mademoiselle0517:

In the midst of my last finals week in the Ateneo, I found myself coining a term which best describes how I coped with all the stress that characterized the final stretch… #Juliensanity.

You see, where I’m from, it’s widely uncool or unpopular to fangirl over—let alone express the puniest hint of admiration for—a local celebrity. This is the easiest route to committing social suicide in school (in my school, at least). You’re forever tagged “jej” or run the risk of an “award” so infamous it was even scrapped off this year’s edition of the Blue Roast, the “Proud To Be Jologs Award” (by the way, “Blue Roast” is the annual pre-commencement exercises party of the graduating batch).  Truth be told, however, I couldn’t care any less. If you ask me, people are really just in denial of the fact that it’s perfectly okay to be mainstream. It doesn’t make you any less Atenean or Chinay or whatever apellation you wanna attach to your identity (actually, I was ironically not being mainstream in the “Ateneo sense” because what’s mainstream here is, in fact, not being mainstream—ok, haha, I hope you get the drift).

So, anyway, for a final paper and presentation I did for an elective, I chose to specifically write about Julie Anne San Jose. With the final third of my prefinal grade hinged on that class requirement, I took my chances on her. Haha, I’m waxing metaphorical! And if you should read long enough ‘til the end, you’ll find out what came out of this risk. Oh the suspense!

With a significant chunk of my final grade on the line, I wrote about how a TV show’s success can be measured—that is, beyond the ratings games. Notwithstanding the fact that it’s advertisers’ money that drives the business of showbusiness, I pointed out how a TV program’s metrics for success can also be operationalized by its ability to create a cult following among its viewers—in that it takes on a life of its own even after the show had already rolled out its closing credits. With the advent of various other forms of media—notably online—we see this standpoint clearly at work. Twitter, for instance, has become synonymous to the barometer of what’s hot and what’s not. And because it is social media, Twitter trending, in fact, can give you a very real pulse of who’s making waves in the lives of people connected to this world. It is not too surprising anymore that we now get the latest updates or scoops on news and current events no longer from the dailies or even the hourly newscasts, but on who or what’s dominating the Twitter trending world.

Talk about the pen wielding its might on people’s consciousness. And if the last 3 days are to be any indication, the Twitter Trending Queen is here to stay. Long live J.A.P.S. Panalo (Julie Anne Para Sa Panalo = Julie Anne For The Win)! Ok, I think that acronym sounded a tad bit too coerced.

Oh well… if there’s Mastercard “for everything else,” there’s #Juliensanity to account for anything and everything Julie Anne San Jose-pegged.

And, yes, about the major class requirement… I could only wink to myself as I did my presentation (even sans all the Keynote effects—I don’t really dig that) for all my classmates to hear on the last day of regular class… For after what seemed like an eternity of comments and queries, the class erupted into cheers and applauses as I nodded in my professor’s direction to signify that, yes, I was giving him the permission to reprint and publish my work for future students of his to take after. I took the risk with Julie Anne and it paid off—for with a prefinal grade of A in his class, I’m exempted from taking my finals with a sure final grade of A… resulting in a cumulative QPI of 3.502. Cum Laude in the bag, baby!

So, who says #Juliensanity doesn’t pay? It does, no doubt! Just make sure that you use it as a means to an end. My next stop… the corporate world! Time to sell shampoo and soap, haha. Let’s see where #Juliensanity can take me when I pitch her to my Marketing Managers to become our brands’ newest endorser. Hihi!

Priceless.

congratulations :D