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This poster at the UP Film Institute caught my eye while I was waiting for my adviser.  The funny thing was that my critic/reader had just granted me the go-signal to distribute copies of my dissertation to my panel.  In my head, I was already singing:

Ok, I was too young to have seen the movie but I do remember the theme song that Sharon Cuneta sang, which was about triumph.  Considering that I finished my course work in two years, took a break for one semester, and then finished the manuscript 6 months after defending the proposal, which I defended 5 months after passing the comprehensive exam…that is pretty fast.  Especially since I come from a university that has been known to cause delays for graduate students. (I had been warned by naysayers, and I said, “Challenge accepted!”)  So there’s a feeling of pride somewhere in there, that I could actually do this. That despite not being the smartest in class, I had incredible sense of determination (and totally supportive friends) to pull me through.

It came with a price, though.  

Before I left my previous employment and while I was doing the exit interview, the president called me crazy for not going full-time as a Ph.D student. And he was right. Boy, was he so right! No sane person would go into a full-time job (and in game production, to boot!!) while taking that much load as a graduate student.

The result? Weekly visits to the hospital because of:

• Internal Medicine (acid and digestion problems)
• Orthopedic (knee injury, fell off escalator due to inattentiveness)
• Dentist (weakened gums resulting in root canal, not covered by Maxicare)
• Dermatologist (ironically, it was the oft-dismissed “beauty doctor” who told me that I was so stressed that my body’s resistance has dropped, making me susceptible to all kinds of bacterial and viral attacks, but the resulting damage is not covered by Maxicare)

Plus the other important things?

• Death of love lives
• Nearly dead social life
• Missing family gatherings and activities

But you know what? Another funny thing is that I don’t think it’s my studies that have led me to this. I was more stressed as a student when I was still doing my course work because I had to run to UP three times a week after office hours back then. And during the summer of 2010, I had to take ENG 295 everyday, running back to the office at the end of every session.  Now, it’s doubly harder, because I had to get into grueling production work in the name of auto-ethnography. (I’ve come to realize that it is the production work that’s killing me, even though I’ve already dropped all other game dev organizational activities.)

I clearly abused my body and have pushed it to the point of being trapped in this unhealthy routine until I graduate. My mom had been right when she scolded me: I should not have gotten a full-time game industry job while still finishing my Ph.D.

My solution? Eat right, sleep well, and drink lots of water as I try to meet the end of July self-imposed deadline for the revisions. Jennent!