#english lit class number 2 expecting you to read a novel every other week (yes this is a different one)

[meezer]

it hurts me deeply to my core to not do the very best I can and get really good results. and it's likely going to disappoint people I love. but like. I think I'm gonna have to bite the bullet, accept that I'm not gonna pass some classes, and just focus on the other shit. goodbye literature class.

[leeeovitate]

April 22,2020 3:23AM: It was not intended but this ended up becoming my high school memoir.

I sifted through my old journals. I have been obsessed with notebooks and pens back then, maybe a little bit until now. You see I wanted to be an artist. At least 5 of them were filled with songs and rubbish from cover to cover.I remember the first song I wrote way back in 2007 or 2008. It was called “Putting Traces” and the first I ever played was for my grandmother on her birthday. I played a video of it I recorded with my sister at her dinner party. I don’t think she appreciated it or maybe it just wasn’t any good but she was polite about it. It was called “Thank you for everything”. My first songs notebook was a tinee tiny one with the Eiffel Tower in black on the cover and silver on every page. Then I got obsessed with buying every journal that looks cute or has music related designs or the ones with London and Paris or other European countries that I would love to visit. Then I bought every pen to my liking and spent my lunch money on paperbacks. I was basically a resident at National Bookstore or the stationery section of every mall. I scanned them all tonight, those journals. I forgot about some songs but when I read the line it comes like a flashback to me. That is why I kept writing. It immortalizes the moment. When I play that song, I feel like the emotions turn into concrete and I could go back when I want to feel it again. I was so sure of myself in the songs I wrote before. I knew what I wanted and that was to make music. Maybe I had that dream of being magically sent a record deal. I wanted to have a world tour before 18 but the world was never in my favor. I remember setting a deadline and counting down like Lena did on Beautiful Chaos. I think I also set it on 100 days but nothing happened.

High school is the best years of my life. I remember one of my friends borrowing my songs journal and told me all my titles sounded nice. I have one friend who writes fiction, legit ones and we would talk after class until our fetch arrives and then we’d talk more on the telephone when we get home. I don’t have that in medschool. One time, our teacher made us do a school project. It was to write to a novel incorporating our topics on math class. Epic, I know. I planned it out alright, written everything with a plot but I never finished it and ended up rushing for the deadline. I won’t ever forget that. I loved doing it so much. My fiction writer friend, she ended up writing a sequel for the story she submitted as a math project. Then I also read some of the stories my classmates made. I felt surrounded by talented people and it felt really good. Then in English class, junior year we were required to have a green journal and have at least 3 entries per week. It could be a diary entry, poem, essay, sketch, whatever you like. We also had drama class. I remember saying the lines “The cat sat on the mat.... etc” with different emotions. I freaking nailed it. I loved it so much. The we were also asked to advertise a specific product we made up by pairs. Ours was a perfume and I played a fairy. The nicknamed me “Mama Fairy Tree Rapunzel Country Girl”. I had really long hair and used to braid it. Then I played guitar singing country songs. We also assigned ourselves to greek mythology characters, mine was Gaea. I was also quite tall back then and they say my limbs were long so I was like a tree with roots to the earth and that is where they all came from. We had to write a play for our final project. I was “musical director” and I was not good at my job but I freaking enjoyed it so much.

The senior year we had lit classics and we just have the best teacher on mythology and poetry. Wont ever forget him reprimanding me for reading “statue” wrong. Freshman year, we have 2-hour PE classes and the last hour was spent however we wanted. We would play and sometimes we would just sit around our teacher’s cassette player singing along to our favorite songs while the wind is blowing at the topmost floor of our high school building. Oh what I would do to go back. There was a time when I chose a ribbon as prop for gymnastics practical exam and danced to Avril Lavigne’s “Freak Out Let It Go”. I hated individual stage work but it was something we all had to do and my high school crowd were not mean. I used to choreograph dance routines, unbelievable if you see me now but yes, I remember when I did that. I would do it all over again. I have that one friend, the least I expected of all, who got into kpop. It was epic.

When we are feeling lost, our CLE teacher taugh us to open the bible at a random page and read those two sheets spread open. Whatever we have bothering us, God’s answer are within those pages and it is up to us how to interpret it. I think it also became a project like we were meant to do it everyday for a month or something. She collected money for a journal but it was never delivered though. I have no idea what happened. We also made a promise to meet in March 2020 or 2021 as a class but I think everyone forgot about it or are just too busy, these days. In high school, we made so many films too. Man it was great. You probably could already tell how much I enjoy acting and the I have this friend who is a really awesome video editor.

