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.
She deleted the template. Instead, she opened a photo she had taken last winter: the university library at dawn, frost on the windows, light spilling from the third floor where she had spent hundreds of hours. She placed it as the background. Over it, she wrote: portada trabajo universidad
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