my ending up in Kao

     Me having my on-the-job training at Kao was all but a coincidence. It all started when our ojt coordinator posted in facebook that there are 5 ojt slots available in Kao and it's preferable that upcoming 5th year students would take it. Our coordinator then asked to see a list of students interested and only then would he draw lots for the said slots. Being the only 5th years online, me, Russel, and Jennifer commented on the said post to count the three of us in. A lot more from our batch commented minutes later. I was contacted by our coordinator the next day that I am one of the 5 chosen to have our ojt in Kao. Only then did the happenings sank onto me. I thought of three things that made me hesitate: 1. Kao which is in Jasaan is more than an hour of travel from our place; 2. I was told that the training in Kao isn't good; 3. According to our calculation it would cost me P85 for my back-and-forth fare everyday. Well, to make this loooong introduction short, I decided to just take the slot; Together with Michael, Stephanie, Nece, and Bob, we went to Kao and started our 300-hour OJT.

     As my previous blog post would entail, we had a rough start in our OJT, we've met people who'd say not-so-good things about us, people who'd look to us with their "stronger" faces, and people who'd watch our every move. Thankfully, after a month's time we've been very used to this things already that we started not caring what the others would say and how others would see us. We've also met wonderful people during our stay there, and as shocking as it may seem, those supposingly "evil" people proved to have their good sides also. So, we continued our journey in Kao and just went with the flow but still with care of course. 

     The words about Kao's not-so-good training I've heard before have been proven to be untrue. We actually and sincerely learned a lot of things. We may have had a lot of idle or tanga moments but whenever it was time for the serious talks and discussions, it's there that we work our brains to exhaustion. During our stay there, we were taught to use our critical thinking ability, to answer questions using our previous knowledge plus our creative imagination. Due to our lack in actual experience (palusot) we aren't able to give the right answers to some of the questions though. We heard laughs, we saw different facial expressions, and we've been put to not-so-high level of humiliation whenever we give them our wrong answers. At first it made me feel uncomfortable but later on I kinda got used to it already and just laughed together with them and just eagerly listen to the explanation of the correct answer. Presenting and talking in the presence of smart people and people who very much know the field makes me nervous and hesitate to talk at all but hey! if I can learn and be corrected of my not-so-right ideas if I talk and listen to this people then go! By now, I've kinda learned not to take to heart their laughing and everything. Maybe we were just being over-sensitive but these really happen in the real world, right? So I figured we should better have a good feel of this for us to get used to this scene.

     We'll be leaving Kao soon (our 300 hours is almost up)  but with us is a lot of things we've learned inside. This may sound mushy but I think we'll never forget the Kao people we've encountered there during our stay. ^^