I think I slept 16 straight hours last night. 16 hours. Wow. That's the longest I've slept during the last 2 weeks of exams.

I stayed up sleepless last Thursday night and I was so tired when I got home from school yesterday. As soon as I hit the sack, it was like being whacked by Stephen Chao's soccer ball in Shaolin Soccer.

The tiring Thursday night was because Erick and I have decided to help out Eds, Jolleen, and Noemi with their thesis defense presentations for yesterday. I really don't know what it is with thesis defense, but I'm sure it gives all graduating students the creeps. Thesis defense is like going through hell, burning in there for longest 30 minutes of your life with your heart beating faster than the speed of light. We've been there, we knew how it felt like, and so we wanted to help out our undergrad friends.

After my electroanal exam, I had dinner first at KFC inside the campus before going to Eds' place with Jolleen, Erick, and Noemi.


On our way to Eds' place, we stopped by one of the many Starbucks branches in Greenhills to get our coffees.

As soon as we got to her Camp Crame place, we took all our paraphernalia and messed the whole place.


We took a shot before we started doing our own stuff.


Not to mention, the over-flowing caffeine for the night.


Eds started reviewing journal articles and taking down notes for her oral presentation.


Jolleen made revisions with her presentation. Jolleen, bakit ang daming phones sa harap mo?


Erick gave Noemi tips and lectures on how to go about the IR spectra.


At the same time, Noemi was busy trying to figure out if she could get this piggy bank to undergo IR spectroscopy. (Actually, she's thinking if she could get any coins to flip out from the slit)


And I got ready to go crazy over my Physical Chem assignment.


At 3 am, we were all still up and busy preparing for the oral presentations. After my Phy Chem assignment I helped Jolleen with her Powerpoint, Eds reviewed more journals, Erick copied my assignment, and Noemi finally gave up with the piggy bank and just read some notes for her presentation.


At around 5 am our eyes were still without a blink.


And our things were still all over the place.


We started having mock defenses with me and Erick as the panelists. We gave our, ehem, professional comments and asked some questions about their thesis like as if we were real panelists. Haha..

We all went to school with sabog looks. To think I still have to attend Phy Chem class with Erick and we were already 45 minutes late. Good thing Doc Sev dismissed us early, and so I had the chance to still help out Eds with the finishing touches of her presentation.

The defenses were in parallel sessions so I had to miss Eds' and Noemi's presentation because I had to listen to the Analytical Chem presentations.

Vadge was the first to present his Optical fiber sensor. Hannah and I were seriously listening to him. Or so we tried to look like we are. But we really are!


The day ended with the undergrad I worked with being the last to present her thesis. Her Powerpoint had some problems in the middle of the presentation so I told her to just continue talking. Good thing she brought an extra copy but it was unedited. Her presentation turned out to be good because she was still able to deliver despite the technical problem.

On my way home I thought of my own thesis defense a year ago. Tension was high, I had jitters, and the whole CSJ office was crowded with Chem students. Our formal attires were hanging on the CSJ cabinets, laptops everywhere, everyone was editing his/her presentation, the place was all messy, and we were all running around.

After our defense, it sort of ended everything. We sort of can feel the graduation air but we cannot speak too soon because we still had to take the Correlation Course. But still, thesis defense is thesis defense. Being able to finally get over it just feels so damn good.

Congratulations batch 2006! Now you only have to worry about the Correlation Course! Oh, and of course your defense scores!