Why I’ll Never Leave
If there’s one thing I’ve learned this past week that doesn’t involve recombinant DNA technology, how to be a proper referee in fencing class, different ways of testing evidence, literary criticism in both English and Filipino, nearly every type of mathematical function, and yogurt culture, then I’ll tell you, it’s this: No matter how hard you try, time is never on your side.
This week was undoubtedly the busiest and most stressful I’ve ever been in college so far. On average I got about three to four hours of sleep per night and two to three cups of coffee for each, and for every hour that I kept myself awake, I had no choice but to be doing something. The number of requirements wasn’t the least bit fairly proportional to the number of hours I had to meet their deadlines, even if I did exclude the possibility of sleep. It was a nightmare. I started off the week already wanting it to end.
And here I am now. When I woke up this Saturday morning, I almost felt like crying the moment I realized I just had a good, undisturbed, and much deserved twelve-hour sleep. I checked through Tumblr and Twitter and blasted impossibly loud rock music to celebrate, despite everything, my survival of this week. I read some of the works from Heights’ First Regular Folio, and I ate cake, I had spaghetti. All I want to do for the rest of this day—is nothing.
But I know the truth. Just because Hell Week is over doesn’t mean the semester is, and that’s another reason why I am here, just at home, missing out on some things that perhaps part of me will regret. On September 25 alone, I have a party with my fourth year high school classmates (which is happening right now, by the very same seconds I am typing these words), an eighteenth birthday party of one of my blockmates, and an Awards Night in Katipunan for Loyola Film Circle’s BlueScreen7. It came to mind some time ago that, at the very least, I should attend one of these; in fact I want to attend all of them. But for the three awesome events I could be preparing for right now, I have three novels to read. I have more papers to write and projects to finish, assignments to accomplish and finals to study for. I dread the possibility of another Hell Week because I brought it upon me myself.
I’ve learned enough before this—the hard way, too—that if I want to be doing anything, I have to stop doing everything else, and this is it. I hate being the grade-conscious loser in all of this, but I need the hours. They are much too rare to spend doing anything else.
I’ll say hello to my three darn novels.
