Don’t take pictures with Oble, they said. You might not
graduate on time, they said.
 |
| My freshman self at my dorm rooftop |
One summer night in my
second year in college, I decided to stay in Miagao with two friends, got a little adventurous, and took my very first photograph
with the famous icon. I don’t remember getting a copy of that picture. Probably
because I forgot, or for the most part, though I didn’t want to admit, I was fooled to believe in that superstition. I sort of regretted what I did so I acted as if it did not happen.
Today, I know better. Not because I am graduating on time but because I've learned that photographs taken with a naked man whose arms spread wide open into the air will not define the number of years you'll have to stay in UP. More imporatntly, he will serve as a call for motivation. In short, you make things happen. You make your own destiny. You decide how many years you stay.
Awhile ago I sat on my couch quite lost in thought of how I’m
supposed to write an exit blog. A concluding message. A goodbye note. Apparently, I’m bad
at goodbyes. I'm a 90% deeply sentimental person.
To know something is about to come to an end, as all things
should, my feeling is no different than that of all of the others who like me, are about to end four
years of spending life in an academic institution that gave me freedom and let
me do what I wish to do about it. it is not a a feeling of relief but of a bittersweet uncertainty.
I feel proud studying in UP. Not mainly
because of its name and the prestige as that is a given point. But more so of
the adventures I have to go through studying inside. I’ve spent four years alongside people I call
friends and family, my teachers, mentors, even electric fans (in classrooms) that
apparently, are a decade or more older than me.
In this four years I have found a sense of certainty of who
and what I am. Back then I used to deny myself of my personal truths of fear that I may not be accepted. Today I
wear them like I wear sneakers on a daily basis.
You get your beliefs questioned by others and eventually by
your own self, that’s for sure. But you find that it is not a daunting matter
as it is not a bad thing to see the world with more curious and questioning
eyes.
As much as there are brighter days, there are darker ones. All this sum up into what we call the ultimate UP experience.
How does it feel ending this journey? Bittersweet. I can sum it up with
the chorus of Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide:
Well, I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I'm getting older too
What is there to fear? I ask myself. Too many things. Going out there and continuing to find your purpose isn't one of them. Though how bittersweet, I am off to move forward with the knowledge that whatever I do with my life, is completely up to me.
A ‘terror’ UP Professor once told a class I’m in, Whatever
you do in your life, make it a choice. No matter how much you’ve regretted it
or how much you’re proud of it, make it a choice. Your choice.
They say UP chooses you. But UP was also my choice. At certain
points in the past four years I've questioned this choice. Today, I take it all back.
UP is like an open sea. I am grateful for the freedom. I am grateful or being thrown out there where at some point I 'drowned', at some point, I tried to 'float' and now at some point, I'm struggling to learn how to 'swim'.
Eventually, I'll get myself into the ocean.
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