O Heaven Kissing Hill

That's one of the very few lines that I could remember from my old Alma Mater song (the title of which I can't even recall). What I remembered more was how I almost suffered from heat stroke by standing under the searing UV rays in the sand dunes of that school; just by waiting for the endless ritual of flag ceremony to be over.

So it's easy to understand why I've never itched to visit those sand dunes again. I believed that it was better to wait at least ten years for the full of effect of nostalgia to wash over me the next time I visit. However, I just broke the planned ten-year gap.

Here's the reason: The adopted son of my ninang is graduating from elementary in Dominican next year. He is a smart kid; so they decided to transfer him to a science high school. They got the application, but then the kid was too happy-go-lucky to have it signed to the proper authorities before the deadline and the school had some kind of reputation of delaying applications, so I was drafted by my mom to help. In short, I HAD to see someone I know and have the form signed. (Hence, the private messages on Multiply.)

So Tuesday morning. Around 9 am, the grade school kids were on recess... I came and visited the sand dunes, for the first time in four or five years. Even I never expected how I reacted.

It looks like a freakin' school! A freakin' sosyal private school. The breeze felt a little cooler, because the trees we planted have grown huge. The gym and pool area looked like a resort.

But what was more striking was how the old places looked so new... yet so old. Shet, yung paintings ni Mang Amor nung Grade 2 ako nandun pa. Yung lumang grotto buhay pa. Kahit kumpleto yung pathwalk, I almost tried to walk in the middle of the field under the blistering heat (because the field was calling out to be walked on). Yung high school classrooms: maingay, mainit, amoy pawis. Yung PE teacher namin, fit and jolly pa rin sa umaga. English policy pa rin. The temperature in the building was so alien, I swear, but it smelled familiar (yes, kahit yung amoy pawis).

After a short talk with Ms. Guiao, I headed down the same path and it took me ten minutes to reach the gate. Anak ng tokwa, I just couldn't get over those paintings by Mang Amor. Those paintings always have the same effect on me, whether I waited two or ten years to see them.

-000-000-000-

I have news for the alumni of this crunchy-infested, sandstorm campus: there's a Grand Homecoming next year in celebration of their 15th year. Celebration starts on January 30, with guests Parokya ni Edgar and MYMP. The foundation week commences with the alumni reunion, to be attended by former directresses of the school. However, all the information I have is just the result of an informal conversation so please don't take it as an official invitation or announcement. I'm just giving a heads up so everyone can prepare their post-high school selves. Haha.

Cosplay Debut

Supposedly.

Before it turned out to be the reunion of the bangag sisters.

It was sort of, a well-prepared cosplay... I'd be Kikyo from InuYasha, and sis would be Sunako Nakahara of Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge (which was pretty easy, by the way). Without the convincing bow and arrow and a decent kimono top, I was pretty much desperate to find anything that would complete the Kikyo look. I was supposed to do Gunslinger Girl Claes, but I lacked the familiar brown dress for her character. Despite coming from Makati, from work, without sleep, we had somehow convinced Angela to let me borrow her taekwondo top. So we waited for her to come home Sunday morning so I can fetch the needed attire from her home. We were almost fully equipped - cameras, clothes, accessories, etc.

And by the way, coming from work, I had no sleep as well.

Finally, she was home as sis and I walked to their house, not to mention having to tolerate stares from the SanLo people as we passed by with the semi-anime look. But because dear Angela was soooo sleepy, we ran up to her room and raided it! Lol. Which turned out to be a bad (eventually, good) idea.

The photo that started it all:

We were only trying to see who was more bangag between the two nocturnal creatures you see above. (Sumisilip sa side yung Kikyo ribbon ko. Haha.)

A series of pictures followed, which got stranger and crazier by the minute... or second, actually.

Although natuloy pa rin yung cosplay... sa loob ng kuwarto!

 

Naisip ko, ngayon lang... mukha kang server sa ramen house! LOL

Remind me, girls... why was there a show of feet? LOL

And why were we UNDEAD? (Dahil yata yun sa paa? LOL)

Natawa ako dun sa isang pic... sayang. :)

Just when we thought we were a little less abnormal... finally...

... there came the SENSELESS  fits of laughter.

Grabe. Honestly, sumakit talaga tiyan ko dito. Hehe. Si Pops, super flushed! x_x Bakit nga tayo tumatawa ulit? May reason ba? Pero tama si Tita, buti na lang we don't work in the same office! Kawawa ang colleagues natin.

And this: (whatever it is you'd call this)

OMG.

Can you imagine we actually had the stomachs for two family-size pizzas after all this? And we were actually able to sleep and wake up sane again?

Oh well. I was kinda glad I didn't cosplay anyway. There's always another Otakon next year and perhaps 50 more years after that. I bet not even the huge otaku conventions can beat our craziness. Haha!



***credits to joeynikaede.multiply.com and wikipedia for the pics

Adult High School

I suddenly had a flash of memories about how I was in high school.

 I have always been a nerd. I had an unexplainable obsession for learning. I felt comfortable with formulas, numbers, essays and experiments. I looked forward to every release date of the school paper I was once part of. I liked exam days - because I can watch TV during the later half of the day and exams were, well, easy. Then there were all those fun essay-writing contests that I could always be in just because few people wanted to participate in them. Along with the downtime we get from all those extracurriculars, it was ridiculously easy to pass the courses. The only problem I had with grades was how to get higher marks than my friend (LOL), and everyone else for that matter. (And believe me... arrogance aside, it wasn't that hard.) I was used to rubbing elbows with the teachers- be it biology, chemistry, math, or English, even with the prefect of discipline that everyone feared. I don't know how, but it comes naturally. And you know what my most dreaded event was? The annual Intramurals. It's a full week of sports and cheerdancing; and a full week of me clumsily trying please my PE teacher at a sports event I can't play properly.

So you see why I loved college. It was different. I suddenly had less hate for PE only because I get to choose what to do. In academics, passing actually became extremely difficult. I had to cry, lose sleep, faint and literally get showered with acid in the process of trying to get that marginal tres. Professors were at both sides of the spectrum - the hip, young ones vs. the terror conservatives. And there I found my fellow nerds. They were just as weird but cool in our own sense. I even had a whole family in there (hello guys! *waves*). The whole four and something years squeezed the most blood, tears and sweat out of me but it's something
I'd do again in another lifetime (Asus... haha). Come to think of it, laziness set in a lot but I wouldn't have endured traveling several miles everyday if I didn't somehow like going to school diba?

Then there's life after college. It's that fork in the road covered by blinding fog and littered with sharp rocks. I hoped it was going to be like university life (considering that I came from the university that best captured The Real World). But then just now, I discovered, this is Adult High School. Beautiful people are still the head-turners, orange hair and black nails still look evil,  who dumped who and who hooked up with who still matters, gossip is still the lunchtime appetizer and us nerds, are still, the unusual nerds. I know there's a world out there that's better than this. But just like school, I guess I have to get through all this high school-ness all over again before I can graduate to that other world.

I can't help but start this wave of nostalgia. Haha.


So... do you still remember what high school's like?

Do you still remember what YOU were like back then?