Chasing Signatures

It all starts with my experience with clearance weeks. Sure, it’s the best week ever from an academic point of view, because you’re practically done with all the lessons. But man, you don’t know patience until you find yourself waiting in line for 3 hours just to get your clearance signed by the Registrar’s office. (This happened in Grade 7; I got in line at 2 pm, and had it signed by 5 pm.) I also learned the hard way that getting my clearance signed by the Nurse’s office can get pretty long. (I started submitting the requirements for that office as soon as clearances were issued because I did NOT want to wait for a whole school day like I did in Grades 8-9.) When I started using the school laboratories in Grade 10, I ran into issues when I found out someone stole almost all the borrowed beakers from our cabinet! (My clearance was signed on the last day in Grade 10 just because I had to wait for my parents to deliver the glassware. At least our laboratory addressed that issue with a revamped inventory system.) Thank God our clearance was online during my time as a Grade 11 student.

As you get older, you start chasing after more teachers for signatures, depending on the forms issued to you. If you’re either late or absent, you’re given an Admissions form that needs every signature of each teacher whose subject you missed; that needs to be submitted within 5 days. If you’re in Grade 9 and your section wants to practice after school hours, you need the signatures of your English teacher, class advisor, and parent/guardian. If you’re in Grades 10-12 and you want to propose a research, you need the signatures of up to 3 research teachers (there were some groups where each member was in a different section), your Research advisor, your English teacher, and any teacher whose specialty is related to your research topic. Each of those teachers want a copy of your research proposal complete with each page having the research advisor’s signature for them to critique and grill you with during the actual proposal. (Our group went through so many paper reams just from printing and re-printing research papers.) You also needed the signatures of your Research teacher and Research advisor every Friday for the weekly progress reports. If you’re in Grades 11-12, you need the signatures of your SCALE advisor, adult supervisor, and parent/guardian to complete your SCALE requirements. (Honestly my only issue with the SCALE forms was that the whole format was changed this year; at least getting the signatures from the mentioned adults were easy.) If you want to use the school laboratories, you needed to get the signature of your research advisor if you need to request for chemical agents/reagents and/or laboratory equipment. Laboratory reservation forms also need to be signed by the research advisor and the laboratory personnel.(Yes I am venting about all the paperworks I had to have people sign for 6 years; my legs and my knees deserve a break!)

If you want my advice for being able to get signatures, here it is. Get all signatures as early as possible, and email them in advance. Ask around for the schedules of teachers and other staff, because there will be times that you will have to wait for days before they will step foot into their office. (Also, RIP if you are a Globe subscriber; the network BARELY reaches the buildings!) At least this year, everyone was just one email away. (This is seriously an underrated benefit of online classes; and I will miss this dearly when face to face classes exist again.)

The Pisay Experience: Checkpoints To Look Forward To

Hi! Are you an incoming student of PSHS-CLC? Are you excited to spend your teenage years studying among peers who are either more diligent, intelligent, and/or extroverted than you? Well, don’t you worry. After going through these checkpoints with your fellow batchmates, you’ll form everlasting bonds over collectively shared memories! (Note: results are not guaranteed. You might experience friendship loss as a result of participation.)

In Grade 7, your checkpoint takes place in the form of a Physical Education (PE) practical exam where your section will dance to a folk song. (If I recall correctly, the song my batch danced to was entitled “Sala Ti Mais”.) Be careful; one wrong move will make your PE teacher lose some of his patience. (I fully believe his class was the only one I saw everyone with proper posture!) Follow along with the choreography instructed to you, and watch your teacher’s patience. If it runs out, the teacher will blow out, and leave the classroom early AFTER giving out a long lecture to everyone. Help your classmates, especially the ones who seem to have 2 left feet. You’ll gain experience in dealing with people, which will seriously help you through your Pisay journey.

