Hi everyone! I'm Marigrace a Press Con contestant. I have so many wonderful days with my friends during our Division and Regional Schools Press Conference that I want to share. I will never forget those days. Having too much time, hours, and days with your friends and teachers I think you have so many things to talk about.

Jessen, Angeline, Maricar, Pearl and me are all Press Con contestants. We became too close after this competition began. From this blog you will know how we met each other, the days before we became contestants, our rigid practice, if we are already in the contest room, the awarding and the last days of that competition. People said we changed ever since this contest begun. But they don't know what is the feeling of being a contestant. The challenges they need to face before they will reach their goals.

Please read our blog so that your minds will be cleaned up that being a contestant is not too easy for you to think.

History

Sorry if jessen is not here...,,

The four of us met each other in the age of seven in the year 2003. But Maricar is still not with us that time. We are only Grade 1 pupils, we don't know what will be our future and talent. In the year 2004 Maricar transferred at our school. What I've thought of her before is a naughty girl but, I'm wrong, she is kind and cute. When we are Grade 3 Sir Eumeirx (J.A.M.P's coach) is our adviser he let us write articles for him to know who has the ability to compete for the Press Conference. When we are Grade 4 no one from us was chosen to be a contestant but some will. Grade 4 had pass and we need to face Grade 5 Angeline, Pearl, Jessen and Essa were the only pupils chosen from our room to compete for the Division Press Conference year 2007. They won too, they become the over-all champion. But, a day came one of them fade away and needed to be changed. Before we became Grade 6 there is a summer class for Journalism. I try to join, to know if I can write any article. Sometimes, I don't know what will I do but, I need to work for it to discover what is my talent. Me, Maricar, Jessen and Angeline are classmates in that class. To my surprise Maricar can write a very beautiful Sports News. I never expect that Maricar can wrote an article. Today, I'm a Grade 6 student, before I don't know what kind of article I will make. But now, I realized I can make an Editorial Filipino. We became too close, and we found out that we are deserving to be a Regional Contestants.

How J. A. M. P w/ Grace started...

At first it was really J. A. M. P w/ Damuls because my friends are always teasing me Damulag or in short Damuls. The reason for this is because I'm a big girl and I'm also strong which is also the characteristics that a Carabao have.

They even call me Damulaga because when Pearl ask my coach Ma'am Emma if what's the name for a female carabao, she replied its a calf, but since calf is not so beautiful to hear they just teased me Damulaga. They even called Jessen Damulagita because she's also a chubby little girl.

The J. A. M. P comes from the initial of my other team mates namely: Jessen, Angeline, Maricar and Pearl.

Even they always tease me I dont get irritated easily, but when its others I get angry to them and cry. As they said its what friends are, understanding each other...

WE started just being a simple classmates. But now, we treat each other more than friends, we treat each other like sisters since we are all girls and of course Sir Eumeirx is our father though he don't have plans to be married yet.

Sometimes, if he will go somewhere he always tell us: " Wag niyong pababayaan yung kapatid niyo painumin niyo ng gatas, isilong niyo yung sinampay pag umulan at pagbalik ko ay kakain na tayo ng tanghalian."

He also treat us like his own daughters. He once joked to us that he will kiss us and treat us to Jollibee if we win (but im not included in their team) and we replied that he just treat us to Jollibee never mind kissing us. He also wants us to be safe.

Division Press Conference...

Saturday, September 27, 2008 is the start for the Division Schools Press Conference.We felt nervous and trying to be chill. We watched the opening program prepared for our contest. The emcees introduced different schools and let us watched their preparations. While the opening program, a boy fell his g- string. We felt pity for him. Many people laughed at him. He even cried because of embarrassment. After that, we return to our coaches. I want to return in our quarters but I don’t know that the contest of Pearl and Jessen are already near to start. I told them to bring home the bacon.

I believe in my friends that they can win and achieve our goals. After each contest, we asked them if how difficult is it? Mananalo ba tayo?

