Senioritis

What's life after college?

Someone told me that life in college is way happier than what you had in high school because it’s when you’ll meet people who will become your friends for life.

I disagreed. In high school, you meet friends who will keep you laughing till you drop, push you when you’re feeling stupidly nervous during competitions and comfort you when you feel like the world has turned its back on you. Of course, let’s not forget the fact that you get to meet someone special whom you will never want to lose even for a second.

With all the perks, how can another chapter in life be happier than high school?

I’ve been in college for three years and a semester already and gained a lot of experiences. I met friends who have always been there when I want to hangout somewhere. I’ve met professors and instructors with varying teaching styles. Some are good. Others are just as mediocre as their students. Still others pretend that they are the best when in fact their students can outsmart them. I’ve copied from my seatmates during quizzes and exams when I failed to review the night before because of the pile of tasks I had to finish. I absented myself from a class or two to finish some work for our productions in our major mass communication subjects. There were nights I spent at a classmate’s house without planning to when there’s work left to be accomplished. Sometimes, even without clothes to change. I’ve felt the pressure, the stress and the exhaustion of being a college student.

We combined fun and work during stressful preparations for productions.

I've already met different people, made new friends, been to various places.

Believe it or not, I am happy. And guess what? These experiences changed my belief. I started to agree with what that person told me. Indeed, college life is way happier. But that’s still an understatement because college life is actually the best part of studying. I got to enjoy a lot of things and did many things I never did when I was in high school like copying during quizzes and exams. Of course I cannot forget the fact that I’ve met someone I really love and will always love to have beside me for the rest of the road. But, aside from the enjoyment and the escapades, I learned to become mature enough to better prepare myself for the life waiting for me outside school.

With only one semester to go before I finally leave the university (yes, I am claiming it, I will graduate this March), I’ve decided to prophesy about the life my friends and I will have several years after graduation. How many of us will make it big in the real world? When and where and how will we meet again? At what age will we settle down and finally decide to live life with a happy family?

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce to you a class prophecy of my own creation, a novel I titled “Senioritis.” (First chapter will appear on my next post.)

#7: Daydreaming about the future

When you see me staring blankly at a distance, I'm in some sort of a trance, dreaming about the future and thinking of where life will take me several years from present. I'm silently planning things in my head and building up strategies on how to turn them into reality.

Have you ever done that? Daydreaming, yes. Perhaps, a thousand times. But planning your life while in that state, I don't think so.

Many people don't follow a plan in living their lives. Either because they don't believe in plans and they think that they just complicate things, or because they just want to play it safe and they think that when they fail to get to where they intend to go, they will just feel disappointed and live the rest of their lives in despair.

Others are just too lazy to plan, so they just live life as it is without any goals of making it better. Still others think that planning makes life boring. For them, doing what they feel to do at the moment gives more thrills and sends them to great euphoria.

They're not seeing the point. Planning doesn't necessarily mean that we must follow a pattern to reach our destination. We plan to discover more opportunities and explore other possibilities that are greeting us on the way. Plans are reference points, the starting line of the track towards our goal. If we don't get there the way we want to, at least we know where to go back. We won't have to start from scratch.

There are a lot of turning points along the way. Life is not a straight line. It has curves and forks and winding roads. So, if you don't device strategies in taking your journey, you'll get lost.

Take some time to plan your life and plot points where you can return to when all else fails. When you have a plan, you are sure that you're not crossing the Rubicon. A life that is played safe is more boring, you know.

#6: Truebrewing

Tea lover or not, you’ll definitely want this!

Here’s a fact: I am not a tea lover. I’ve never been and I don’t think I ever will be. The taste of leaves touching my tongue—I just hate it. It makes me feel like I’m drinking some kind of potion that will change me into something who-knows-what.

As a result, I’m not enjoying the benefits of tea. The body cleansing it does and other marvelous effects on the system.

Thank heavens, I found a new way to drink tea. Well, it’s not actually new because even before, anyone with a curious and experimental side can do it at home. But the advent of tea cafes offering milk and green tea blends and other tea concoctions has helped many get a taste of tea. Well, that’s a bit of an understatement because you’ll absolutely crave for more.