In Grade 8, your checkpoint takes place in the form of another PE practical exam; but, this time your dance depends on the country your section’s assigned to! (My section had to dance to an Indian song.) Your PE teacher will not help you out with the choreography this time; you need to follow whatever your assigned leader tells you to do. At this stage, everyone already starts working with each other better because they’re all finished showing off what they have to offer; people now know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and use them to their advantage. Enjoy this year the most, because there’s a reason why your seniors will warn you about Grade 9.

Now you’re in one of the hardest school years every Pisay student must undertake: Grade 9! You’ve got more subjects and requirements, so don’t be surprised if your mental health deteriorates at this stage. (It’s the year most of my batch agreed that we wanted to die from the sheer number of exams!) Don’t look forward to that however; one of the exciting traditions is the school play! Grade 9 students host their school plays by section as their English project, and preparations can start as early as the 1st quarter. The themes vary based on what the English teachers agree on; but this is the perfect time for any theatre kids to show off their acting skills. (Also, your play should only last 1 hour, maximum.) Your section will be in charge of practically everything from the scriptwriting to the prop-making, so start assigning committees held by people with their respective talents. My advice? Finish scriptwriting as early as possible. Everything else can follow once your section knows the flow of the play. If you’re a props-man, know that teamwork is key in moving props under 10 seconds. Another tradition to be excited for is prom! This will be your first prom ever; and your PE teacher will make a choreography that you absolutely must master with your partner. (Our song was Postmodern Jukebox’s cover of “Young and Beautiful” originally by Lana Del Rey.) Your batch will be in charge of hosting the event itself, so be prepared. (Our theme was The Great Gatsby, but I forgot where we hosted prom.)

In Grade 10, there are 2 traditions that define this school year. Firstly, your Social Science Project in the 1st quarter is to create a law based on the needs of your given country, and then propose it to several judges as well as other groups with different countries assigned to them. I wouldn’t have included this one if it wasn’t for the fact that it was treated very seriously by my teacher at the time. The event took place in a hotel conference room, all of us had to wear business attire, there were actual judges which had backgrounds in law-making, and the younger batches were given stickers to vote for their favourite proposal. (My group was assigned the Philippines; our law campaigned for a committee of school principals all around the country in order for each public and private school to be represented, if I recall correctly.) Another tradition is prom! Technically, this is the second prom you’ll attend; but it’s a tradition in the sense that there are ceremonies to be performed. Grade 10 students pass on the responsibilities of being the oldest junior high batch to the Grade 9 students. (I’ll be frank; I can’t remember them, and I don’t think anyone else did.) Prom is important to Grade 9 and Grade 10 students; their ballroom dances will determine their grades in Physical Education. (Our batch danced to “Waiting For Tonight” by Jennifer Lopez, it was quite complicated.)

Welcome to Grade 11! You were asked to pick your core subject and your elective during clearance week, and now you have less subjects! (I picked Biology and Chemistry respectively for both Grades 11 and 12.) Don’t celebrate just yet; all those free periods are for working on the sheer number of requirements your subject will hand out. (We might have been solely responsible for the deforestation of the Philippines due to all the research papers we had to submit!) Your free times are also scheduled as such because there will be a subject that will eat them all up: Research. Your traditions will be the Research Proposal and the Research Fair! Your group will have to present a research proposal in front of professors from various colleges depending on the topic of your research. (The presentation date was ON MY 17TH BIRTHDAY OF ALL TIMES.) Of course, it’s a big event, so everyone wears business attire. (My research presentation with my group at that time went swimmingly well; we weren’t grilled by the professors since they kept giving us advice.) During the 4th quarter, be prepared to present your research to younger batches who will vote with their stickers which research is their favorite. The judges present will pick their favourite researches to present on-stage, and the winner gets the highest grade in the Research subject. (Honestly everyone except the presenters enjoy this event. I wouldn’t know about my experience though; 2020 robbed that for me.)

I’m in Grade 12 right now, and apparently the traditions were supposed to be the Social Science community outreach project as well as the graduation. The guidelines for the Social Science project have just been updated thanks to quarantine restrictions, and I have no hope for a physical graduation. I’m very thankful though for my experience as a student of PSHS-CLC; I wouldn’t have chosen any other school for my high school experience.