Monday, September 29, 2008 is the time for me to be in my respective contest room. I felt nervous, but I remember a friend of ours that already say good-bye. I’m always asking a support from her and God. I know that she will always right be here in our side guiding us and protecting us from harm.
3:00 p.m in the afternoon, the awarding ceremony started. We felt so too much nervous! But we cannot believe we got these places:

1^st Sports Writing (English)- Angeline

1^st Sports Writing (Filipino)- Maricar

1^st Editorial Writing (Filipino)-Marigrace

1^st Feature Writing (Filipino)- Kathleen Diane

2^nd Editorial Cartooning (English)- Nimfa

2^nd Editorial Cartooning (Filipino)- Emel Francie

2^nd News Writing (Filipino)- Pearl Marren

3^rd Photo Journalism (English)- Paul Patrick

3^rd News Writing (English) - Jessen Joy

All in all we became the 1^st Runner up!

Rigid Practice...

In preparation to the contest all of us, the contestants have been practicing and excused in our classes. Even though its time to practice we are all telling stories to each other so our coaches often scold us, especially the five of us cause our coach is strict, but he is a very good coach.

He is Emerson H. Gonowon, our computer teacher but you can call him Sir Eumeirx for short. He is a loving and caring coach. He treated us like his own children. We owe him what we know about our events.

He give us difficult problems because he believes in what we can do. It is the key why we've reach this far....

Contest Time...

After all those practicing and "sermons" we've been through its now the time for us to be judged. It is already the contest time.

We are all very nervous. We even tell ourselves that we will not be included in the winners because our works are not so good. But because of our coach determination our nervousness was eased. We just played together and have fun enjoying ourselves.

The Awarding...

After all those nervousness while we've been contested in our events, the Awarding Ceremonies is already over. Almost all of us qualified, but some are not just lucky enough. We are all emotional including our coach Sir Eumeirx. It has been our goal to join in the Regionals for our late classmate Reena Mae Essa P. Mamansag which was a former journalist.

Before the awarding comes, we comfort ourselves by singing our favorite songs. We don't even know that our contestmate Kaisser is taking our video. We shared so many things, and the feelings of being nervous was changed of comfortness.

We don't expect too much from our works that's why I felt too much nervousness. But, after hearing our names we felt so happy for ourselves. I realize that I need to be a positive thinker. The five of us was included for the Regional Schools Press Conference in Bacacay, Albay.

Times in Bacacay...

After we've won the Division School's Press Conference and after those practicing, it is finally the time to be contested in the Regionals. We've stayed four days in Bacacay, Albay, we also went to one of the beach there, we also went to Tabaco and enjoyed shopping. But, the most treasured of them all is the friendship and experience we've gained. It is really something to be cherished for life time.

We ate, sleep and even took a bath together. We tell each other stories before we sleep. And when we wake up the story telling continues. We already treated each other as if we are really a family. Just thinking it will already end is just too sad, but as they said every start has its ending so we just enjoy every second we will stay there.

To let you understand more about Press Conference, here are some information in every events:

• News Writing (Pearl and Jessen's event) - News style (also journalistic style or news writing) is the particular prose style used for news reporting (ie. in newspapers) as well as in news items that air on radio and television. News style encompasses not only vocabulary and sentence structure, but also the way in which stories present the information in terms of relative importance, tone, and intended audience.
  
  News writing attempts to answer all the basic questions about any particular event in the first two or three paragraphs: Who? What? When? Where? and Why? and occasionally How? (ie. "5 W's"). This form of structure is sometimes called the "inverted pyramid," to refer to decreased importance of information as it progresses.
  
  News stories also contain at least one of the following important characteristics: proximity, prominence, timeliness, human interest, oddity, or consequence.

• Sports Writing (Maricar and Angelines event) - Sports journalism is a form of journalism that reports on sports topics and events. While the sports department within some newspapers has been mockingly called the toy department, because sports journalists do not concern themselves with the 'serious' topics covered by the news desk, sports coverage has grown in importance as sport has grown in wealth, power and influence.
  
