Saturday Photo(s)

 

Having so much fun in the thick of preparations at the construction site for the

UST-Dr. William T. Belo Interdisciplinary Research Institute (UST-WiTBIRIn)

in the campus of the University of Santa Tomas in the City of Santa Rosa, Province of Laguna.

 

These past days, one can say that, yes, I am 'in my element'.  Finally, the 'boring' phase of my 'new job' has dissipated, and now, my Team is entering a zone where we all can be 'in the zone', indeed!  Construction of the second building in our new campus is about to go on 'full swing'. And I hope that before we're done constructing it, we would be ready to begin the third... and the fourth after that... and the fifth... and so on - I hope. We have five years to build the 'necessary buildings', and 15 years or so to develop the campus in its 'first iteration'.

I often enjoy the 'planning stage' of any project, or any 'mission', especially when it is a pioneering endeavor.  So, naturally, when our Office was created just two years ago upon my return from my one-year Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship at Penn State University, Cornell University and Boise State University, I had a great time thinking, researching and talking to many people, planning, designing, and building the foundation of our Office, which begins from building the Team ... and hoping and dreaming of the best outcomes - dreaming mostly. 

One of the things that I love about this process is meeting like-minded people, and more so, people of very little to zero faith in what our 'mission' is about.  The former reinforce our courage to keep believing and diving into the unknown, and the latter, serve as reminders to persevere and keep the faith if good results have to be had.  In our current construction project, there are a few 'non-believers'.  Unfortunately, they are the most exasperating ones... so, it has been very, very tough, indeed.  It was so mightily boring to spend so much time and effort to make them see things from a different perspective, and to acknowledge that there are other ways of accomplishing things. Just because a method is 'tried and tested' does not mean that it can be applied on all things and in all situations. And that a 'seat of authority' is not always a seat of infallibility.  In many cases, it is a seat that allows one to serve better and to serve more people.  Very fortunately, I do have an incredible Team... they make me feel that not every battle is mine to fight... or fight alone.  So, yep, I am lovin' my Team, and I am lovin' our pace despite the challenges!  And when we do occasionally achieve something significant, we remind ourselves that we can see many wonderful things from our vantage point only because we 'stand on the shoulders of giants'. 

So, this week, our current construction project, the UST-Dr. William T. Belo Interdisciplinary Research Institute (UST-WiTBIRIn), reached a milestone.  And we are, indeed, very happy and absolutely grateful.  Faith, perseverance and teamwork do pay off.   And, I am celebrating here through The Script's music, "Hall of Fame" just like how the namesake of the building that we are constructing (the 'giant' on whose shoulders we stand, in this case) is in our UST Engineering Hall of Fame...

"Yeah, do it for your people, do it for your pride.

Are you ever gonna know if you never even try?"

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Image credit:  The photos in the collage were borrowed from colleagues and used here with their permission - thanks.

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