Dr Sh█tluck, or How I Learned To Love The Girlfriend

Quick Note: Hi! This post was made by my best friend ever since Grade 7, who goes under the pseudonym Caroline Lastname for this. I wanted to upload his contribution to this blog because it follows the theme which is: The Pisay Experience. Both of us take up writing as a hobby, but our preferred topics differ: Caroline enjoys writing fiction while I prefer to write about non-fiction. Hop on over to her website at https://snarglepop-content.tumblr.com/ if you want to see more of her works!

Sweet Caroline

Oh boy, what is this, a crossover episode?

Hi, it’s ya girl Caroline, back with another thought provoking essay for all you Pisay ~studs~ students.

As my thought process usually goes ‘blaargh’ all over, this essay will take you on quite a trip, though I assure you; there is something worth learning in all of this.

I’m addicted to a mobile game.

(No, it’s not Raid: Shadow Legends, sorry to disappoint.)

Well, it hasn’t progressed to a ‘will not sleep to play all day’ thing, mainly because of the energy system, but I still get irrationally mad if someone interrupts my arena grind with random Messenger notifications that consist of inane blatherings like ‘What exactly is the function of a rubber duck?’

Like bro, I just wanna get Ben Affleck and Jason Momoa in my roster, is that too much to ask?

But yeah, sometimes (read: most of the time) I do this game more than I do my reqs.

Kinda sucks, ngl.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s not just this game. Sometimes it’s, like, long-winded scrolls through… I don’t know, pick a website: Archive Of Our Own, or any Fandom Wiki, or even a Wikipedia rabbit hole, clicking through article after article.

Sometimes I get caught up in other hobbies, like making papercraft or talking to friends (yes, I have friends), so… you know.

Not reqs.

Every week I resolve to just ‘bro I promise I will do it on Monday, Wednesday at the latest, so I can goof off at the end of the week’. And then every Friday I’m frantically writing essays and editing flowcharts.

Ah, well. There’s always next week.

But, come on, this isn’t healthy at all. What gives?

To be honest, I don’t know at all, man. It’s just the putrid ghost that grasps us in a cold, chilling embrace, that wretched spirit we call ‘procrastination’.

Yeah, we’ve all been there. I know it so much, in fact, that personally I choose to make out with the ghost twice or thrice a day, and it cooks my eggs in the morning (sunny side up, just how I like them).

Procrastination is my toxic girlfriend, so to speak. Sure, I love her, like a lot, but she’s really holding me back and stops me from doing what I really want to do in life by pretending to be what I already want.

(Not that I’ve ever had a toxic girlfriend, nosiree Bob.)

I mean, it was entertaining to sink hours and hours of productive time into watching CallMeKevin or Unus Annus (Memento Mori…), right?

I can’t say it wasn’t, but at the same time…

It could’ve been better. It really could’ve been better.

But, you know, I don’t really think there’s a ‘cure’ for procrastination. Because I’ve tried most of them and yet here we are, nearly engaged with a kid on the way.

And, honestly? I don’t necessarily think think there should be one.

Now hold your pitchforks and lower your torches. I get it. I still get my reqs done on time, albeit a few moments before the deadline or whatever. Since I know I’m prone to procrastination, I am extra careful with my deadlines, making sure I do them at the last possible moment where I have ample time to do them.

Note: this does not mean an hour before the deadline. I don’t want you to blame me for the sh█tty grades you get for a half-█ssed attempt at a major requirement. I actually make sure that there’s a gap between my submission time and the deadline. Rushing things never produces good results, unless you’re really, really good. I am swearing to drive the f██king point home.

So, what’s the point? What’s up with procrastination?

Well, dear reader of mine, if there’s one thing I learned in Pisay that would be useful to share in this little helpful blog, it’s that kids like you and me, we need to learn to adapt.

