Bottled Sky

I have many feline qualities, a fact rarely lost on the people around me. I’m often told by both close friends and mere acquaintances that I remind them of a cat. I get a lot of kitty gifts because of this—cards, plushies, stationery, and even original art. My personal favorite is this picture given to me by a classmate on the last day of a photography class I took in college:

On the back he wrote, “To the only cat person I know, I’ll remember you every time I hear a cat’s meow. So here, take this picture and forget me not.”

I definitely won’t

It has finally happened. I’m a college graduate! It won’t be official until they release the final list of second-semester graduates in December, but I have completed all the requirements for a UP Journalism degree. I still can’t believe it. The whole thing is surreal to me. I feel so overwhelmingly relieved that it’s over, but at the same time it seems somewhat anti-climactic. Is it because I finished in October instead of March? I’m not sure. However, I am quite grateful that I managed to get through college mostly unscathed.

I say mostly, because I did hit a couple of speed bumps along the way. I had originally chosen to major in Electronics and Communications Engineering (ECE), because I mistakenly thought a math lover like me would be most suited for an engineering degree. I very soon realized my mistake, and this blog became host to my rantings on the evils of ECE. To get a better idea of how much I disliked my old course, check out what I doodled at the back of one of my ECE readings:

Of course, this one has been digitally cropped and colored. The original doodle shows the three stages of ECE insanity, complete with accompanying text. Hmmm, maybe if I had spent more time concentrating on the actual lessons instead of doodling I would have done better… Nah!

However rough my academic life had been in ECE, I can honestly say that I had a lot of fun there. I made many wonderful friends in ECE and managed to keep them even after shifting to Journalism. Cue cheesy photo montage.

Unlike ECE, Journalism was fun because of the coursework. I’m not saying it was easy, but it was challenging in a manner that I liked. There was a lot of room for creativity in Journalism, while in ECE there was practically none. I got to play reporter/photographer/producer/poet/etcetera. I interned at a fashion magazine, where I met many “interesting” people. I was even able to apply my favorite hobbies (drawing and designing websites) to my academic work. I would have never been able to do any of those things had I stayed in Engineering.

Another thing that would have been impossible for me in ECE: I got a cum laude average! Well, I’m not actually getting the honor because of a silly technicality — I wasn’t able to complete all my Physical Education classes within the first four semesters. Funny, huh? I really don’t mind, because I’m not the scholarly type, and grades don’t matter much to me. Still I can’t help but feel good about myself that, despite my procrastination problem, I managed to do well in that respect.

With or without honors, I’m just happy to graduate! I’m finally done! Woohoo! So now what? Unfortunately I still don’t have the answer to that, hehe. Until further notice, I am a bum. Oy.

Every college student knows all about that certain week near the end of term when deadlines and exams have piled up one on top of the other and you have to struggle just to stay afloat of all the work that needs to be done. I don’t know what it’s called elsewhere, but here it’s called Hell Week. There’s at least one per term for each student. Mine was last week.

But because it’s my final semester of college, the Fates decided that garden-variety Hell Week simply wasn’t, well, hellish enough and gave me… Hell Week, the Deluxe Edition—with double the stress and three times the oppposite of fun! Picture this: all the ingredients of regular Hell Week, plus the pressure of having an undergraduate thesis to finish, minus electricity, telephone and running water for eight straight days. And did I mention that it was my birthday week, too?

It all started when Super Typhoon Milenyo (international name: Xangsane), raged through Metro Manila two weeks ago, leaving in its wake a mess of mangled billboards, uprooted trees, and twisted power lines and causing a Luzon-wide blackout. I was in denial during the first three days of the power outtage. I kept thinking, ‘Any minute now electricity will back, and I can finally get started on my schoolwork.’ I spent those 72 hours re-reading The Lovely Bones during the day and staring blankly into space at night. But on the fourth day, which also happened to be my birthday, I’d had enough of living in the Dark Ages and making zero headway on my assignments.

I learned that power had been restored in Chrissa‘s area that afternoon, so I stuffed some clothes into a backpack and went over to her house to get some work done. For the next five days I became a nomad. I lived out of the big, heavy backpack that I lugged all over Metro Manila. I even had to hike up the hills of Antipolo with that boulder of a bag weighing me down. I worked and slept over at Chrissa’s most of the time and once at Kathy‘s, going home only to restock on clothes.

At some points it felt like the blackout was following me wherever I went. When I stopped by an Internet cafe to have something printed, power went out barely a minute after I arrived. When I made plans to type at my dad’s office, electricity began fluctuating in their area that day.

All’s well that ends well, though, thanks to everyone who willingly took in this refugee. My thesis is close to completion and I’m done with all the work in my other subjects. I lived through the last College Hell Week I’ll ever have! And now that it’s over, I have just enough humor to salute the Fates for making it something I’m not likely to forget for a very long time.

You are looking at Skylight version 16, entitled “Endless Summer.” I created this layout for the following reasons:

• the semester is finally over and I have free time again;
• I love to swim;
• I love the colors of the ocean; and
• I love summer, the way I used to know it as a kid.

The summers of my childhood meant freedom and relaxation. For two glorious months, I didn’t have to worry about following a schedule. I could sleep as late and as long as I wanted and spend my days however I chose. But then college rolled around, and I had to use my summers to catch up on the units I lost in trying to find a major that didn’t drive me crazy.

I’m scheduled to graduate in October, and this summer is the last I’ll ever have. So I decided to skip summer classes for once, forget about school for a while and just enjoy a true-blue summer vacation. I plan to paint my room aqua, visit the beach with my friends, get a tan, take lots of pictures, and make pretty things (hence the layout). I’m going to make my last summer count!

Nikki’s Failure Tip #347: Waste time by writing pointless haikus.

An excellent example of a pointless haiku appears below. It was written by Nikki herself while failing to finish a 10-page dialectic discussion on art theory.

caffeine and no sleep
deadlines loom ominously
procrastination

For a complete list of Nikki’s Failure Tips, watch out for her new book entitled “I’ll Think of a Title Later: The Procrastinator’s Guide to Never Getting Anything Done.” It will be released worldwide as soon as Nikki finishes writing it (i.e. never).

You can also check out Nikki’s writing portfolio (which is really less “writing portfolio” than “two poems and one children’s story written for class then recycled into website content” — but we’ll just call it a writing portfolio for brevity’s sake).