So much for trying to be the Pete Sampras of Multimedia Arts. So much for the caffeine-induced hours of midnight spent before the blue light of the computer, rattling my brains for some right-brained idea on how to portray a rock, a mound of dirt, a child. So much for being a hack. Today, my fingers crack at the mere feel of a pencil.

The Spy vs. Spy shoot yesterday was a drag. We spent five hours trying to wrap up a 4-minute film. From 4 to 9, we experienced a litany of bull and sweat that by the last hour, Dale and I were ready to smother each other with the boom mic.

Four so-called superlative locations drove us away because "You need a permit from the Pontius Pilate to shoot here, sir, ma'am." We had to explain that we are students whose professor is a frightful guillotine and we beg them in the name of all the hallowed saints to allow us to use a piece of their rotting, rat-infested parking lot (in the case of the par excellent University Mall). Futile. We were fortunate, though, to shoot at the B---- Towers rooftop. Then, the B--- Towers security personnels stopped us and took turns in interrogating our asses. In the end, we had to call the building manager, some lady engineer, who apparently missed out on her toilet training. We spoke to her in such a polite tone of voice, even Mother Theresa would have cringed out of guilt for not being as bland as we were. Whereupon, the lady engineer yelled, "BYE!" and hang up on our sorry faces.

By 8:06 pm, we ended up vagabonds on the streets of Malate, shooting a scene while jeepney-bound rubberneckers halt to gawk, thus the annoying rapping of exhausted engines.
We wrapped up the shoot at 5 past 9.

I boarded an FX home with a sore throat. At the back of my head, I repeated that one phrase my Chemistry teacher shoved in my face at one point when I was a fifteen-year old caught reading Hardy Boys in the middle of her class: If you can't take the heat, leave the kitchen.

I am staying.