This applies to everything: requirement deadlines, procrastination, study habits, and even non-academic stuff like socializing, parties, dates, and so on.

As a person, you need to stay chill and just roll with the punches when you run into unfamiliar territory.

If there’s one thing I’m passionate about in telling people, it’s that there is no perfect study plan.

You can scour the interwebs and ask all the students you want; take all the notes you want about removing distractions, planning your reqs, taking notes about lessons, ~being a boring, straight-laced student~, but that doesn’t change the fact that none of those will apply to everyone.

People say, ‘Caroline, darling, you’re smart, you can afford to just laze around and still get high grades,’ and I say to that, ‘F██k off.’

Well, okay, I’m more polite than that, but I would kindly tell them to cut their bullsh█t. I will not deny that I have a bit more going up there, but I really, sincerely believe that everyone can achieve what I have, and better than that. I believe that we just need to make it click for them, and they’ll figure it out on their own.

That’s my main point: it clicks for people in different ways. For me, I never get anything done rereading notes or looking up references in the library. I don’t want to just do my essay right then and there, because nothing would spill out to the page.

I work best distracted, with a thousand or so tabs open in my browser, and blasting a random episode of Vsauce I’m not really listening to on my phone.

But I don’t recommend that to people. It’s not how they figure things out. Sometimes they really need those notes or those flashcards, or to plan out their every move.

Good for them!

I don’t care how you do it, as long as you get it done.

That’s how I do it, now you need to figure out your ‘click’ method.

But, you know.

Don’t knock it ’til you try it.

(Caroline Lastname is not responsible for any plummeting grades or mobile game addictions.)

Don’t Look for Love in High School

If you’re single as of the moment, good. If you’re not, you will be anyway. (Wow, bitter much?) I want to apologise to all the fanfiction writers in Pisay who write High school Alternate Universe (High School AU!) stories, but let’s be real; there’s a reason why most high school couples break up after graduation. Let’s get to it.

I am not telling you to solely focus on academics. We can leave that task to your parents, teachers, guidance counsellors, uncles, aunts, and practically any relative during get-togethers, dear reader. I’m not telling you either to break up with your current high school love interest. (Time will only tell if you will stay or leave the relationship, if all parties involved are mature enough.)

This post is for the ones in high school who have never been in a relationship. Let me tell you one thing: don’t look for love in high school. Yes, you heard that right. I’m about to finish high school, and I can confidently tell you that you’ll NEVER find what you’re looking for in it. No, this is not me saying that because I’ve never had someone return my feelings for them. The reason why I’m telling you this is because no one even fully understands what they themselves want in high school. I spent my teenage years trying to define my identity along with my friends and other peers of the same age.

You can’t give someone else what they want if you don’t know what you want yourself in the first place. The same applies with love. How can you expect someone to love you and treat you right if you can’t even do the same for yourself? Your favourite pop stars may always sing about falling in love, breaking up, getting cheated on, and whatever crazy stuff people do when they’re emotionally charged; but that doesn’t mean you should go ahead and experience their joys and pains right away.

I can’t tell you to NEVER fall in love during High School, because it’s usually the stage where people start feeling attraction towards other people. (Of course I get crushes too, they’re just sadly all unrequited.) I’m pretty sure if you interview my batch, most of them have their own embarrassing stories of the things they did to impress their crushes who never noticed them in the first place. (If I recall correctly, my batch submitted so many confessions in a Facebook page run by fellow scholars as well.) What I can tell you is that you shouldn’t feel like your high school life is incomplete without a sweet romantic partner by your side whenever you need someone to rely on. I know the movies and TV shows make it seem so necessary to find someone who you’ll crush on, fight for, fight with, cheat on, and whatever deranged actions you’ll see middle-aged actors and actresses do to each other as teenagers. I’m here to reassure you that having a closely-knit friend circle and a group of loving, supportive relatives is already more than enough for you to enjoy your teenage years.