We also had the best advance chemistry and advance physics teachers. One time at the physics lab, I was busy reading my some Paulo Coehlo I did not notice that I got called in class. That was epic. My teacher threatened to confiscate my book, thank God she didnt. My only argument was “This is not a pocket book, Ms. Violeta.” Our statistics teacher, freshman year who entered the congregation of nuns kept saying “K” in class. It was really funny, my friend and I tallied the number of times she said it until we ran out of scratch paper. Would you believe that the highest grade I got in high school was in Geometry and the lowest I got was in Calculus? Lol I turned in an unfinished Calculus final exam because my tummy was upset but my teacher won’t accept it. I could not tell him what I was feeling at the time so I shaded the letter C in every item and I kind of flunked the exam. I was not that frustrated though. I was never the grade conscious type.

There is this cafe we frequented back then, It was called “Book Latte” and we got membership cards so we could rent books and chill in secluded spots. The place was really fancy but not that wide. Pizza Hut on the same mall became “our spot” with someone I used to consider one of my best friends. One of our friend’s became our go to for schoolworks and shooting videos or movie marathon. In math class again we had to do a song adaptation with video. We did a remix but Fall for You by Secondhand Serenade will always remind me of that. It goes “because tonight will be the night that I will study math over again don’t make me change my mind”. There was a competition in relation to Buwan ng Wika or our Foundation day every august. For the first 2 years of high school it was song adaptation and for the juniors and seniors it was song composition. For the first year, we did Awit Ng Kabataan by Rivermaya and my author/video editor friend wrote the lyrics. I think we skipped on sophomore year. I was not yet comfortable with exposing my songwriting in general at the time. I struggle with confidence issues until now. They assigned me for our junior year. I did it on guitar and piano. I had piano lessons when I was 9 but I did not appreciate it until years after. Our Environmental Science teacher who used to be in a band helped us out abit and they were rushing with the deadline for the song, I kind of backed off. My clubmate did it instead. Senior year, Had the song done early and we got first place. I was truly grateful.

I joined Guitaristas club freshman year. We were assigned into tutor-tutee. I was a tutee of course. I was assigned to someone who was like the great guitar player who was in a band and I was crushing on. He was so nice and he taught me guitar. I wonder if he still remembers me though. I don’t think he’ll recognize when we see eachother on the street. The the club changed it’s name to Tokata club and I spent two years there. We once played Back to December as a band on family day. The guy on drums is someone I was crushing on. I nicknamed him Orange because he told us about Battaglia delle Aranche, not sure if I remember that correctly. The past years I hated waking up early. Most often I’m late for class that they made me class monitor for like 2 years or so. I hated staying at home and I would wake up early. Some days I get to school at about sunrise and he would be there too. That was how we became really good friends and I became close to his younger brother too. My senior year, Speakers zone. It was a new club and it was accidentally not included in our new club ballot sheets. I think they accidentally printed out the old ones from last year. Our english teacher told us about it and only like 7 or 8 of us joined. All from our class. Every monday morning, we had to do a news report after flag ceremony. We were assigned sports new, weather, current affairs, celebrity, etc. It scared the shit out of me, stage fright and shit. I wanted to get over that so I forced myself to audition for our Literary Musical contest, newscasting category and got picked but I lost. I talk really fast and my nerves get the best of me. I was so scared, I wanted to chicken out minutes before the contest. I wanted to walk away from the stage instead of towards it.

We also had monthly trips and my favorite was doing grocery shopping the afternoon before with my groupmates. We assigned to prepare meals and took turns to cook. We went to islands, camps and other educational sites. It was so fun. Although I could not bloody swim and some days I feel sad because of being away from home. I missed 2 trips and forever hating my parents for it. I know they were just concerned but I missed out on alot. It was heartbreaking. I think it was because on our first trip, we climbed a mountain and stayed at a beach and I asked my parents to come over because my chest was aching but turns out I just needed rest. I don’t think I went home with them though or maybe I did, I kind of forgot. I stayed and missed the team building activities but I got to watch the games. Second trip, I missed. They talked about ghost soldiers and stuff. Third trip, we had to swim from one island to another which I couldn’t so I used a canoe, sort of. My mom accompanied us that time, she helped out with cooking and some other things. We stayed for 2 nights and one of my friend’s mom visited us too. Fourth trip, I think it’s that another one I missed. One time, we thought we discovered dinosaur remains, yeah our imagination were that wild. Some of us went fishing and the rest of us stayed at the Marine Biology site. We played ins and one of us tripped on a huge rock which was shaped like a dinosaur’s head. Then we started digging and then we talked about the islands around us making up stories about it. That night, we all slept at the rooftop and had a shadow show. Then we saw shooting stars. One unforgettable experience I had was getting lost in the mountains and getting help from NPAs because they freaking had rifles. It was raining and should have be frightening but at the time, it was more fun than scary and they brought us safe and sound to our campsite. I had a nightmare that night but I loved literally sleeping beneath the stars. I forgot how many trip we went to in total but I am thankful for each and every single one of them

It is funny how I went from a kid with all the big dreams to who I am today.