As I walk, sleepiness and trepidation my in heart moved my tired feet along the concrete, I knew I was far away from home, in a foreign land alone. Well, there were people around me but, not the kind of people that would keep me safe and take care of my needs. I crossed the road,and entered along the bend of the path winding down of what almost seemed like a forest. We were ten people, all of us almost strangers but strangely in this foreign land, we seem to rely on each other.

What was supposed to be a small stroll to the beach seemed longer as we walked. Our curious eyes seem to take in everything we saw from pigs to hens, and to street dogs. Looking back, all this seems ordinary but when you are an ocean away from home, the ordinary seems extraordinary. The decapitated homes that were almost like huts seemed to have a poetic meaning, perhaps that’s why travellers are poets and poets are travellers.

The person ahead of the group said ‘The beach is just a few steps away.’ It was as if our sleepiness vanished and our steps hurried towards the pebbled path onto the shore. When a person imagines a beach, it is usually sunny, yellow sand, clear sky, blue water with sun reflecting on the surface. Well, to say the least this beach did not meet the stereotypical image of a beach. There wasn’t soft sand but almost textured stones and debris that sank in from the ocean to the shore. The water wasn’t crystal blue rather it was murky, it wasn’t dirty but the sand and the stones were merging with the waves as they crashed continually to the shore. We waited for the sunrise while some brave souls decided to take a dip in the cold water. I also decided that I haven’t come all the way from home to sit on the side, I didn’t know how to swim so I entered the water just deep enough for it to brush past my knees as the waves kept coming. The sunrise seemed to be on the horizon. The sky was changing colours, but the sun wasn’t peeking out. After a while, I felt a few drops of rain on my arms and then on my head. A few more minutes and it was clear that it was going to rain.

We all rushed back to the beach cleaned our feet, put on the sandals and rushed back to the hostel. As the rain got heavier, our steps slowed down, and we all knew that we were getting soaked. At this point, we decided that we should enjoy the rain as it was. After the twenty-minute walk back to the hostel, we reached our rooms with soaked hair and cold feet. The people who stayed back in the hostel to get some sleep asked, ‘How was the sunrise?’ We replied after a thought, ‘‘we couldn’t see it’’. We were on the wrong side of the coast; we were not facing the east, rather we were on the extreme west coast of Philippines in the small municipal of Tuburan. Maybe it was the rain. People who stayed back seemed to have received validation that their decision of sleeping in was right. We almost seem like fools who woke up at 5 and walked to the beach just to get soaked in the rain and to watch the sun rise on the westernmost coast of Philippines. But this memory of my first international trip without my family stands out. It was our first sunrise in Philippines, we never saw it, but we still talk about it and remember it as the day we went to watch the sunrise on the beach.

That is how the rest of the trip was, and that trip was the reason I changed my outlook on life. I went to that trip with different expectations, I dreamt about the sunrise but what I got was a long walk, a shower in the rain and murky water. I sometimes wonder if we ended up seeing the sunrise, would we still have a story to tell. A story that ends with ten adults were facing the west to watch the sunrise from the east. Those fourteen days in Philippines were in itself an adventure. From jumping in a 40 feet deep water hole with a vest but no knowledge of swimming and simply relying on the people below to save me in case I break my neck to planting mangroves in a forest trying to outrun crabs, snails, and many more sea creatures that should stay in the sea.

That trip was almost like life, nothing went according to plan, we missed sunsets, we missed a ferry, and we almost missed our bus but somehow through all the chaos, we made memories with strangers that weren’t strangers anymore. This trip taught me to adapt, to accept cultural practices, it taught me how Philippines and India, countries divided by oceans and land might be more similar than we think. This trip was similar to how when I first entered college, how I adapted to change, when far away from home, with stranger who aren’t strangers anymore, I adapted to the culture, the people, the sunsets. I made mistakes, missed classes, turned assignments late, got sick, did bad in exams. But this trip to the beach to watch the sunrise was a moment of epiphany, I learnt to enjoy my mistakes and perhaps consider that they weren’t mistakes. The trip taught me that best plan always has room for change, just like life has space for happiness as well as sadness.

College, I believe is also the sky before dawn as we chase the dawn of our dreams, we should take a deep breath and enjoy the blue sky before the dawn and the navy sky before the storm.

In the lazy noon lull, the glaring sun accompanied by a slight breeze, I entered my classroom, with a belly full of food, feeling lethargic yet content to learn. I opened my notes and my laptop, ready to think, ask and question for the next two hours in my most awaited class of the week. It began with vigour, as the professor started the discussion, but somewhere in the middle, my eyes started to glance continuously towards the clock as I felt restless within the first half hour. The session was going great, and even the discussion was making sense. But my eyes travelled like a pendulum from the white board in the front, to the clock in the back, every five minutes. My hands started doodling flowers on my notebook, waiting for a break. As we reached the one-hour mark, the professor indicated a 10-minute break. I was the first one who rushed from my seat towards the Nescafe downstairs for a coffee. Soon, half the students in the class had joined me.

This story is not just about me, but all of us. We are often unable to pay attention to classes after a while, even though they interest us. We get distracted, tired or just basic information overload makes it impossible to continue further on. A lot of us sometimes can’t even wait for a break, and end up taking a breather outside the class. This is due to our shortening attention spans. There are several studies which have focused on finding the attention span of students, some say about 8 seconds, while others claim 20 minutes. TED talks are usually 18-minutes long since people CAN only pay attention for 18 minutes for any ‘‘serious’’ discussion.

Going through all these studies, I only felt a sense of accomplishment, listening to professors for 2 hours at a time. My thirty-minute attention span seemed quite a feat considering everything. However, my sense of achievement did nothing for me as I struggled to understand concepts after 30 minutes. I wanted to run away from class. So, I found a small technique that helped me persevere through the two-hour struggle between me and my mind. The Pomodoro Technique—study for 25 minutes, then take a 5-minute break. I started doing this in lectures, I would learn for 25 minutes and then zone out for 5. It’s not important to keep it as 25 minutes, you can adjust the timings and breaks according to your individual learning style. Active learning works wonders too—ask questions, take notes, or explain concepts to a friend. Finally, stay hydrated, sleep well, and don’t forget to move! Short walks or stretches during breaks can reset your focus, keeping you sharp and engaged.

The long lectures don’t help our attention spans, whereas we can!