Not so high

I have been corresponding with a few of my high school classmates recently for some event they're organizing on behalf of our class. Thanks to Facebook, there's no such thing as being able to just fade into oblivion anymore. I'm not sure if that's part of the whole direction of the social networking revolution. Whatever its implication on post-high school life, it got me thinking back on those four years.

I attended a science curriculum public high school, but I never felt 'scientific' about anything during my stay. Although a good portion of my classmates did eventually major in Chemical Engineering, if I'm not mistaken. So maybe the additional load of advanced chem subject was a good jump off point for them. Personally, I was just glad to get it all over with. 

I participated in school activities just enough to claim involvement, but always managed to stay in the peripheral. That, ladies and gentlemen, required subtlety to pull off. So needless to say: I was not in the student government, I was not an officer, I was not an athlete, and I never participated in any form of singing, dancing, and everything else that involved an audience and my nonexistent talents in the performing arts. 

So in short, anything that required extended periods of social interaction and public presentation, I steered clear from.

But because I did not want my mother to be called again by my teacher with the concern that I was "not assertive" enough (true story), I made an effort to join activities that would be more apt to my personality. My joining essay writing contests so that I'd be excused from Math class is an oft-repeated story in the halls of this blog. I was part of the COMELEC -- non-partisan politics, ftw! I was also with the Red Cross Youth -- way better than marching back and forth under the heat of the sun. In Red Cross, we learned first aid, planted a garden, kept the grounds clean, and spent time with the kids at an orphanage. And lastly, there was the school paper. The only time I represented the school at anything was when I competed in the national level for the copyreading category. Yeah, copyreading. The process of editing and correcting written material. I did not compete to write, I competed to be a grammar nazi!

But, yes, I did write for the school paper. Forgettable stint, really. Mostly composed of boring news items around campus, except for that one time when the adviser decided to publish my article on local basketball fanaticism. Cheesy, juvenile article, but fun to write and it amused me that our adviser was stumped whether to put it in the sports page or the features page. 

I don't know why I insist on reminding people of how much of a geek I was/am by sharing these stories when it is so obvious that they can perfectly remember without my help. I suppose I could write about how popular I actually was in school and how I had such an awesomely memorable personality, but alas, my fiction writing is a little rusty.

XXX

I turn thirty today and for the record, I am happy being older.

 

I'd rather be at this age and know the things I know now than be younger and know way less. And it's not even things of wisdom or enlightenment because I'd be the first to admit that I have neither. Just knowing things about myself. I am glad that at thirty, I know myself a little better.

 

It's not profound, but I find it important. Too often people don't bother really knowing who they are, what they believe in, what they value. Or what makes them happy, sad, calm, or angry. It seems trivial - knowing yourself. But I think without it, you will understand very little why you act and react the way that you do. Hopefully, with this understanding comes the ability to correct one's self, to arrive at sound decisions. To be able to live purposefully.

 

And because that suspiciously sounded like a cheesy self-help load of crap, let me just pull out an example from pop culture (which everyone knows is sooo much more credible). Remember in the first Matrix (the only one worth watching) when Neo first met the Oracle, she shows him the Latin phrase "Temet Nosce", which means "know thyself". She tells him that when you know yourself, "you just know it, through and through."

 

So I wrote mine down on paper - a sort of "this is who you were" piece. As if I were introducing myself to a future me that does not exist yet. Nothing poetic or structured, just random facts. Some take long, thoughtful paragraphs, others just short, lame phrases like, "Your humor is not mainstream". I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that particular personal tidbit five or ten years from now, but I'm sure it's worth a few laughs in the future. Yes, that sound like MY kind of humor. 

I just wanted to share one of the most important things I will add on that list this year. I realized that gratitude is a great start towards happiness. With that, I would like to thank all my family and friends who greeted me a happy birthday with their presence, calls, emails, pm's, wall posts, texts. Please know that your good wishes are sincerely appreciated.