip style snacks in our bus!
9. Tired interns resting at the convening area
10. Interns’ night-out at TGIF! (Too bad, not everyone came; too bad, I had to leave early)

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“U & I” chronicles my life as an intern of Unilever Philippines (ULP). The blog entries under this series would only include my personal affairs with my fellow interns, with the company and its employees. Any kind of corporate information about the said company would never be written here.

Our company-wide project is not only making tangential interference to our department-centric jobs and stints but is also generating some sort of personal corporate dilemma. Sometimes, I just want to escape and make some Absence-Without-Official-Leave diva drama. Every time I have this kind of cognitive ranting, Cezar’s (HR, Learning & Expertise King) words automatically dives into my psychological pool: It’s hard work here at Unilever. I am at least happy that I am touching and learning the corners of the real world in its grandest form. After this internship program, I will let everyone feel my body that’s made of steel.

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In a nutshell:

  1. Pancakes and Bacon for breakfast
  2. Finance Department’s Ice-Breaker Game
  3. Finance Department module
  4. Finance Department Game
  5. IT Department Module
  6. IT Department Game
  7. Italian Lunch
  8. Selecta Module (Woohoo)
  9. Selecta Game + 3-in-1-Plus-1 Dance Craze Tutorial
  10. Bottomless Ice Cream (YEAH!)

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I found an easier (and safer) way to blog our OTC sessions: Photos with caption! Yey!

In a nutshell:
  1. Ham, Egg, Spanish Sardines and Hot Chocolate for breakfast
  2. A game and talk by Unilever Department B
  3. Ham & Cheese, Tuna and Chicken Croissant, cheese sticks for AM snacks
  4. A talk by Unilever Department C
  5. CSR Briefing
  6. CSR Activity at some Baranggay in Paco, Manila
  7. Group proposal defense back at the office
  8. Some Chinese-themed PM snacks
  9. Socials with fellow interns
  10. Home!

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“U & I” chronicles my life as an intern of Unilever Philippines. The blog entries under this series would only include my personal affairs with my fellow interns, with the company and its employees. Any kind of corporate information about the said company would never be written here.

Week 2 of my internship program at Unilever was all about translating numbers into words. I have two big projects for my department in a specific area in Luzon. Before I can come up with a concrete program plan and an implementation methodology, I need to see the performance statistics for the past 6 and 12 months. Now I can see the point of our statistics class last semester. Numbers, you are a necessary evil.

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