I’ve never had to cry over a 2/10 trashy ex who broke my heart into little pieces. I’ve never even had to spend so much money just to impress someone I’ll forget about after I leave school either! This paragraph isn’t meant to offend anybody who broke up with their high school love interest, by the way. (I do sincerely hope you can recover soon, if you are currently still trying to get over it.) I’m just pointing out that staying single during your teenage years isn’t such a bad thing. It’s better to wait until you’re old enough to know your worth and your values as a person. You need to know what you’re looking for in a partner and what you have to offer as well; nothing says a doomed relationship like two people too scared to talk to each other about what they love and hate about their partner! You also need to be mature enough to communicate properly with your love interest without jumping to conclusions, and to also treat your partner right by respecting and loving him/her for who they are.

I know I wrote a lot about love for someone who has never been in a relationship, ever. (The audacity!) But my point still stands. Don’t look for love in high school. You don’t fully know yourself as a person and neither does anyone else around you. It’s okay to wait, and people should respect that.

How to ADHD in Pisay

Quick note: This was my submission for someone’s SCALE Activity entitled “Something That Feels Write”. I wrote this when I was in Grade 11; and as a senior student, I felt some kind of willingness to be the person who will give sound advice to junior high students of PSHS-CLC. Let’s get to it!

Hi! Are you a Grade 7 student in Pisay with no idea what to do? Are you struggling with low grades, and high expectations? Do your relatives keep praising you for being intelligent even though you’re hiding a long exam with a score of 24/50? Do you always lose track of deadlines and requirements? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you’re in the right place! Hi, my name is Garrett Lubag, and as a Grade 11 student coping with ADHD since Grade 4, I’d like to share with you how you can live your best life in Pisay! (Just kidding, you’re in Pisay. It’s hard as hell, but it’s worth it.)

Find friends you can trust with your life and academics. In Grade 7 during 2015, I became best friends with someone who helped me survive depression and anything related to math. He’s definitely smarter than I am, since we share the same study habits (which are nonexistent) and yet he still manages to get higher scores than me. We stayed classmates until Grade 10, but our friendship is still going strong. Not only did he help me with my personal problems such as my failing subjects and my short attention span, I also helped him with his personal problems such as broken friendships and misunderstandings. I also gained a circle of friends in Grade 7, which just kept getting bigger and bigger as time went by. We were a group of social outcasts who never left anyone behind.

Stop caring about what other people think. If you want to recite, raise your hand. If you want to write the answer on the board, raise your hand. Don’t worry if you get it wrong, because your teacher is supposed to guide you with the lesson. I was so confident once writing my solution to a chemistry problem on a whiteboard, only for my teacher to point out I made the wrong mechanism for the reaction. Did the students laugh at me? No, they were too busy actually learning the lesson. Not everyone cares about you; as harsh as that sounds, that is the absolute truth in school. So don’t let the non-existent opinions of people you don’t know stop you from taking charge of your life and your actions.

Read the school rules THOROUGHLY. Yes, you might be tempted to leave it alone like the terms and conditions of almost anything. But, if you read carefully, you can ensure that your behaviour in the school will not land you in hot water with the Discipline Officer. Sure, you were oriented about the rules during your first day of school, but let’s be real, you couldn’t recite all Level 2 offenses right now from memory. I remember feeling pumped when I realised that since the dress code wasn’t very detailed, I could (theoretically) get away with doing stuff no one else did. Of course, I was met with resistance like the time I wore a sweater under my uniform, and the time I added colored hair wax to my hair, but I always replied, “The code of conduct does not forbid this.” I like to think I’m the main reason why teachers are now petitioning for a detailed student handbook.