  Sports journalism is an essential element of any news media organization. Sports journalism includes organizations devoted entirely to sports reporting — newspapers such as L'Equipe in France, La Gazzetta dello Sport in Italy, Marca in Spain, and the now defunct Sporting Life in Britain, American magazines such as Sports Illustrated and the Sporting News, all-sports talk radio stations, and television networks like ESPN.

• Editorial Writing (My event) - An editorial is an article that presents the newspaper's opinion on an issue. It reflects the majority vote of the editorial board, the governing body of the newspaper made up of editors and business managers. It is usually unsigned. Much in the same manner of a lawyer, editorial writers build on an argument and try to persuade readers to think the same way they do. Editorials are meant to influence public opinion, promote critical thinking, and sometimes cause people to take action on an issue. In essence, an editorial is an opinionated news story.

• Feature Writing - A feature story (also known as a feature article) is an article in a newspaper, a magazine, or a news website that is not meant to report breaking news, but to take an in-depth look at a subject. While there are no precise guidelines on the differentiation between features and news stories, features are often significantly longer than news articles, are more likely to be written from a personal perspective, and unlike news stories do not always deal with the events of the immediate past.
  
  Features are generally written in a different fashion from news stories, sometimes taking several paragraphs to arrive at the main story while trying to engage the reader and keep them reading by employing narrative hooks.[1] Feature stories often delve deeper into their subjects, expanding on the details rather than trying to concentrate on a few important key points. The writing style of the articles can be more colorful and employ a more complex narrative structure, sometimes resembling the style of a nonfiction book more than a news report.
  

• Photo Journalism - Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism (the collecting, editing, and presenting of news material for publication or broadcast) that creates images in order to tell a news story. It is now usually understood to refer only to still images, and in some cases to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (such as documentary photography, street photography or celebrity photography) by the qualities of:
  Timeliness — the images have meaning in the context of a recently published record of events.
  Objectivity — the situation implied by the images is a fair and accurate representation of the events they depict in both content and tone.
  Narrative — the images combine with other news elements to make facts relatable to the viewer or reader on a cultural level.
  
  Like a writer, a photojournalist is a reporter but he or she must often make decisions instantly and carry photographic equipment, often while exposed to significant obstacles (physical danger, weather, crowds).

• Editorial Cartooning - An editorial cartoonist, also known as a political cartoonist, is an artist who draws cartoons that contain some level of political or social commentary.
  
  The most common outlet for political cartoonists is the editorial page of the newspaper, not the dedicated comic section, although certain cartoons or comic strips have achieved crossover status.
  
  Most editorial cartoons lack the type of explicitly partisan political opinion found on the rest of the editorial page, instead opting for humor that reflects the conventional wisdom of readers. Nevertheless, the presence of explicitly partisan, critical and satirical humor is growing in editorial cartoons as partisan opinion and argument continue to play a larger role in News Media as a whole. In recent years the internet has become an excellent means for distributing short format media, humor, and minority political opinions, leading to a large growth in the popularity of online alternative editorial cartoons.
  
  
• Copy Reading and Headline Writing - newspaper editor: somebody who reads and edits newspaper articles to prepare them for publication .

It's only some facts about Press Con, but believe me if you'll join this contest you'll understand more and have a very nice experience.

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'Last Days'

Now, we have two first places in our Regional Press conference, Jessen is one of them. She got first place in news writing English and the other one was Kathleen Diane A. Pineda a grade five pupil. We also got two six places in both English and Filipino sports writing. They are both in J.A.M.P Maricar and Angeline. Even though Pearl and me didn’t won we are still happy that we are included at the Regional Press conference. And in fact, we still enjoy ourselves because of an opportunity to have swimming with our respective coaches and other contestants.
This is one of the most wonderful days of my life! I know I didn’t won the contest but it’s a very exciting experience. We left so many friends from our school. We missed them so much! But, I still have mine during that time I’m with one of my closest friends Maricar the cutest from all of us, Pearl the intelligent gal, Jessen a little scientist, Angeline a tall but gentle woman and me, I don’t know! I didn’t reach the national yet; I still believe that when the time comes, I will do my best to be a good writer someday.

THANK YOU FOR READING OUR ARTICLE!!!