When I was still a student, I used to hear working people say they miss their life in school. Such yearning would always be a complete surprise for someone like me who craves for the opposite: a life outside school, a life in the professional world, a life that would allow me to give back everything to my parents. I was very eager to finish my studies then for two reasons. One is because i wanted to lessen the burden of my parents, financial worries being the heaviest among them, and two is because for the longest time, when I was in college, I felt I was walking around a campus of pretention, that to get out of those four corners would be a taste of freedom, and an escapea into a world of reality and mature people. For almost 20 years, I was solely dependent to the "baon" that my mother or father would give me every school day, and to the quarterly examination fee that they would give me just to meet the deadline of my promissory note. And what would make that certain amount of money more than just what it is, is the incredible amount of hardwork and sacrifices behind it that my parents have to make just to get me through college. Despite of our situation, there was never a time when I demanded for a better life. Instead of it being a hindrance to my studies, our financial challenges became my inspiration to strive harder and finish school the soonest possible time. That is why when in a casual conversation with friends months before graduation, I was the only one who seemed very excited to leave CEU. I wasn't thinking about being away from friends nor did I fear company interviews and exams that will come. I wasn't afraid of the real world like how my sentimental friends were back then. I was as ready and optimistic to face the corporate world as a high-caliber soldier personally picked by the President to lead a troop bound to Iraq. I was an Octoberian graduate who finished school and left it as if nothing was behind me. I was looking forward, walking fast, just waiting for God to lead me to my next destination. After three months of job hunting and after days of near depression, I finally reached this place . . . . . .(to be continued)