What I Learned in School

Effort doesn’t matter.
When dealing with clients or your teachers, they don’t know how many hours you’ve spent or if you really did the research, or how many fights you’ve had in your meetings. What they will see are the results of your work, not what happened in the backstage.

Presentation is everything.
No matter how good the work you did, no matter how much effort you put into your work, at the end of the day, everything boils down to your presentation. If your presentation fails, then all the effort was useless. It’s like training for a war and in the war you forgot your sword.
I almost thought that this wasn’t so. I wanted to be more idealistic and think that it’s the effort that counts and all the crap…until I lost my first and only Pitch because of our presentation—can you believe? Now I’ve grown cynical.

The Show Must Go On.
No matter how tired, pissed you are…No matter what technical, emotional, philosophical problems that may occur…the show must go on! There are no time-outs in life. When the presentation begins, nothing else matters.

What comes around goes around.
Karma will hit you back one way or another. Whatever you say or do will come back to you. I thought many times that I got away with things…but believe me, the last weeks of school was payback time for me! The karma gods have been very cruel to me.
So if you think you got away with something, think again…one way or another, the karma gods have to settle the score.

Selling your idea is what matters.
A good idea presented badly will lose over an ugly idea presented well.

You don’t have to do it, just make it seem you did it.
Don’t get scandalized by this phrase…hear me out first. I speak from experience. There are many times when I actually DID my research and in the end the results were just as I predicted-- the hypothesis I had from the very beginning.
I bet you our teachers DO fake their own stuff also to their clients. They go through exactly what we go through. They know that they required us to do our research, but they know too that we are better than that. So in the end, it’s just all a game of charades…play the part well, show them with conviction that you did it.

Love your work.
You know those times when you’re talking to someone and you start off with a really bad story without even realizing what you’re saying? At the back of your head you tell yourself “ang panget!”…but you’ve already started your story. So you tell yourself “Damn, I have to finish what I’ve started”. You will have to continue what you are saying, no matter how ugly it started. You have to make it seem that it is the best story that you’ve ever told. So we’re back to the principle of “the show must go on.”

Give to the person what is rightfully theirs.
Acknowledge the work of the person. Do not claim victory all for yourself. Whether you are a leader or a follower, know your place. As a follower, you must acknowledge your leader as the orchestrator who has led you to victory. But moreover, as a leader, you have to acknowledge every work of every groupmate. It does not follow that the leader should get most of the credit. Actually, most of the time, he shouldn’t.

The Captain is the last man in the ship.
A leader, on his own, must take the fall if the group fails. But the group, as a whole, takes the victory if the group wins. If the group goes down, there are no exeptions...he goes down with the group.

Winning is not everything.
I thought that karma was mocking me when the gods humbled my group in our Pitch. But at the end of the day, I realized that winning is not everything. This is not a “Consuelo de Bobo”, but coming from a very cynical person that I am, losing did not matter to me.
Nothing can replace the adventure we had commuting around metro manila, riding the MRT, bus, jeep and tricycle in one day. Or the meetings in my attic that end up in a pingpong match with Marielle. Or the intermission numbers of Ryan with his guitar. Or the sleepless nights trying the make the numbers fit somehow by the random numbers Marielle comes up with. Or the “Are you on a date again!? Presto Time na!” texts of Cheryl. Or the jokes of Kendrick that turn out to be brilliant ideas after all. Or the friendship I had with my laptop. Or the feeling of greatness with the ideas that our group collectively came out with.
I admire Gela for not even looking at her grades this sem even if it’s very accessible over the internet. She walks around with a contagious smile, enjoying life as it goes.
Ironically, the only Pitch I ever lost was the Pitch that I felt most proud of. I worked with the team that enjoyed the work we did. It was an honor fighting with them.
Go to A Lesson Learned the Hard Way to know more about the details.

Cramming is the way to go.
I have to play the part of the cynic now.
Working your ass off weeks before presentation is bullshit…and is not fun at all. It’s the best feeling when you shoot out words from thin air, stunning the panel, making them think that you’ve actually done your homework. Or when you flash a (recycled) powerpoint presentation, with all the alluring graphics, amusing the panel, making them think that you worked months on the project (when in fact you did it while the your groupmate was fixing the projector).

Cheers to the authentic pressure cookers!