The Epic SSC Uninety2 Silver Jubilee

I took a breather after my last post. Went home to Manila to attend 2 weddings and my high school batch silver jubilee homecoming. The ten days back home was horrendously busy and by the time homecoming day came my body was exhausted (mainly due to some misadventures leading to the day). I did not want to miss it and took a short nap before going to my alma mater.

My long time friend since second grade Ottie picked me up at home and while we were stuck in traffic we talked about a myriad of things we went through in high school. We both looked forward to seeing our classmates. Sadly we were not able to convince our other close friends to come.

I have visited my high school only thrice I think since graduation. Once to pick up my yearbook, a meeting in 2008 and our 20th year high school reunion. I thought things would be exactly the same. I was wrong. There were so many changes in the campus - new buildings, the huge hall where we used to watch plays/concerts and attend assemblies was fully renovated, the lunch counter where we used to eat was moved to another area and the canteen was totally different.

Rica, Emily, Shirley, me and Ottie (photo is owned by Rica)

We started to bump into classmates during registration. Squeals of delight kept reverberating through the hall. We promptly changed to our batch shirt and shuffled into St. Cecilia's Hall to watch the show. The show was AMAZING! Our batch kicked off the show with the Aeago cheer and a dance medley. Here's the video taken by a batchmate -

After the speeches the different batches celebrating their pearl, coral, ruby, sapphire and golden jubilees indulged the audience with their awesome presentations. I challenged my sister who will be celebrating their ruby year next year to top the ruby year presentation this year. She said it's going to be very hard!

In between the presentations, we honored our beloved teachers. I was teary eyed when they all stood up and went to the front because we grew up and learned with them. My grade school principal was also present (and she looks exactly the same)!

And to cap the show, our batchmates did a final presentation. I had been seeing them share photos of the practices in the past year. They really worked hard to make everyone happy and entertained that evening. My PE teacher, Tikyo, couldn't get over the presentation and kept saying that the girls really did well.

After the show we all scrambled to the stage to meet-up with our classmates. We tried to get a complete 4-A class photo by the backdrop and then headed to the field for dinner.

Ottie and I had a grand time posing beside the Trailblazer (which was eventually won by our classmate!). Hopefully we get to ride on it once she gets the car!

Photobooth time! (Thank you to my seatmate Rica A. for sponsoring the photo booth!).

It was such a happy day catching up with old friends and we hope to have more meet-ups in the coming months!

Here's a video summary of the day (thank you Rica and Lala for this!).

And my gazillion photos of the day is here. Photobooth photos here.

High School Silver Jubilee Coming Up, Gasp!

The silver jubilee of my high school batch is coming up next year.

Gasp!

Have you ever thought about what has happened to your high school friends? And when I say high school friends I don’t just mean your classmates, but also your other friends who were not your school mates. Are the stars from your high school still way up there until today? Or did the B students do much better? Was it true that the quiet ones who marry earlier than those who had relationships in high school? What are the big revelations now after more than 2 decades?

I was a slow learner in elementary school and only started doing better in high school. I always thought about what could possibly happen in the future. I wonder if there ever was a study made about this. My brother and sister who are both more than a decade older than me told me back then that things change a lot. For my immediate close friends in high school who were considered to be part of the “quiet ones” we are all quite successful in our current endeavors. My seatmate runs huge projects at this international IT company. One friend is a successful banker. Another an entrepreneur (she owns a travel agency).

Outside of school I had a diverse set of friends. Back in high school some of them were skateboard fanatics who eventually set up their own band in college (they became a one hit wonder hahaha). I also had friends who came from many different schools. One you see on TV everyday as a news reporter, an engineer in a big company in China, a hotelier in San Francisco, a big boss in a local IT company, and my best friend is a very successful entrepreneur in Cebu (he’s still very stingy though). I’ve lost touch with the others so they’re probably out of the country, but I could fairly say that most of my friends have gained their independence (at our age they should!!!).

During one of our field trips to Mt. Makiling.

My sister also told me that eventually your batch would come together as one. If in your 20s and early 30s you still stick it out with your immediate classmates, eventually this changes. She said that usually the factor that contributes to this is when you start losing your parents (sad sad thought!). I had witnessed this during my Dad’s funeral with my sister’s classmates. And well, health issues also bring people together (signs of old age!). I know! I sat through one of my sister’s high school get-togethers and a good part of it was spent talking about ones health!

Me and my high school friends before we started to live in different country codes.

So much as I am very comfortable just reaching out to my own immediate group I thought that I’d stretch myself this year and reach out to classmates and batchmates I don’t normally speak to. It would be interesting to see what the others have been up to all these years and well this would tie up nicely to one of my 2016 goals to develop more friendships.

