WARNING: Long post ahead.

If not for the various graduation gratitude and OOTD posts that kept showing up on my Instagram feed, I wouldn't realize that it has been seven months since I published my last blog post. My blog was quiet for more than half a year for a lot of reasons (that are mostly personal) but despite that, I am still quite aware of what has been happening with the world including those commencement events. 

And what's a graduation ceremony without the speeches? I just finished watching the graduation speech of this year's batch valedictorian from one of the campuses of the University of the Philippines in the Visayas, and it's one of the most inspiring messages I have heard lately.

Watching the said speech prompted me to write this blog post because just like the honor student, I had my share of the same kind of spotlight too when I delivered a speech to the graduating batch of my alma mater almost a decade ago.

Just a few weeks back, I decided to browse the contents of an old blog that housed my writings during the year when blogging was just a new trend. I came across an unedited entry that narrated my thoughts about being a graduate of a state-funded institution. After 18 years, I have finally decided to post the entry Thoughts of State U in this blog. I wrote the said piece with the original plan of submitting it to a column of a national broadsheet.  

I am a brainchild of a state university; of one of the institutions raised by the state. For four long years, thirty-two months, nine hundred ninety two relentless days (including weekends) and twenty three thousand eight hundred eight hours (including the time I spent for rest), I stayed in an institution I never thought I would be.

I might be too ambitious like other students were themselves. While others were proud of being an Atenean, La Sallian or Thomasian, I on the other hand am simple and silent being a State U baby with the desire that someday I will also be one of the elite ones. But then I guess this was my destiny. Despite that I came from a middle-class family and was a product of a private sectarian school for eleven years, I never had the chance of becoming a student of any prestigious university in college. My only hope was to belong to the University of the Philippines—the only premiere state university that I admire so much that to be an alumnus is already one big privilege. But then my only hope was lost and so I was left with the only option of enrolling in a state university in my locality or else I would wait for another year or never to study—it was a game of take it or leave it and so I decided to go and give it a try with the plan in mind that my stay in the school will last for just a year.

Maybe, being in the state university was a stroke of luck and destiny. In a span of two weeks, blessings poured in. Just when I was adjusting to a new environment, I was appointed Literary Editor of the campus paper, the youngest section editor in our batch and had my first taste of victory eight months later—with the privilege of being the second neophyte of the organization to compete and win in the competition battling with the best and brightest minds of student journalists in the region.

Or I guess, I enjoyed staying in the comfort of the school that I had already fell in love with it that I had forgotten my plan of staying there for a year instead, I had unconsciously prolonged my stay for four years. My stay had thought me a lot of things and letting me feel how it is to experience the battle in the world of knowledge and surviving the road to forever.

But now it seemed the road to forever is already forever no more. It has come to an end; so is my stay in the school. As of this writing, I had made my final bow and said goodbye to my alma mater and to the people I’ve been with during my four-year stay in the university.

But as I came face to face with the fruit of my labor, deep inside me is the confession that despite striving against the flow of the tide and meddling with deadlines, to leave the school is somewhat hard for me.

Call me absurd but I won’t mind. While others would want to leave their own schools for their personal reasons like terror teachers, boring subjects, unplanned pregnancies and other alibis, I on the other hand have this satisfying feeling knowing that I have done my part as a student. For sure I have my own reasons to say so. Among those reasons are the following:

-My daily routine of riding tricycles telling the driver "sa RSC po."

-My alsa balutan syndrome that happens twice a year to attend press conferences with that big bag containing what I need without a "mama" to take care of it.

-How it feels like to taste such a sweet success.

-Staying up until two in the morning talking to a colleague about everything and anything under the sun (and moon).

Lillian Smith quoted Education is a private matter between the person and the world of knowledge and expertise and has little to do with school or college. On the other hand, learning is not limited to the same old stuff. There is more to life than the books and theories. I may not be blessed with the opportunity of being an elite member of those prestigious schools but I know this happened for a reason.

I may not be given with the unique opportunity to taste the sweetness of a "branded education" but then, I’ve reaped its rewards. For it was through the state university I was given with the chance to take a glimpse at the lives of La Sallians, Ateneans and Thomasians; I’ve gone to places I’ve never been; I was given the unique chance of proving my worth and be the best I could for myself and even leave a legacy for my school.

Education is not measured by the kind of school, nor the uniforms I’ve worn not even the amount of allowance my parents gave me for a day. I could have the taste of a branded education but if I did, I may not be the one that I am today.

Indeed my life in the state university is done; a book has come to a close but the things I am thankful for is endless.

I am a brainchild of the state university and regardless of the name of my school, I shall forever be proud of it.

The thought of delivering this as a speech in a formal event such as a graduation ceremony didn't really cross my mind back then. But when I came across this entry months ago, I must admit that a part of my heart ached.

This never made it to the column of the broadsheet where I hoped and intended to see it. Nor did I get the chance to deliver this speech in a formal event; because when I received the invitation to be the guest speaker in a college recognition ceremony months after I turned 30, this piece was left forgotten. Instead, I found myself drafting a different speech inside a cramped S&R outlet near my then workplace and delivered it in front of an audience of 600 people sans the kodigo. 

I retained this post together with the other entries that I wrote for my very first blog after setting it in private mode. Maybe, the said essay is meant to exist for a different purpose. At least, in this day and age of almost all things going digital, (including the way of learning and acquiring education) this  will serve as my core memory of how things are like traditionally -- especially now that I am approaching another era in life.