Welcoming Ceremony

At the welcoming ceremony

The time is 7am and we must prepare ourselves to go to the opening ceremony. I go to the bathroom and take s cold shower. It is a pleasant morning as I'm super excited to attend our welcoming ceremony. Once I prepare myself, I went to the lobby and notice the different drinks that the dormitory sells.

Munggo Juice

They have a can of milk,an authentic(?) guava juice and a bean juice??? I don't know that it is called in English but in the Philippines we called is as "Munggo," and looking at a juice version of the bean peaked my interests. I ordered one piece and excited to taste it, and it blew me away.

My expectation of the juice is very low, like I will immediately throw it away, but when I tasted it it felt amazing! It felt like I was eating a complete meal already. I took a photo of it and sent it to my parents to see their reaction of the juice.

Once Raysa arrived, she brought food with her. We went to Enthel's room and eat our first Indonesian food. The name is "Nasi kuning." It is an Indonesian breakfast that contains a yellow rice, and fried chicken and noodles. The dish reminds me of "Java rice" in the Philippines. It has similar appearance, but out Java rice have carrots and peas while the yellow rice have none. To be honest, I prefer the yellow rice than the Java rice as it has more flavor. I told them that this rice is flavorful, since we commonly use "margarine" to make our rice yellow, but Raysa/Nissa told us that they put a certain type of spice which makes it yellow. They added that this type of dish is commonly serve during morning.

Once finished, we went to a facility which the welcoming ceremony is being held. Before we enter the building, I notice a lot of motorcycle currently parked at the side of the building. They told us that majority of the students in UNMUL have a motorcycle since the the town doesn't have any good access to public transportation. In fact, when you wanted to go to a particular place, you will either ride a motorcycle or use the Grab application.

When we entered the building, we went to a room fill with a lot of students from different major, particularly in chemistry. I felt embarrassed since it looks like we are the only person being waited. Once visited, they gave us a purple box contains different snacks.

The program is short as the emcee introduce the different international students in UNMUL. I was surprised hearing this as there are other students from the same program as us? Is it my roommates? Other Filipinos? Surprisingly, it is from another program called BIPA. They introduce a group of female Germans, and a Korean and Madagascar girls. I felt a little bit nervous as we can see other nationality in our 2nd day. Are we going international?? I first thought.

Sir Wangner

After taking the picture, another program started. A professor, named Sir Wagner, presented a short presentation about the pedagogy in Germany. I learned that the curriculum depends on specific state in the country, as the pedagogy in a specific state is different from the other. However, there is a common theme that surrounds their pedagogy and it is using authentic assessments to their students. He use a sort of house analogy to describe a good teaching practice. It is like a plan, a structural blueprint, that help in building a fully functioning house. In addition, I also learn that the classrooms in Germany are fully learner centered, because he first told the audience that the student is commonly the one that is doing the explaining in Germany, but this time he will take his role. I appreciate his lecture about teaching practice, and gave me insight on how to further grow as a teacher.

The lectured ended and followed by another lecture by Pa Kemi. This time, he introduce the use of culture in chemistry. He gave a lot of great points in integrating it in our education as it can deepen individual's culture, make it more easier to understand and many more. This made me think, "Can I bring this teaching strategy back to the Philippines?"