And yeah, I think I’m looking forward to our reunion next year.

P.S. 53 years ago today my one and only favorite Kuya (coz I have no choice) was born! Happy, happy birthday to my one and only loving brother, Kuya Jojo.

Me with my Ate, Dad and Kuya.

20 Years After High School

I never really thought about my future when I was in high school. It seemed pretty weird to me back then and my immediate plans revolved around graduating from college and finding a nice job. Things jumbled up a bit when I had Miguel in college, but things pretty much fell into place eventually.

My life was pretty routine when I was in high school. I'd get up at around 4:30 in the morning and the school bus would swing by for me at around 5:15am and I'd be in school at around 7. I ate with the same set of friends from my freshman year until senior year. And they're still my buddies until today. Come to think of it my science laboratory partner, Rica, was my partner for all four years too. She took care of all the gory stuff (think: frog dissection) and I did all the reports. We had a good team despite being complete opposites (she's now an awarded independent film director!).

I had to attend our high school reunion even though I was a bit freaked out about celebrating "20 years after high school". My seatmate/laboratory partner, Rica, was in the committee and she managed to bamboozle me to go home for it (I certainly had to  give up helping in a huge project for this!). So I arrived almost on time last Saturday to attend the reunion (but everyone else was almost 2 hours late!).

I should've watched "Romy and Michelle" again before attending the reunion. I had planned to wear a shirt and shorts +sneakers ensemble, but since I was scheduled to accompany Sweetie to another appointment I decided to wear blouse and jeans (minus the sneakers). Good thing I had bothered to get a hair spa on the same day because I was pretty surprised that everyone seemed to have worn make-up for the party (I guess it's just probably me who thought otherwise, the perils of working for a company which doesn't require you to dress up).

Our section wanted to win the "Hakot Award", but we had a low turnout and so there was only 9 of us. I realized then that a lot of my batchmates are already based in other countries and I was mightily surprised that I had batchmates who live in Singapore too! It was a fun evening reminiscing about high school. The short skit done by some batchmates highlighted our heavy use of the following back then -- Trapper Keeper, Denman brush, Aquanet and our bulging pockets which housed all of those things plus our wallet/album. Of course there had to be a dance number. I took a short video but I'm not going to upload it (I'm not sure it will be welcomed.).

I wouldn't be where I am today if not for the discipline instilled on to me by my teachers (especially the terror ones). I was really happy to see some of them in the flesh - Ms. Galan (P.E.), Ms. Mina (Filipino), Mrs. Se and Ms. Dehesa (now Mrs. Isidro). My Filipino teacher I mentioned in a previous blog post gave us a message through a video. We all shrieked when she appeared on screen. She still has the power to make us sweat even after all these years (haha). One of the things I remember she kept harping on back then was, "Always be prepared even with the small things." If you didn't bring your own paper you weren't allowed to take a quiz.

That's Rica, my high school seatmate/laboratory partner. Still makulit as ever. 

It was great to see my classmates again and I think in the coming years the the "section border" is going to blur and we'd eventually just remember we're from one batch. It was also interesting to see how people have changed physically and mentally in the past 2 decades. I gained 30 pounds since high school! It doesn't look like it, but I used to be reed thin back then (I'm just hiding everything now in my pata). And I can say a lot of us from the "quiet group" have come out of our shell (probably wreaking more havoc than the notorious ones back then).

Well girls, see you in "the nearest Sunday to February 10" in 2017 for our silver jubilee! Block your calendars now!

High School Live Oh My High School Life!

My high school life could be described with the following keywords (and some thoughts about it):

blue and white uniform (donated all of it during graduation)
tin-grin button pin (always had it pinned on my uniform)
C.A.T. (arggghhh! hated it!)
physics, geometry, biology (still a mystery to me!)
spaghetti (my daily grub)

I haven't seen most of my high school classmates though. I still hang-out though with my high school barkada, but haven't seen my other classmates for the longest time. The opportunity presented itself when my forever lab-partner called me up to remind me to show up for lunch since our student council president (and class president) was arriving from the US.

We were a small group, but it was definitely fun to see my classmates again. So many things do happen after high school and we couldn't help but kid each other with the question, "What happens to the student council president after high school?" Hehehe... that question was answered during lunch and if you're from 4A, sorry na lang amiga absent ka eh!

Here's the small group of Kulasas (and an import from college and SOs) who had lunch at Chi's Brick Oven Kitchen:


And here's a glimpse of the dessert we had:


See more of the sumptuous meal we had over at Lakwatsera Ako.