Cooperation is the key. Pisay has no ranking system, and for a good reason. Students are not meant to compete against each other; they’re meant to cooperate with each other so that they can work together to help the Philippines later on through science. All the students passed the National Competitive Exam (NCE), including you. I’ve been classmates with this friend since Grade 7 until Grade 10. Whenever a teacher left homework, he would arrive the next day and leave his homework available for everyone to copy. He was generally popular because of his leadership skills, but his diligence with whatever subject Pisay threw at him made him a role model among us struggling students. Remember the best friend I told you about? In Grade 9, my best friend made flashcards about Biology on Quizlet and sent us all links. He also tutored the whole section in Physics, which was good for me since I hated that subject. I had my moment to shine during English class when I proofread essays written by my classmates.

Study smarter, not harder. In Grade 7, my advisor made us all keep a record book. Everyday, we would write whatever score we got, and whatever homework was assigned. From Grade 7 until Grade 11, my first year of Pisay was the only time I was organized with whatever had to be done. I kept track of deadlines and exam dates through my classmates asking about them on Messenger. Having no batchmates as my roommates really forced me to be more responsible for my study habits, but I wished I had someone who I could nag to study with me. I think I survived by joining any impromptu study circle to help reinforce information I reviewed in the house. In my personal experience, I preferred reviewing for exams by writing my own reviewers based on PowerPoints given to us, but it took me a long time to accept that I had to answer problems to actually review for Math, Chemistry, and Physics. When I stopped forcing myself to finish tasks in one go, I realised that I did better when I allowed myself to switch back and forth to other stuff that had to be done as well.

Ask, and ye shall receive. I always tell this advice to my friends who are too shy to talk to anyone they’re unfamiliar with. You can tell that I did the interviews in my group when my Statistics teacher required us to collect data from students and employees. Asking questions will always guarantee answers, and most of the time, people are willing to help you out. Also, it helps boost your confidence and assertiveness when dealing with other people. When I interviewed janitors and gardeners about their views on mental disorders for health, I was pleasantly surprised that they knew the proper procedures for treatment of mental disorders, such as therapy and medication. Building connections between people is an important life skill that can help you when you least expect, trust me on this.

These lessons are a culmination of what I wish someone taught me during my life in Pisay. Now I’m telling you all of this so that you don’t have to learn the hard way. You have the chance to live Pisay not as a struggling, never-DL student, but a popular, diligent, responsible one! I might not be able to see you in school, but I hope to see you featured on the news for helping the Philippines through whatever your strength in science is! Good luck! 🙂

How to Socialize with K-pop in Seventeen Steps (aka How I fell in love with Kpop)

1. Realize that you have almost no friends in your section in Grade 10.

2. Get jealous of the K-pop fans in your section who are friends with each other.

3. Do your research on K-pop. Search YouTube for “Songs every K-pop Fan Should Know”.

4.     Fall in love with 2nd-generation groups and stan them.

5.     Add all the songs you like to your phone courtesy of Dad’s Apple Music subscription.

6.     Despair when you realize that your classmates mostly stan 3rd-4th generation groups.

7.     Get unexpectedly closer with veteran K-pop stans. Listen to the one who tells you to stan her ult group GOT7.

8.     Research the groups your classmates stan and watch the “unhelpful guides” on YouTube.

9.     Add their songs to your phone because they’re catchy and amazing.

10. Watch the K-pop fans dance to the latest songs like they’re the idols themselves.

11.  Find out that your ticket to being popular is by dancing to the choreographies.

12.  Find mirrored dance practice videos on YouTube. Practice every night and every free period. Ignore the passersby; you still haven’t mastered the footwork of “Navillera” by GFriend.

13.  When your classmate plays the song “Fancy” by TWICE, show EVERYTHING YOU GOT. Dance like you’re Kim Dahyun because you memorized her part.

14.  Continue dancing to mirrored dance practice videos because it became your coping method for stress.

15.  Look at your playlist and get shocked when you try to remember the last time you listened to an English pop song.

16.  Join your new friends when they watch performance videos. Scream when your bias is on-screen.

17. Realize that you were supposed to get into K-pop for friends but instead you became a bigger ambassador for K-pop than your friends in the first place.

