It's April in the Philippines already, and I'm sure most of you know what this means—summer! Ah yes, sweet, sweet summer. It's that wonderful time of the year when a student like me sets the books, assignments, quizzes, and paperwork of the recently-finished school year on fire! Nah, I'm just kidding, I won't really find an empty lot to burn all of my past paperwork on (or will I?). In all seriousness, summer is that time of the year where everyone (mostly students) can kick back, relax, and just goof off, or do whatever they want in life.

For me, doing "whatever I want in life" basically translates to my bed, my pillows, my laptop, my headphones, and 12 hours of sleep. Truth be told, that's what I have been doing for the past week. I've had rough schedule the past term. Going home on Mondays and Thursdays at 7:30-8:00 p.m. and then attending a 7:30 a.m. class the following day really takes a toll on a man's health, so I suppose my body is just "repaying its sleep debt" by making me sleep half of an entire day for the past few days. I'm cool with that for now, but that won't be long. I quite consider myself as a man with a plan, and boy, I sure do have a lot of plans this summer.

The first stop on my "roadmap to a better summer" is around the first week of summer. This is the part where my body basically adjusts and repairs itself from the stress, pain, anguish, further damage I received from the academic year prior. In other words, I'll be a "sleepaholic" for this week or so.

Then, comes the first major stop: rebuilding. I've looked back at what I have done over the past few terms and, truth be told, what I have done wasn't quite good. Sure, I joined hackathons and won them, but I'm not talking about that. I'm really fixated on how my attitude has changed. My patience has decreased, I roll my eyes when someone has an obviously fixable tech problem, I started to curse like a sailor, I've been very mean towards others, I've gone way off-line several times, I'm close to depression, etc.

It's easy for me to make an excuse about my changed attitude on my horrible experiences last academic year. I mean, I almost dropped out of college, my family was on the verge of bankruptcy, I had a full-on war with my dad, I moved to a new place, I've gotten closer to "bad influences" (people), I started to build walls around me, and so on. I've gone through a lot, but I'm only going to use those as an excuse for my poor attitude only once.

So what I plan to do almost throughout the whole summer is to, well, become Sunny again.

For those who don't know, Sunny is was a persona I once had back in high school. I got the persona from Sunny of SNSD. My "main persona" (if you will) back then was Sunny, and I only had 2 personas back in high school: Sunny and Sunflower. The latter is the extremely sad part of me, the one who breaks down when he's been rejected by a girl he loves, the person who tells themselves that they're not strong, and does all those emo things. Sunny, on the other hand, is quite different.

First of all, Sunny is a huge fan of SNSD. He finds enjoyment in watching aegyo videos of Sunny and funny moments of SNSD on YouTube. He is also quite adventurous, and an inquisitive little fella as well. He's somewhat outgoing, too. Likes to attend Sone-related events like Sooyoung's birthday celebration or that K-pop convention. Last but not least, Sunny is a friend and a personal energizer. He likes to cheer up others when they're down, make people laugh, help others by talking to them, and so on.

That was Sunny back then. I'm not sure if Sunny is still within me right now. I like cracking jokes every now and then, but often times they're R-rated jokes, and "jokes for the boys." I seem to have made other people laugh by making fun of others—which is the last thing Sunny would ever do. I don't really know as to why I do those, maybe it's just the horrormones kicking in?

Anyway, I've taken a look back and I've come to the realization that I want to be Sunny again. Sure, I might come off as a fool and a happy-go-lucky kid, but I'd rather be dumb and happy rather than be calculating and miserable, which is a more-than-apt description of who I am today. I seem to have built walls upon walls to keep people who want to hurt me out, and the con is that those same walls keep new friends from coming in. The main difference between my persona now and Sunny is that Sunny is a genuinely friendly person (who usually tries their best to smile and do an "eye smile" as well).

In a nutshell, what I plan to do this week and for the weeks prior is to get to know myself and try to resurrect this now-dead persona of mine. It's a silly thing to say, really, chasing after a dead persona, but it signifies something to me. Some people are on a quest for money, some for lust, for passion, and some for fame. While, on the other hand, my only quest recently was to find happiness, and I believe that will lead me on a quest to find Sunny.

That's my main plan this summer, to find out who I was back then.

Well, I'm sure I'll find Sunny soon (I mean, I hope). I've already been doing the things Sunny loves and I'm surely enjoying it: watching romance/comedy movies, watching Korean dramas, watching funny SNSD videos online, listening to SNSD all day, discovering new technologies. This path has got to lead me to Sunny, I'm sure of it.


P.S. I originally had a different color scheme for the "post image." You see, I made it in a way similar to the cover of SNSD's "Sailing" because I wanted to signify something. I chose to copy from the song "Sailing" because it's one of SNSD's most meaningful songs to date. Its theme of looking back at the past and never forgetting past promises made me want to get that old persona of mine back. Also, instead of a rock/an island, I chose an iceberg because I've been so cold with people lately. So, yeah, here's the original color scheme.