“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 87^th Commencement Exercises of the Asian Technological University. May I call on Mr. Laxamana to announce the graduates of BS Chemical Engineering. Let us give him a round of applause.” The master of the ceremony welcomed.

“Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen, before anything else, may I now announce the ten diligent students who survived the challenging yet rewarding life of being a chemical engineering student. First on the line is…” Mr. Laxamana started.

The early morning sun rises in Seoul. Students, employees, full time mothers rush on the busy streets to start their day. In TOP’s condominium, the bright rays of the sun pass through the huge glass window in the living room and hit the innocent face of the sleeping TOP. His fine skin and complexion compete with the brightest hour of the morning. His soft breath sounds like he’s still in a deep sleep. The thin and long fingers of his right hand are slightly spread to support the drama script that is halfly read and rests on his calm breathing chest. His left fist slowly moves down from his head. Little by little it moves downward until it reaches the glass table where the half full can of cold coffee that he was sipping last night spills, despite this, he is still asleep. Thirty minutes have passed and still, he quietly sleeps until, his cellphone in his left pocket vibrates. He grabs it…

“Hello?” TOP in his “morning” tone answered.

“Hello?” He repeated

“He---“

TOP checks if the caller hangs the call but unfortunately, it is just a text message coming from his manager.

“Aish…” He irritably told to himself

He reads the text message only to find out that its content just reminds him to read the script and decide before the day ends. As he scrolls down, a familiar expression zooms. His manager attached his picture trying to do the “TOPmost” expression with a callout saying, Good morning hoping that this expression would completely wake you up.

“Crazy… I’m the only one who can do it perfectly.” As he places back his cell phone in his pocket.

As he slowly rise from the coach, the bunch of papers that he was holding a while ago fell down the floor. He reaches them through his left hand at the same time as he stretches his right arm. Upon reaching them, he places those on the glass table while closing his eyes to give out his biggest yawn. Until…

“What the ---“ He feels something is not right and remembers the can of cold coffee.

He opens his eyes and sees that part of his suit together with the last pages of the script that he was reading last night is soaked in the coffee. He immediately takes the script out of the coffee spill and wipes it on his black pants. After wiping it, he checks whether the texts were gone and thank God the script is still readable despite of the big light brown stain that is visible on the last two pages of the script. Holding the script in his right hand, he stands up and gets his suit. He walks towards the kitchen counter and leaves the script on it. Not too far from the kitchen, he opens a finely carved wooden white door and walks his way in. Behind this door, lies a very lightly painted pink room accented with black and white furnitures that compliment the place. He again opens a finely carved wooden white door that is located at the rightmost part of the room that is somewhat near to the round king size all black bed. This door leads him to a shop-like walk-in closet where all his valuable clothes, shoes, watches and everything are kept on place. Also, at the farthermost part of his walk-in closet stands a wall sized mirror. Using his right hand, he slides the mirror to the right and a very classy, cosy and chick black tiled and gold accented bathroom privately ends this scene.

“And lastly but definitely not the least, Madrigal, Chin Lexy I.” Mr. Laxamana ended as he gives his brightest smile to the applausing audience.

I stand up. With my three-inched heels, I walk carefully to the stage. Honestly, I’m a flat footed person, and really up to this moment college life tests my patience. As I walk, I give my family a glance and show them my biggest and teary smile. At last, only a few steps left before I get to have the proof of my hardship and sleepless nights, my diploma.

“Congratulations.” Mr. Tiongco, President of the Asian Technological University, congratulated while handing my diploma using his left hand at the same time as he gives his right hand for a hand shake.

I face the whole crowd and show them my last bow. My heart flatters upon hearing the audience applause with my family as the wildest cheer of them all. I step down the stage and again make my way to my seat. I close my eyes and thank God for everything especially for guiding my way to the stage without tripping myself.  

“Before proceeding to the next batch of graduates, our beloved president has an important announcement to make for our BS ChE graduates.” The master of the ceremony said.

“Dear parents, graduates, professors and guests, two of our ChE students are chosen by a certain university overseas to continue their study as ChEs… The Seoul National University is awarding this full scholarship to Ms… Ms. Chin Lexy Madrigal for her outstanding thesis entitled Freeze-Thaw Concentration of Pinkwater via Cold Finger Apparatus and to the class gold medalist Mr. Park Seung Joon!” Mr. Tiongco proudly announced.