How many kilobytes can your heart hold?
LIGAYA A. REGIS
Division Supervisor, Journalism
I saw this certificate in my brother’s room while I was helping him clean up. I wanted to cry when I saw the name. Mrs. Regis used to be the Journalism adviser of my high school’s campus paper. She was the only teacher who made me cry. I cried not because she treated me harshly, but because during my second year in high school, she said goodbye to us. She was promoted to a higher position. There was no doubt about her promotion. During her stay in our high school as a Journalism adviser, our school was in the top 10 high school papers in the whole country for 10 years. She was that good… and that’s also the reason why she has a special place in my heart.
I started writing when I was six or seven. I kept a diary, and I would write all sorts of stories, poems, essays, etc. On my fourth grade in elementary school, I tried signing up as a writer for our school paper, but I failed. I tried every year until my sixth grade, but I never got in.
I finally graduated and moved to high school. I have heard about Mrs. Regis in the past, and so I was a bit scared of signing up. I still tried, though.. And I got in. She accepted twenty students from hundreds of first-year students. I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was just pure luck, but still, I did my best. I listened well every time she discussed lessons on how to write news articles, feature stories, opinion pieces, sports articles, etc. She let us to get a feel of the different kinds of sections in our school paper, and she encouraged us to write for the section where we excelled. I wrote for the features. She rarely made us write about a topic that she thought of — she trained us to think, brainstorm, and come up with our own ideas. I could really say that it was her who made me fall in love with writing. She helped us sharpen our skills according to our own pace and style.
During the last few months of my second year in high school, she made the announcement that made me cry. She got promoted to a higher position, and so she has to leave our school and start working in the Department of Education’s office. As I sat at the back of our school paper’s office, I tried my best to not let the tears fall from my eyes… but I failed. I looked away and muffled my cry into silent sobs. The next year, she was replaced by another teacher. I don’t know if I got used to having an excellent teacher like Mrs. Regis or if she’s really a bad journalism teacher, because she sucked big time. I started avoiding meetings because I hated how I never learned anything from her. I could write more about her but that’s another story.
Anyway, I stayed until my fourth year in high school just for the sake of being a writer in our school paper. One time, the teacher who replaced told us that we’re going to to a general cleaning of all the files in our office. While I was looking through old records and papers, I saw Mrs. Regis’ class record where she our grades for the articles we wrote. I was surprised to see that among the twenty students that she accepted during my first year, I got the highest average.
I just couldn’t believe what I saw, especially because I felt so intimidated by her excellency in her job and the great skills of my classmate. Sometimes I think that maybe she made a mistake in grading my papers, but deep inside I felt very happy. She was the first person to make me feel like I actually have writing skills.
I haven’t hear anything from her since then. She probably doesn’t remember me anymore, but the tears that almost fell from my eyes when I saw this certificate proves how much I am thankful for getting to know her. She’s now the supervisor for dozens of high school journalism classes, and I’m sure that she will get promoted again someday. She’s amazing, and I wish I can thank her for building up my self-confidence in writing. If not for her, my Tumblr would just be another generic “reblog blog”. Haha :P
I can’t stop smiling :P
I woke up after lunch time and I decided to check Facebook. I saw that I had a message and I was surprised to see the sender of the message. I never expected him (not in a million years) to send me a message. We’re just Facebook friends because we were classmates in high school, belonged to the same high school clubs, and had a lot of friends in common. Aside from that, we had no other connection — except that he was the first guy that I ever liked. It was unrequited love, yes, but he was the first one who caught my teenage heart.
Anyway, the message wasn’t anything special. He saw that I worked in X company and told me that X company was offering him a position for X department. He asked me how my experience was with that company — the employees, the superiors, the environment, etc. Although the message was plain and simple, I couldn’t stop the sheepish grin on my face. No, I don’t have feelings for him anymore (that was eight years ago!), but it’s so funny. I can’t explain it. I read his message five times and I had to think of a good reply for ten minutes (probably). I don’t want him to sense that I was so excited about his message, but I don’t want him to get the impression that I didn’t care about his question. I HAD TO MAKE A NORMAL RESPONSE, DAMN IT. And my heart couldn’t stop from squealing.
My mind went back to my high school days when a glimpse of him would complete my day. I cried, laughed, and had lots of kilig moments whenever he was around. I would often stalk on him (FRIENDSTER DAYS LOL), ask my friends about him, and do a lot of stupid things just to get near him (LIKE CALLING HIM THE NIGHT BEFORE HIS BIRTHDAY AND TELLING HIM THAT I REMEMBERED HIS BIRTHDAY — WHAT A DEAD GIVEAWAY). Geeeeez. All the stupid things I did in high school is making me wish that the floor would open up and swallow me alive right now. I think he knew about it, but he pretended as if he had no clue.
My preferences had changed now and I think I’m crazy for having a big crush on him back in high school, but it’s so delightful to remember old memories and think about how simple life was back then.