It’s Okay To Not Be A Director’s Lister (DL)

Before I get into the post, I want to clarify to the readers what a Director’s Lister is. A Director’s Lister is a student of any campus of Philippine Science High School who gets a general weighted average of 1.500 or higher. Now let’s get to it!

“I used to be smart.” Ain’t this the truth? Many scholars of PSHS (including me) shared the same sentiments because we needed high marks in the first place to apply for the entrance exam. We pass, we get into our new school, then BAM! Our scores and grades dropped faster than Yoon Se-ri’s paraglider in the pilot episode of Crash Landing On You. But somehow, there was always at least one student who managed to maintain his/her grades and keep them high enough every quarter so that his/her name gets listed on a sheet of white bond paper tacked on a cork-board every Card-giving day.

Funnily enough, our batch did NOT get a good reputation at first when we first entered Pisay because we were the first batch to have a section with no DLs for two consecutive quarters. (To all my Sapphire peeps at the time, please tell me you still remember having to surrender your cellphone every school day because of our advisor!) The other sections only had 1-2 DLs for the first half of the school year but thankfully more DLs emerged by the end of the school year 2015-2016.

As my high school life progressed, it became clear that I was never going to see my name listed on the white sheet of paper that indicated who got a GWA of 1.500 and higher. If you’re expecting me to say that I felt the drive to get my grades high enough to qualify for that position, then you clearly don’t know me at all. My friends honestly didn’t think much of it until everyone in my circle except me managed to see their name listed as one of the DLs at least once. Then it hit me; I was surrounded by God’s favorites.

I did not make this post to discourage you from giving your best in your school works. On the contrary, I always exerted the most effort I could give in mine. I just accepted early on that my best was never going to be enough to qualify for being a Director’s Lister, and that was okay! If you’re average but can confidently say that you did your best in something, then you already are ahead of so many others who are talented that choose to be mediocre.

My mom always said that an average diligent person beats a mediocre intelligent person. My batch is a great example of this. A lot of my batch mates who were Director’s Listers were also the ones who were waitlisted! They were not supposed to have been in Pisay in the first place, but since some of the passers gave up their seats, they took over. If you met me in real life, you probably wouldn’t have noticed that I was actually one of the passers of the NCE. Some of my batch mates have better work ethics than everyone, which is something we should all aim to get really.

It doesn’t matter if you can’t confidently recall the layers of the atmosphere; what matters is the process of studying you used to effectively recall information as well as the mental willpower you get from studying your lessons. I know for most scholars, Pisay was the first place where they really felt the need to learn how to study because they stopped getting high grades with the same effort they exerted back in elementary. (Yes I am calling myself out here, my work ethics really needed room for improvement.) If you ended up achieving DL status after exerting your best, that’s great! If you didn’t, it’s still okay as well! Be proud of yourself for giving your best. A world full of people who settle for being mediocre would not have been able to enjoy the comforts from inventions made by the people who always gave the most efforts in solving the problems faced by humans.

Do your best, even if it isn’t much. That’s the least you can do for your school, your family, your friends, and for your country.

Everything Changed When the Virus Attacked

Hello everyone, this is Garrett speaking. I have been doing online classes for almost 2 months now, and trust me, it was hard to adjust. This post is going to talk about everything I had to change about myself in terms of being a student of PSHS-CLC. Stick around if you want to hear someone sound like how a boomer complains about technology.

I had to get used to submitting WAY MORE requirements than usual. I don’t know about you guys, but I’d rather listen to a teacher’s lecture than be asked to submit an essay/diagram/drawing/solution by the end of a subject period. If I remember correctly, I was complaining nonstop about all the nongraded assessments the modules asked us to submit because “we have 24 hours and they think it’s all for school apparently”. What kept me from lashing out on the teachers was the fact that most of them were not even written by my teachers themselves. Am I mad at the teachers themselves? No. I can’t blame them really; they’re also struggling because of all the curriculum changes and teaching adjustments. I’m just glad I’m a SYP student; I can’t imagine having to submit requirements if I was still under the FAYP. (If you’re a Grade 9 PSHS student, sweetie I am so sorry you had to go through that especially during the pandemic!)

