August 2000

when this picture was taken, it was a point in my life i would call 'happyness.' a couple of days ago, i watched the current will smith movie, "the pursuit of happyness." needless to say, the ending of the movie is predictable, but if you DON'T WANT TO KNOW how it ends stop here...

i'm just going to say that the character he played started to cry at the end of the movie. but it wasn't tears of sadness, but an uncontrollable emotion that happens to a person when they accomplish something that they've worked against all odds for and finally achieve his or her goal/dream. after this scene, i did shed a tear or two, because i know what that feeling is. and that is captured in the picture above.

after graduating from high school in 1990, i went to sac state. 5 years were spent learing about partying, tennis, "friendship", filipino culture, filipino-american history, how to roll and fry a lumpia, and clubbing. as you can see, during my academic tenure at CSUS, i didn't learn much about MIS or business or COBOL. truth is... i wasted 5 years of money and schooling. i never did get a degree from there. but i didn't leave empty handed, i did find my best friends, and a passion for performing arts, my culture, and community. all of this is and will always be credited to Sinag-tala!

i moved away, lost touch, and found something that i did love to do - graphic and web design. after the entrance interview with an art school in sf, i was accepted and began my next foray into higher education. during this time i got various part-time hourly jobs to pay for living expenses. this meant peanut-butter sandwiches, living in a house with no heat and a leaky roof (but no rent either), no free weekends or no free nights! michelle sacrificed more than me though since she started working earlier than i, and i just needed to recognize that. but yeah, we struggled. my "lowest" point was when i was working at a smoothie place and my lil cousin came into the store. i remember when she was in elementary school, and now she's working as a financial loan officer for a law school... and i was serving her a smoothie. hey, you gotta do what you gotta do, right? i just hoped that one day that all this would be worth it.

when i got my BFA in August 2000, all those sacrifices were worth it. i worked SO HARD for that piece of paper. that paper isn't a symbol for the classes i took and passed at the expense of harsh critiques and MANY sleepless nights, but also all the missed nights and weekends working. also, for all those experiences of feeling so much lower than all the "friends" i knew who had higher paying jobs while i worked as a juicer and robot/guest service person at metreon. i EARNED that piece of paper and it's the part of my life that lead up to that moment above called, happyness.