I am a nervous wreck.
April 23. Two days before I will officially present my thesis proposal to a panel of UP professors in Los Baños, Laguna.
I often appear collected and prepared on the surface but my insides is made of drums and cymbals making incessant noise of worry and anxiety.
The last two weeks were hectic and crazy. I was in between sanity and insanity; I do not even know how I managed to get out every day to take a shower.
I have been writing and talking to people. I even managed to fly down south of the Philippines to join a team working on a project that I still cannot divulge at the moment except for the fact that I am writing a story for a book about it.
I have learned one important lesson in this leg of Master’s Degree brouhaha: know when to stop.
I therefore made a promise to myself to take a break from academic endeavours after I complete this third degree. I started pursuing graduate school in 2014 and have never stopped since then.
I am exhausted. Frankly, I need to temporarily detach myself from the academic world. I hope to finish this degree this year.
My goal for the next year is to form a secret, by-invitation book club where we only read books which nourish the soul.
In all my public involvements in the Cebu City Public Library, the stories I write in my day job as a journalist and my active social media presence, I always find it best to take a step back and feed the introvert in me; that part of me that yearns to do things in secret, away from public participation; that part of me that wants to be selfish and do things just because I want to do it.
For June, I will focus on the mutants’ entry to regular school. This will be a major adjustment for them and for me. I am so used to teaching them the unconventional way that staying in a classroom might prove to be a challenge for us.
I try think of it as another adventure to explore and so, although I am hesitant about it, I am going to try it. While I like my comfort zone, perhaps it will do good to also explore my zone of conflict.
Two days before thesis proposal presentation, several creative ideas of literacy projects are swirling in my head. I look up and I can almost literally see them swim up there above my head waiting to be plucked and implemented.
But I am going to take a step back and breathe.
Two days before thesis proposal presentation, I am going to get a massage and then a haircut.
All is well.
All is well.