So, when I’m not busy, or when I just want to relax after a stressful day at school, I go to Truebrew and drink a milk tea blend.

Truebrew is a coffee and tea café along A.B. Fernandez Ave. in Dagupan City, just beside the UCPB bank. My friends introduced it to me a month before and I have loved it in an instant. The place is good and relaxing. You may spend your time sitting on the cozy couch while sipping your favorite, or you may use the table and sit on cushioned chairs when you’ve got to tinker on your laptop. Probably to finish some work or browse the Internet. Yes, you can get connected because the place is a WiFi hotspot.

 Talking about their blends, they’ve got a lot of flavors and varieties to choose from. I’ve already tasted five of their milk tea blends—Wintermelon, White Chocolate, Black Caramel, Caffee (caramel and toffee) and Milo Float.

I’m not really good at describing tastes, so I’ll just do it by associating each flavor to a trait or attitude. Wintermelon is for the curious. White Chocolate and Black Caramel are for someone who wants to reak away from the regular. Caffee will be the favourite of someone who has a big sweet tooth. And for the young at heart, Milo Float is just perfect.

More flavors are in store for your palette, so I suggest that you try it out. Tea lover or not, there’s a perfect brew for you. So go on, sip from your own grande or venti of tea blends.

How would you know?

If you're taking too long thinking about what will happen when you do something, then you're wasting your precious time on doing that which results in nothing. Take risks. Step forward. After all, plans are meant to be carried out; not to be kept as souvenirs from somewhere you haven't even gone to.

Why, are you afraid that you won't get the result that you expect? So what? A thousand chances for the right decision are still in line. Taking risks and getting bad results is better than sitting for quite some time thinking about what you will get and getting nothing at all in the end. At least, you tried. You can prove how strong you can be when you stand from a bad fall.

Just shut the hell up and act because...

-How would you know how exciting it is to be lying face down from up above and zipping across your way from the top of the hill down to wherever the cable ends if you would just cuss because of your fear of heights?

-How would you know that you could awe someone around with your singing even with those flats and sharps if you wouldn't hold that microphone in front of your mouth and sing your heart out?

-How would you know that you could create a masterpiece out of those creative juices in your head if you wouldn't even make a stroke with the pencil you're holding?

-How would you know that you could persuade someone into agreeing with your thought provoking and well laid out arguments if you wouldn't utter a single word in front of your audience?

-How would you know how deep the swimming pool is if you wouldn't plunge into it?

-How would you know that you could reach an unfamiliar place alone if you wouldn't even lift your ass from where you're sitting?

-How would you know that you could be the most graceful dancer if you wouldn't groove those feet?

-How would you know you could edit a video, or a photo, or an audio if you wouldn't grab that mouse and perform some basics?

-How would you know how wonderful a world a novel creates if you wouldn't flip its pages?

-How would you know that he/she is the right one if you would focus on your silly doubts and irrelevant confusions?

Here's the catch: There are loads of things you can do and be good at, and you will never know unless you try. Come on, you only get to live once and you don't even know when The Time will come. Regrets come rushing in at the end of the road, when there's nowhere else to go, when there's nothing left but your silliness and stupidity.

So, get yourself to work. Time is too precious to waste on endless planning and empty thinking.

Life of a video editor

Viewing my life from afar, it seems perfect. All the smiles and laughter, the good grades and achievements, the strong personality I show—they can be deceiving. But watching it closely, it has a lot of imperfections.

My life is like a flawed video clip. A series of cuts has to be done to eliminate the unnecessary elements. They have to be weeded out. A touch of effects has to be applied to patch up the mediocre parts and make the good areas better.

But no matter how much you try to hide the imperfections, they can still be seen once the video clip is scrutinized well. They cannot disappear totally. They’re all present, things you cannot detach from reality.

Am I hiding my imperfections? No…and yes. I’m not the type of person who sends double meanings about my personality. I’ve shown people my weaknesses and never have I been ashamed of them. I admitted my wrongdoings and did my best to rectify them. But like everyone else, there’s still a skeleton in my closet. A bunch of things I wish I never did. Or, do I?

