me and my pencil dreams

Second semester is officially on. It goes without saying that I’m gonna say hello to semi-sleepless nights again and byebye Batangas bed for the next five months. Yeah, I go home every weekend, but it feels better to know that I can stay on my bed for 10 straight hours without my readings reminding me ‘You got to read me Nelly, otherwise…’

But enough of my complaints… I got great sleep, not to mention, great TV moments for the past two weeks (my shortest sembreak ever!). And as always, my architecture frustration, my so-called pencil dreams, gets in me again.

I remember what my Journalism professor told me a year ago, “Ms. Hernandez, don’t be afraid of being stuck”. She’s a former editor of a national daily (uh-oh, I’m not so sure…). She said that she decided to teach in UP because she doesn’t know what’s happening to UP Journalism graduates. She asked the members of our J101 class to introduce ourselves, and why or why not we wanted to be a journalist, or what do we really wanted to do with our lives. I told her, yes, I wanted to be a journalist, but I wanted more to be an architect than to be a writer. I know it’s not a good thing to hear, especially when she dedicated her time teaching us – future Filipino journalists. I said that an architect’s life is a bit stagnant, unlike a journalist’s life full of actions, risks, adventures, the sort of helloworldwhatdoyouhaveforme environment, and that if I decided to become an architect, I will stay in the university for the next three years (I’m supposed to graduate next year) because shifting to Arki from MassComm is like jumping from Pluto to Mercury. I will be stuck in the university and after college, I might be stuck in my drafting room with my drafting board and my pencils.

But looking at my life right now, I am not afraid to be stuck, really. I realized I wanted to be an architect, but I can be a journalist at the same time. I remember my PE classmate who asked me during a campout,

“Ano college mo?”
MassComm.
“Ahh…Anong course mo?”
Journalism.
“Wow! Astig ka pala!”
He said that full of enthusiasm and sincerity. And I just smiled.

Astig?
Astig.
I think Astig isn’t appropriate to be used for a journalist. I only used the words to describe rockstars or or the architects of those Amazing Vacation Homes in Discovery Channel. But my classmate equated Journalism with being Astig.

Cguro nga, Astig ang Journ. Astig ang MassComm.

Maybe I’m too focused on how to get an Architecture degree and be a Palafox associate that I forgot I have a journalism life to face, to live. I didn’t list Journalism as my first choice for no reason. Maybe when I was in high school, I still see the being Astig of this profession, the way my professor or my PE classmate do.

I’m not saying goodbye to my so-called pencil dreams, because when I come to think of it, Journalism is a pencil-utilizing profession as well, just like architecture. The only differences are that I’m writing in a pad of ruled-paper, not in a drafting or tracing paper or in blueprint, and I’m not drawing buildings and constructing floor plans, I’m building words, and constructing stories. I may not deal with T-squares and lots of esquisse along the way, I deal with people, people who have life, people who have stories, and people who will tell me that a journalist’s life is really astig.

(I’m still at the College of Magical Creatures (CMC) and I still don’t have the courage and motivation to jump from Pluto to Mercury. )

of manual enlistment and math class

at last.



got a math2 class this semester.





so happy!


hahahaha.



what more can I say?!