VEEEENNNNTTT!!

Wag niyo ko pansinin. Nagvent lang ako sa MS Word nung isang araw, and sige, ilalagay ko sa blog :)) Don’t mind me. xD

Seryoso. Wag na. Ako nga nabore nung binasa ko ulit eh

Okayfine. Ikaw na ang boss.

Let me start off by saying that it wasn't really a good year for me. Despite everything I accomplished, all the new places I visited, and all the new friends I gained, I still never felt contented with my junior year. During my sophomore year, I yearned to become this, and accomplish that. Now I have them all, more or less, and though I regret nothing and am fully grateful for all of these, I still feel don’t feel contented with the school year.

Last year everything was simple. I belonged to a section that I loved. I had friends, and tons of enemies, and some were people that just plainly did not like me. I didn’t mind, I felt the same way about them. Last year, I never really put much effort into studies, or fitting in, or anything, and the year turned out great.

This year, I was surprised that everything came more easily to me. As I look back, I never really actually exerted “effort”. I never brought a single book (except values) to school, nor did I own a notebook besides AP that I religiously updated. Aside from the GC stuff, fitting in with my section was something unexplainable. I couldn’t say that I fitted in, nor was I a casted out. My frequent companion was Denise, and though we are both very opinionated and determined people, she was my lifesaver in Becquerel.

When it comes to our other classmates, all I can say is I like them, and I don’t like them. I got along with everyone, and there was even one instance where I received tons of letters during our activity that was about giving a letter to the 5 people in the room, and it was full of positive comments and stuff. It was the time I realized what the problem was. I don’t brag because I’m not even proud of this in the first place. But what they think of me is only based on a professional level. They say they admire me because I am capable of doing so many things or whatever. And though I know I should be flattered or even just plain happy, I can’t find it in myself to be. It dawned on me that I made them look up to me, but I had never become one with them on a friendly level. Sure, many of them I treat as a friend, they open up to me. But the truth is, I never really enjoyed their company. Simply said, they were nice, but nice isn’t always fun to be around.

They are kind people, but it really becomes annoying when all we could do for a 40-minute break is stay in the room, talk about Korean pop, play psp, or compare scores. It was so different from what I would like, so unfamiliar to the ideal high school setting I so badly wanted to experience. But my ultimate problem was that there was always an invisible standard you had to live up to in that section. It determined if you were good enough or not, and when you’re not, you become imprisoned in the fall of your own self-esteem. As I was always “out” of the room and did not care about how I compared with others, I never really felt that I was slipping away from the place I held, when it comes to academics.

Now I know that I am not part of the top ten this year anymore. But I’m as proud of myself as I was a year or two ago, and maybe even more so because I have accomplished most of what I wanted. Aside from that, I know I can balance everything I held. My friends trusted me, they enjoyed my company. People saw me as someone trustworthy, responsible, sociable, and energetic. When I first had that feeling that I no longer belonged to the top, it didn’t bug me that much. And yet, when my feeling was proven, I had a sudden feeling of grief. And that worst thing is that I hated what I thought I become, that I was being affected by something so trivial. But then, as I walk home from school, I thought of all the things, and I realized that my disappointed did not branch out from only that.

1) I was always an all-in-one package. I work hard when I need to, I motivate myself when I feel uninspired, I cheer myself up when I am sad, and I congratulate myself when I am fulfilled – simply because there is no one else to do these things for me. My sister never really cared, our maid would just stare at me like I was the most self-centered person in the world, my lola would just nod, and I never had the courage to tell my titas, because no matter what I do, I never meet their standards. They think I was still the entrance exam topnotcher I was 3 years ago.

I have a secret that I have been doing for years. Whenever I win something or get accepted in something, or accomplish anything great, I would feel happy, naturally. But as night falls on that same day, I would cry myself to sleep, talking to my invisible mother, telling her that I’ve worked so hard for this. I know deep inside me that she listens. But it still feels so empty when she no longer has a smile I could look at, no longer can speak the words that say she feels proud of me, no longer has the warm and welcoming arms that can embrace me. Everyone I know thinks that I have moved on, that I am so strong, that I have put her death past me already. But I cry myself to sleep because since she left me, I never found my way home again, living in this structure I could barely call a house.

2) Some of my teachers think that I put too much priority on my activities when I should be focusing on my studies. What do they know? They may just be concerned, but no one knows that being busy is my way of avoiding the emptiness I feel. Being busy is my escape to a world that I made for myself. It makes me feel useful and intelligent and beautiful and great. What is so wrong with that? What could they do if I have learned more about life when I dance to music in MADAC or when I hold a pen and write for the school paper than when I sit in a classroom? I have learned what I needed to learn in my own ways and at my own pace.

3) This year has been a mixture of events that make it worse for me. Denise and Clang both have their lovelives good, but it has cracked our friendship already. Denise gets along with the Becquerel girls, and though I am sometimes invited to join then, I just can’t deal with their sense of humor or what they think is enjoyable. I hate my section, simple said. I am always with Jairah, Xtian, or Monica, but then, being with them affects my studies because I think I become too happy with them and put some things into neglect. My social life has been cramped up as an after-classes affair because I can’t deal with my classmates and their way of life, so I guess that everyday feeling has contributed a lot to my grief this year.

4) Is it just me? No it’s not. A lot of people had a bad feeling about the school year. Ondoy and a bunch of other calamaties, both natural, and even emotional, have bothered all of us. It was as if an invisible blanket of grief covered us and shaded us from laughter and contentment, which makes it so hard for all of us to “feel” the school year or enjoy it.

I don’t know. I know this is a long blog post, but I just need to vent my feelings so they don’t explode inside. Mainly, I guess, the deep train of thought from which all these words were formed was triggered by my low grades. Even more so that I know in me, that no matter how I could relive my school year, I would never have lived it in any other way. I know the problem this year was not with me, but with everything around me. For the first time, I feel like I was put in the wrong place at the wrong time. I hope that next year, I find my way again.