Tuesday, July 26, 2011

on a lighter note...

the sparkle in your eyes
                     said it all.
words, suddenly,
lost all their meaning.
          dumbfounded.
mute.       scrambling, lost.
but words were not necessary,
that day.                 only sight
                                           and seeing.

emotions                              and feeling
a little of touch
                      a little of smell
                                           a dash of hearing

just a little

else everything in my overflowing
heart
                       spills all over the unworthy floor.

happy ninth.




walang kwentang review

and so i finally, FINALLY happens. i had been wondering why it hasnt set in yet, maybe, by some great luck, i had skipped that phase... only to collide with it head-on a few moments later.
of course im still talking about school and the blasted review class im taking for my exams. three weeks down and just when i thought i had finally found my rhythm, i wake up monday morning and found myself not being able to recall ANYTHING from the past two weeks. not only could i not recall anything, but the drive i had been banking on to push me till the end was all of a sudden, absent. the surging spring that was once gushing up within me was dry. all i was left with was my naked self, vacant, clueless and to a certain degree, stupefied. i was like "WTF happened?!" i got to work still feeling rather blank, and when i got to class later hat evening and saw my classmate buried till their noses in their notes, i started to get REALLY worried. there's something wrong.... i can FEEEEELLLLL IT!!!!

a few moments later, in comes the lecturer. her credentials say she topped the exams during her time, which wasnt that long ago. i even think i recall reading she graduated with honors in the country's top university.... whatever they may be, however colorful her academic resume may sound.... i really cant see any of it in her way of lecturing. even more depressing, when she teaches, i feel i get stupider by the minute. i cant seem to even think about the subject while listening to her. now, to add more insult to her slow torture, she decides to give a surprise quiz. needless to say, i failed miserably. blank brain, blank paper. if this happened when i was still in school, i would have never been able to live with myself... but now in review class, while i supposed to be surrounded by the freshest products of the best universities in the metro, while im supposed to be inspired by all this youth and the prospects of a thriving design industry.... i instead am finding myself dejected and, well, drained.

fear is slowly setting in. to think that i had survived what was supposed to be the THIRD most difficult exams given in the country (we had a national passing rate of 21%), i am slowly finding that i am getting more anxious with this one instead.

lord... help me.


Saturday, July 23, 2011

writing the exams

i'm finally talking to my classmates, though i still dont know their names.

yesterday was my first taste of the design class wherein we are giving a client profile and a set of requirements to fulfill. we are then given 9 hours to complete everything. i am happy to say i survived day 1 though i think i will have deductions for the quality of my work. even if it has been the suggestion of previous lecturers that it is more important to finish everything, rather than submit a few exemplary work, it really wouldnt have mattered since my brain was spitting garbage anyways. we were supposed to color our drawings and all i could do was wash the entire piece in a sea of beige. it was sooooooo mediocre it hurt. i found myself questioning, how in the WORLD can i call myself a designer if i design like this.

i couldnt help looking around at other peoples work and i found myself get more dejected. 4 years of actual practice hasnt shown in my work. i truth, it looked like i lived in a design hole for all that time, a practical death sentence to any designer since trends get churned out every millisecond! whats the latest craze today may be the dying fad tomorrow... and i certainly felt nothing CRAZE-worthy with my output.

of course i try to pacify myself. a full-time day job in the auto-spare parts biz, sideline interior design work, articles, family, lovelife, and miscellaneous errands, coupled with studying for the exams, isnt the easiest thing to do.... then again, i am just pacifying myself and i think my ego need none more.

i honestly dont know why the exams are this important. i just know they are. i just know i have to take it. of course my profession or my person doesnt depend on it. i had already learned that from taking my first exam, many years before, but i guess taking the exams this time is more for ending what i had started when i decided to go into design. the exams would be the clear cut moment when i can tell myself that i am or had fully invested myself when i took this course.

from the looks of my work, i may not be the most brilliant, nor the most artistic, but that shouldnt bother me anymore. i work because i like it. taking the exams is just another project. i just hope it doesnt kill me in the end... coz i feels like it sometimes :)

pardon for the post. my brain hasnt fully recovered from yesterdays exam yet.