Festive thoughts in Heritage City of Vigan

 

Filipinos welcome the season uniquely with different flavors and traditions that make Christmas extra special. The Filipino's strong sense of family and preserving ties make Christmas the perfect time to share love and blessings with each other. Christmas is celebrated during the "ber" months, as it's called in the Philippines — that is, September, October, November and December. Christmas is the longest celebrated season in the Philippines, and our country celebrates it the longest globally. Can you imagine a whole nation willingly sharing warmth and love ... this long?

Christmas in the Philippines is all about families. Christmas is one of the most loved celebration by Filipinos. Families, relatives gather on the 24th of December, to celebrate food prepared for “Noche Buena,” a Spanish term which means “midnight meal” to greet Christmas Day. Filipinos are indeed the world's most Christmas-oriented people. We start recognizing the Christmas season as early as September with radio stations playing Christmas songs. Our town celebrates Christmas filled with joyous and welcoming events for Bigueños. In every city or town in the Philippines, each has its own way to celebrate the season. In the World Heritage City of Vigan, us Bigueños gather as crowd to participate in the unveiling of the Christmas tree, it’s a yearly tradition. But now, because of the pandemic, some activities were cancelled. As Bigueños starting to feel the festive vibes, we like walking around our different sceneries in our city and be mesmerized by the Christmas Decors lighting the streets with our hairs flowing in the wind. However, even those things, we still needed to follow the health protocols of course, it’s a must. Regardless of all the odds caused by the pandemic, the Heritage City continuous as the annual Artes Ita Paskua of the City Government of Vigan that got its way last  December 07-17, 2020, with the new normal set-up, in which most of the events were done through online and the others were with limited participants to comply into the Minimum Health Standards set by the City Covid-19 Task Force.

http://vigancity.gov.ph/its-christmas-season-in-vigan-city/

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-christmas-tree-in-front-of-the-city-hall-in-the-historical-city-of-113523609.html

Reflecting this Semester

 

a. This second quarter, I learned a lot about HTML. I gained some knowledge about it, like learning the basic tags, applying hyperlinks, photos, and a lot more. Software developer is not my career choice but still grateful because I still got to learn the basics and can be useful in the future. The reason why you need to learn about HTML it’s because it is a form of computer language  that’s used to make web pages on the internet viewable which is generally important for everyone to learn. Also, HTML elements from the building blocks of all websites. HTML allows images and objects to be embedded and can be used to create interactive forms. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings,paragraph, lists, links, quotes and other items.

b. I encountered some challenges, it was complicated for me to understand how to apply the HTML tags, also, it was really a struggle when applying pictures, other than that, I think I did fine because I managed to finish the other tasks successfully.

c. Since some of the actvities were not that clear to me, I asked some guidance from my classmates about it and I’m grateful because they helped me out, I also searched online videos to gain more knowledge in HTML.

d. Moving on, I will continue to do my best in learning my lessons, and if I don’t understand it fully, I will just ask my teacher for guidance or search it online to know more about the topic.

A festival amid the Pandemic

The Vigan City Fiesta is held in honour of St. Paul the Apostle, the city's patron saint, on 25 January each year. Locals and tourists gather to experience and see the street dancing, carnivals, food fairs, and arts and crafts, adding to the attraction of this UNESCO World Heritage City. For many of us, this time of year is a time for finding joy in the planning and celebrating of various festivals in our city. But because of the Covid-19 outbreak that started two years ago, plans for celebrations were cancelled, which I think that it was a good decision, because it is better to make sure we are safe from the virus than risking our health for a festival.

After calling the pandemic “The New Normal” we just all acted that we’re back to normal but still aware that the Covid-19 is still around. The Vigan City Fiesta is a big risk, covid cases is still increasing in our town and that’s enough reason to say that implementing the fiesta is dangerous.

I checked some of the articles and read that this year’s Vigan City Fiesta may continue but with very strict protocols which I agree and disagree with this decision. I agree because atleast there is some safe protocols to decrease the risk of the virus from spreading, and also, I disagree because there’s still the possibility that thecovid cases will increase in our town because of the celebration of our fiesta.

We’re gonna experience a lot of struggles especially to our fellow townspeople because they might not follow the safety protocols which can lead to bigger issues in our town.Implementing the fiesta is a challenge and a risk but hoping that it will be successful and the people will be safe.

https://lovepilipinas.com/event/vigan-city-fiesta/

https://www.vigan.ph/attractions/vigan-city-fiesta.html

New Era

 It’s been a struggle studying amidst the pandemic and we all know that. These past few years was an unexpected journey but I’m grateful that I was safe against the virus, and not all that, I’m also thankful because I have good

friends and families who supports and cheer for me to feel better. I got to admit that I had a character development because to be honest, I really learned a lot during this pandemic. I got to know myself better, got new perspectives in life because of the movies I’ve watched, and lastly, I learned how to distance myself from people who aren’t good for me. The past few years were painful and I’m slowly healing. We still have an ongoing pandemic and I’m really hoping this to end already because we are experiencing a lot of difficulties and it might create bigger issues. Well, we can’t do anything about the virus, but we can stay safe at our house to prevent positive cases. Back to the main topic, there’s this saying “New year, new me” and I agree and disagree, I believe that it is right to think about the future and forget about your painful past, but also, it is not your responsibility to force yourself to change just because it’s a new year. You are responsible for yourself, but don’t be pressured to change anything, just live and exist, just be you. I think having that kind of mindset can help a lot of people for their mindset this new year.