Life is Beautiful

After three weeks of waiting for my papers to clear, I finally have
everything I need to leave for Japan on Monday. My visa is ready, my
university papers are done, and my plane ticket is sitting on my desk.

The fear hasn’t sunk in yet, but there is a small pit of excitement sitting in the bottom of my stomach. How apropos.

I
have three projects I need to finish before the weekend (which will
undoubtedly turn into night after night of drunken debauchery :D), and
I’ve been doing them whilst listening to Damien Rice’s The Blower’s
Daughter. It seems so appropriate right now, specially the part with
‘How I loathe you; I can’t take my mind off of you’. Lol.

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it seems like the universe has decided to finally cut me a break. Awesome.

The UP Fine Arts class of 2007 had its thesis exhibit at the V-Mall (greenhills) lobby yesterday night, and it was an awesome turn-out. A lot of great friends came by to see the show, and I even got a hug from one of my thesis co-advisers! (Holy crap, I’m finally done, sir Joey!)

In other news, I got an Award of Merit for the research I did on my thesis "Utilizing Color as the Primary Vehicle for Storytelling in Visual Media". They shortened the title on the little plaque I got, unfortunately, but it’s okay. I’m still spectacularly happy.

Pictures of the event on my friendster gallery, so feel free to take a look!

The exhibit runs until March 31, where there will be live bands to close it. Entrance is free, so please drop by when you can!

Right. Most of you who’ve been in my general vicinity the past month
or so will have noticed that I am always talking about one of two
things:

1) My thesis

2) My ex

My thesis was, to
put it bluntly, hell. I went from a stop motion animated short film to
a black-and-white art film to a fully advertised art book slash
editorial campaign, and at no point in the entire process did I feel
certain about any of it. Everything only started clicking into place
about a week ago, and yesterday was the dry-run for the upcoming thesis
deliberations. (For the uninitiated, the college of Fine Arts invites
industry professionals to act as our panel for thesis delibs, so it’s
kind of a big deal.)

In any case, yesterday was the pre-delibs.
We presented our AD campaigns to a panel of our own professors, and
they critiqued, offered suggestions, and (in some cases) told us to
totally rewrite/restrategize the campaign. I was in knots and
chain-smoking outside the computer room for most of the day, but I
happily made it through. I was offered a lot of good advice and am
going to incorporate as much as I can into my campaign. Changes were
minimal, and the panel really liked my art direction on the book. (So,
so happy. :D)  Academic life, thank you for ending on a high note.

Also
of note is that I wrapped the final shoot of my academic career today
(just a minor short film for our Japanese 11 finals), and that I feel
awesome. Bliss called to remind me that today would’ve been my
anniversary with my ex, and I can honestly say that I don’t have any
feelings about it. It’s like a whole load has been removed from my
mind, and I’m just so fricking happy that I could throw a party. Which
I should, really, because I feel the need to celebrate with all my
favourite people.

For the first time in a long time, I actually feel like myself again.

Went out with the girls and Kelvin last night to help cheer up Maya-with-the-broken-heart. Ironically enough, she ended up having to try to cheer /me/ up, as I ended up rather spectacularly drunk and emo enough to sink the Titanic. Hello, delayed reaction.

Mother and I took down all the photos of my ex and I on the family wall the other day, and it figures that the only time I cry about the whole damned thing is when I’m so pissed I can’t even walk straight. Everyone was previously marveling about my strength and ‘togetherness’, but now I realize that I’m just as human as the rest of the world. /And/ that I am actually capable of crying. Who knew?

In any case, I ended up having to call my brother to pick me up (something I haven’t had to do since I was 16), and Maya stayed the night to make sure I didn’t do anything too embarrassing. I can’t really remember a lot of what I said, but she did mention something about pretty colors and trying to get my cell phone to ’stop spinning’.

In other news: I have finally gotten around to mentally ‘divying’ up  friends/stuff/activities between the ex and I. Was mildly annoyed when I realized just how much crap I have to stop doing, but eventually decided that a clean break is best. It wouldn’t do to keep on with arnis and have to see him everyday, after all, and learning to box is proving an interesting enough distraction. I abhor having free time, though, and I may have to take up another sport to pass the time.