Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

The main difference between this recent weekend's retreat and the one before is that this one was composed of mostly engineering majors.

The previous one was Business Administration, Communication Arts, Computer Science and Information Management, no engineers.

Another major variation was revealed from the top three concerns that the brother president had us get from the students.

Since the first batch was made up of people who had mostly finished with their OJTs, their main concern was about looking for a job.

For the second batch, since none of them had gotten their OJTs yet, but will either third term or at the start of the next school year, their top concern was to finish their studies.

But the next two concerns were the same: family and relationships.

What also surprised me about the second group was that when it came to the sharing of weaknesses and affirmations, they really got into it.

I was surprised considering that for the first sharing session, most of the ones that I listened in on were already finished even before the halfway mark of the time allotted.

This was also true of the first batch, at least with the all male groups that I sat in on. For girls, it was a large opportunity grabbed to get a lot of things off their chest.

At the start I was apprehensive that reducing the group sizes from six to five might mean that instead of spending less time on the sharing, that they would spend more time loafing because they finished earlier than expected, more so with less members.

For the second batch though, they even asked their Religion teacher if they could stay up on the night of the second day to have more sharing and with the members of the other groups they weren't part of.

Session 1917 shows their tender sides not always seen in classes. Class dismissed.