From the “Insanity in the City” Files
Monday, April 12, 2004
Recorded by Trainee #06, JC at around 10:44 AM
RE: Up for Starters.
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People around have been asking what in hell do I mean by a non school-affiliated OJT. Some think I should have done better and enrolled the practicum course instead this summer. My dad thinks alike, and even scoffs at the company I got into. Get your stubborn ass in ABS-CBN, he says. Or better yet, GMA 7.

Fine, shoot me; I’m doing things my way. If I see myself asking for a hitch somewhere along highway 27 or some other obscure place, I’m not going to bring it on to anybody. I’m going to be the one who’ll pay.

Thank god for some friends who gave me slight hope by actually supporting me even if I’m being a bit mad. Too much into supporting me, in fact, that when they learned about my idea they joined me in my courageous search for my kind of experience. Now I heard almost everyone in our class learned about my secret, and they wanted to do a double-training this summer as well. I’m not the only inane person in the world after all.

What am I looking at anyway? It’s this: this summer, I will try to get as much hands-on experiences as I can, without crediting any of them for my Practicum course. Just work, work and more work, and hopefully it will be on those small time or indie companies–they’re the ones that really grind you and give you the real training, or so I’ve heard. I’ve found a place right now somewhere around Herrera in Makati, this production company that’s into films. It’s just starting out, I believe, but the guy spearheading the group has already made a mark on the young generation of indie/guerilla filmmakers. They have the ideals which I share with them, so I thought it’s fit I start out with the company.

Before, when we were starting out with our thesis we were trying to move a proposal that students should have at least 2-3 different practicum experiences in different areas of Comm expertise: Advertising, Radio Production, Television Production, Print Journalism and even Film. The idea was scraped because we learned eventually that we can actually choose to be trained on different areas as much as we want if we choose to, only students opt for single-training because of the hassle of complying with the hours; we were also scraped due to the fact that our advisers thought we were valiant but insane. Ergo, I am going to prove to them that I, JC, the head damsel of the distressed council of idiots, am indeed, uh, insane.

If the work goes well, I am then looking at another training experience for this coming semester, another on the sembreak (the main practicum I’ll really credit), and the last blow come 2nd semester. Hopefully I wouldn’t end up too deranged by then.

But for now, I’m sticking to that Makati-based production. Day by day I’ll try to record the things I have learned or encountered all through out the time I’ll be there. If pictures would be available/possible, then I’ll thank my lucky stars for that, and of course, I’ll show it here. But for now, I’m going to take it one step at a time. One neurotic step, I might add.

(Blog transfer from the now down http://ojtfiles.blogspot.com:
The Dummkopf goes to the city…to, uh, work? Oh God.)