I will never try to justify them, but I will not look down on myself, either. Because like a flawed video, my life still has a chance for improvements.

A touch of magic

I’d been out of my blogging being for a while all because if the busy schedule I had these past days and one thing that ate most of my time was video editing. I’ve got to work a lot on that because of the talk show we are producing which will air in October.

Having experienced video editing for a year now, I don’t consider myself a pro, but I would love to pursue a career in the world of video clips and audio and sound and visual effects should I decide to live my life in the background—a hundred yards behind the spectacle of my dream of becoming a broadcaster. I got to learn a few tricks on my own, experimenting on clips after learning the basics, and I know I will learn some more being a natural explorer that I am.

Well, basically, that’s how I learned video editing (and many other things)—experimenting. Like purchasing a new toy, or a new gadget, you must read the instructions first before using it. In my case, to make life easier, I asked my friend about the basic things I had to learn about the software such as the tools and their corresponding shortcut keys, the name of the panels, formats and other essential details. I did the rest on my own.

Does this show you how complicated video editing can be?

Through the years, I’ve learned that you can never get to learn something unless you try it yourself. You can never master something unless you touch it and let your hand manuever through it. Simply saying that you want to learn something does not give you the knowledge and skills you have to acquire. You’ve got to do it. A friend of mine said she wanted to learn how to edit videos, but couldn’t because she didn’t own a unit to work with. But actually, even if you don’t own a unit, you can learn how to do it if you really want to. And the first step to that is act. Execute what you say, and you can perform magic yourself. Try it and explore. Don’t get stuck to your stock knowledge. Real learning is applying the knowledge you acquired.

Two months ago, my status message on Facebook read, “I wouldn’t get bored sitting an office if all I had to do is edit videos.” That remains true. It might be exhausting due to the fact that you have to watch a single clip over and over to extract the best part of it. Sometimes, you’ve got to watch closely the mouth of the person speaking on the video to match it with the audio (if you’re getting another visual of the same scene from another camera rolling from a different angle). But, all the hardwork and headache pay off when you watch the output. It sends you to cloud nine when you realize you’ve created a whole story out of fragments. You feel like you’re in euphoria when you’ve transformed flawed videos into something that awes many people.

#5: Feasting on films

The splatter s of the raindrops on the roof awoke me made me jump out of bed.

Oh my God. What time is it?

I snatched my phone from the bedside table and checked the time.

10:30 am. What?! I’m already late for school!

Without thinking twice, I immediately grabbed my towel and prepared for a bath. Then, as if waking up from a daydream, I suddenly stopped on my track as a realization hit me hard in the head.

It’s Saturday. No school.

Thank heavens! I got some time to rest after a whole week’s worth of seemingly infinite school works that almost made me a nocturnal being.

I got one hell of a week, so time to reap my reward for the hardwork I poured. Walking back towards the bedroom, I switched my personal computer, browsed through the movies I saved on it and clicked the play button.

***

So, yeah, when I got time to spare, I grab the opportunity to watch good films for of course, entertainment’s sake. I have developed this interest in films a few years back. Watching movies is like reading novels, since both tell a story although in different formats. While novels use mere words that create a new world in your mind, movies use sounds and visuals that take you to the new world projected in your mind as if you were in the scene physically. But just the same, both make your heart race and once you’ve started, you hardly find the reason to stop.

Movies, just like literary works, are a representation of real-life events, exaggerated and carefully arranged in a manner prefect for story telling. Life, however, is not a movie which you can edit, rewind, skip scenes, or pause. You live it now with all its complications without the certainty that the resolution will come.

Life does not follow a script. Scenes do not start at the snap of the clapper and ends when the director shouts, “Cut!” They continuously flow and transpire. You don’t memorize the lines; you speak them spontaneously.

No, that's not me in the picture (winks). I've grown to love the Harry Potter films back in second year college. The series have opened a new world for me. Somewhere I want to be should I have a second life.