She thought of her father, a bricklayer who had never set foot in a university. Last week, he had asked, "So you just write your name on a fancy first page, and they give you a degree?" She had laughed, but now the question felt heavy. The portada was a threshold. On one side: the chaos of notes, coffee stains, and 3 a.m. breakthroughs. On the other: the polished lie that everything was under control.
"The seal is inside," Sofía replied. And for the first time, she believed it.
"Portada trabajo universidad," she whispered to herself, typing the words into a search engine. A thousand rigid templates appeared: blue gradients, clip art globes, generic serif fonts. Universidad de Buenos Aires , she typed at the top. Then her name. Then the date. portada trabajo universidad
The cursor blinked on the blank Word document like a metronome counting down to zero. Sofía stared at the white abyss. The research was done—footnotes, bibliography, statistical analysis—but the portada was still empty.
(The Cost of a Dream)
At 8 a.m., she handed the paper to Professor Méndez. He glanced at the cover, then at her. "Interesting choice," he said. "No university seal?"
She printed the cover page first, alone. The cheap ink smudged near her thumb. It wasn't perfect. But as she slid it into the clear plastic sleeve, she realized: the portada was not a mask. It was a door she had built herself, with borrowed tools and trembling hands. She thought of her father, a bricklayer who
Below that, in small letters: Trabajo Final – Sociología . Her name. Her father's name, too, as a dedication she would later erase.
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