Ahhh. Young unrequited love.
Former Armed Forces Chief and Defense Secretary Angelo Tomas Reyes on Tuesday morning committed suicide by shooting himself in front of the grave of his mother at the Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina City.
A close friend of Reyes called the Philippine Daily Inquirer to break the news, while Colonel Boogie De Leon, a former administrative officer of Reyes when he was AFP chief, said Reyes was rushed to the Quirino Hospital at about 7:45 a.m. to revive him. Members of his family could not be reached for comment.
I can not help but feel sad over his death. This has nothing to do with my opinions about the alleged AFP fund scandal. Instead, his death brings be back to my high school memories. He was a supporter of our school, not just because he’s putting up a front of helping people and things like that, but because he graduated from our school. He also supported our school’s glee club, which meant a lot to us, because I graduated in a public (but very decent) high school. As a member of our high school’s glee club, I remember how he would provide financial support for us, because we went to contests and competitions against private high schools. Those schools rode in buses and cars and had all the luxuries they could have. We only rode in jeepneys lent by the baranggay captain, and had packed food for lunch. He always had a smiling face whenever I would see him in our high school, and even though he couldn’t be there all the time, we were aware of his support for the students and the teachers.
Rest in peace, Sir Angelo Reyes.
EDIT: It was only a matter of hours until I received the message that I was expecting — our choir conductress sent us a message that we will visit his wake on Saturday morning.
I have been in love with writing since I was young. I still have a copy of the first story that I wrote when I was six. It was about a boy who grew wings to get mangoes from their tree, but he soon become too greedy and stole from their neighbor’s trees. In the end their neighbors died due to starvation.
Anyway, that dream died during my last year in high school. I had been a member of the school paper’s staff (both in grade school and high school). Our school paper adviser was so good, she was promoted and had to leave the school (she became a supervisor for several schools, can’t remember). The teacher who replaced her sucked, and hell, unlike the previous teacher, she didn’t know writing techniques, she never gave us constructive criticism towards what we wrote, etc. She just left us alone and enjoyed the new big office that she acquired.
I stopped writing at that point, and, like most talents, they rust away when you don’t use it. I now have difficulty forming thoughts in my head and writing them down on paper. I thought I’d never be able to write another interesting piece but today, I wrote a poem. Just like the old times, the words just flowed out of my head. It was incredible. I had a surge of excitement as the lines naturally popped out of my mind.
It was a love poem.
Meteor Garden: Perfect Moment (via ajewell)
METEOR GARDEN! HAHA HIGH SCHOOL MEMORIES <333
Meteor Garden is a Taiwanese drama that began its broadcast 12 April 2001 on CTS. It is a live version of the Japanese manga Hana Yori Dango. It stars Jerry Yan, Vic Zhou, Vaness Wu, Ken Chu and Barbie Hsu.
THIS IS THE ONLY DRAMA SERIES THAT MADE ME GO CRAZY. It first aired in our country back in 2003. I was just and awkward adolescent at thirteen and ANYTHING related to love made me go wild. I wished for my own Dao Ming Si and hoped that a prince charming would sweep me off my feet and take me to our castle. Haha I was such a silly kid. I finally learned that there are no prince charmings in this world — only hairy men with boners.
Trivias from Wiki:
- Meteor Garden remains as the highest rated Asian drama overall shown in the Philippines garnering a 57.4% peak rating with an average rating of 42.9% in mega Manila and a peak of 73.0% nationwide with an average of 62.0% which was shown over ABS-CBN. The replay value was just so high, that when it was replayed again every Saturday and Sunday, it rated an amazing 42.0% on its finale.
- The show was aired six times in the Philippines, three times on ABS-CBN, once on Cinema One (ABS-CBN Filipino Movie Channel) once on GMA Network and in Q TV . Its first airing was in 2003, a replay on weekends in the same year, then in 2005 it was re-aired again due to insistent public demand in the same network. In 2006 ABS-CBN’s Filpino Movie channel Cinema One also airs every weekend.
There are lots of better Asian dramas out there, but this one will always be memorable to me. <3
I get along with my old high school friends better than the friends i have from Gabrielino.
Everyone at Chatsworth had a personality. Everyone at Gab.. didn’t.
Not sure exactly what those names mean, but I get along better with my high school friends than any of my college ones and this reminds me of that. Kind of sad in some ways, but then perhaps I just haven’t really gotten to know anyone in college like in high school.
Same here. It’s not that I don’t like my college friends and all the colleagues I had. I get along with them (um, except for my current workplace, but that’s another story), but it’s different with my high school friends. I guess it’s because during college/while working, I’ve built this “facade” on how I want others to see me — nice and friendly. With my high school friends, they not only know my “facade” but who I really am — the dorky me, the stupid things I can do, the most embarassing events in my life, my evil side, the ugly face I have when I wake up in the morning.. All the things that I am, before I started caring about what people might think of me.
