Change is the only permanent thing in this world.
I thought the column I wrote last issue would be my first and last. But it was an awful buzzer beater that paved the way for this overtime. I forgot that in this world, there is this something we call a “second chance”. Everyone gets another shot.
***
Days dwindle fast. I am getting sentimental each passing moment here in the office as I layout the final Sports page I have to do for the paper.
Each strike in the keyboard seems to be a countdown. A countdown of the remaining time I have in this office.
Every word I type seems to take me back to the most fleeting moments I had experienced in my three-year stay here. But I’m no crybaby. I am not going to cry over this.
Perhaps, watching the damn good tribute for us, outgoing staffers, over and over again made me cry but this one won’t. Direk Julienne, thanks for that tearjerker of a video. Fifty years down the road, that video will be worth watching in the “Valik-Varsi”.
Varsi, thanks for the wonderful memories and beautiful friendships. Room 112 in the UST Main Building will always be a home to me.
My Varsi batchmates, I am as proud as I was frustrated before but what the heck, we weathered everything this stormy year had to offer.
Presswork-mates, thank you for the whacky nights. Sleeping on the chairs in front of the PCs. Our late-night snacks at Pares-Pares, Bulalohan sa España, Wendy’s, Savory and our coffee hang-outs at Starbucks and Seattle’s.
The corniest and craziest jokes we cracked up just to keep us awake. The bashings, the misadventures of the “el gimikero jrs.”, and the dark room. Sir Lito’s article-slaughtering.
Surely these will be the things I will be missing after this final issue goes out.
Incoming Varsi batch, especially in the Sports section, good luck and may you strive to do your best to deliver the truth and push this paper I have sweated for all this time to greater heights.
The Varsitarian office has been one of my two life-supports in my college years here in the school, the other one being the UST Central Seminary.
Fr. Atong and the whole Central Seminary community, thank you once again for giving me the chance to stay there, and the same time, here, in The Varsitarian.
These are the two families that molded me into what I am now. I owe you my promising career and my values. A big part of my life were spent in you and it bore great dividends to me as a Catholic and as a journalist.
Athletes, cherish whatever triumph you score on the hardcourt or on the field, but do not forget that what matters most in this game of life are not those stats. After all, it’s the score you make in your life that will matter in the end.
Why are goodbyes sad when there is what we call a “happy ending”?
Moving on is the hardest thing to do in life. But the inevitable has come and I have to go.
I could just be one of the nameless Varsi staffers and Centralites that had passed along this way, but I am proud that I was here.
Once a V staffer, always a V staffer. Once a Centralite, always a Centralite.
***
My final buzzer beater made it. And this time around, there will be no more overtime.