This September, I also had to mesh my school personality and my home personality into one. I’ve always known that I act like a completely different person depending on the setting I’m located in, but the truth has never been as stark as before. My school self is way bolder and braver in terms of speaking up about how I felt compared to my home self where I just kept everything in and followed whatever new rules my parents made. My home self was also trained well in the act of listening to footsteps so that I could be a good son to them. Until now. Suddenly, my bold school personality felt that it was okay to speak up about how I hated the parental controls on the Wi-fi because I was “getting too old for this”. Right now, I’m still trying to balance myself between the person my parents want me to be and the person my whole school knows me as; but I’m getting better. I can’t say I fully hate the confidence boost I got though; I started speaking up about my taste in men to my relatives. (That was also because I needed to drive in the point that I was never ever getting a girlfriend. I was only able to do it this year to them.)

Before I start talking about the unexpected benefits of everything being online, I want to rant about how I was robbed of a graduation. Yes, I am still salty about the fact that I will have to settle for a graduation via Facebook Live. PSHS-CLC, I did not suffer from all of the hardships I went through because of you just to get a digital copy of my diploma. However, the virus does not discriminate between people; and I have to respect that.

Alright, so let me talk about the unexpected benefits of online classes. First off, I’m saving paper in terms of submitting requirements. I have always joked to teachers to save the environment by giving us less requirements that need to be printed, and now I practically submit only Word documents and PDFs through K-hub and/or email. Last year, my research group had to print so many copies of all our research documents to either be submitted or rejected because there were needed revisions. Mind you, our research proposal alone went past 12 pages, so we had to bring stacks of bond paper to school to use the school printer! (It was a great way to make friends though; it was a breeze to save someone’s school day just by donating sheets of either short, long, or A4 paper to them.) This year, our research proposal already went past 15 pages, and I expressed my utter disbelief to my research groupmate about how we didn’t need to print it all to be submitted to our advisors. (He shared the same sentiments as well.) My Biology class has also filled my (I would say hands, but flash-drive makes more sense) flash-drive full of papers I had to type out on my laptop. The workload was immense to the point that my teacher had to adjust the requirements assigned to us just so we wouldn’t die from the amount of submissions we had to fulfill. I cringed so hard when I thought about printing all of my requirements out because I knew our printer would run out of ink faster than how I lose my concentration in doing assignments.

Another unexpected benefit of online classes is that I now have easier access to food. As much as I love the food I ate in school, nothing really beats home-made food made with TLC.  I can help myself to snacks and beverages whenever I want to! I no longer went hungry just because I didn’t feel like spending my money. If I want tea or coffee, I just brew it in the kitchen. If I want sandwiches, I make them in the kitchen. It’s easy as well to get the snacks I want because my mom does the groceries.

The last benefit I’ll talk about is about how convenient it is for me to talk to anyone and everyone I care about thanks to messaging apps. During my previous school years, it was outside my comfort zone to reach out to my friends during school because we were neither in the same section nor building. Nowadays, all of them are just one click and/or tap away. I’m thankful for all the technological advancements that made it possible for humans to stay in contact with each other no matter the geographical distance. The same also applies to teachers, surprisingly! They were all an email away if I needed to submit/ask anything. I didn’t have to run after them for signatures like all my previous school years; which is a blessing for my legs, I will tell you that!

Listing down all the pros and cons of online classes left me with a strong desire for everything to go back to normal. However, I was also left with a deep pensive sadness exacerbated by quarantine. I can’t fool myself anymore; I am sadly disappointed in myself, the government, and humanity in a nutshell. I don’t expect 2021 to be the year everything goes back to normal, but I am holding on somehow to a vision where my country is led by a government that prioritises the Filipinos and not the pockets of whoever is in position.

Physics Scares Me

Ahh, Grade 9. It was the year with more subjects (Biology, Physics, Chemistry, and Statistics have entered the chat) and more requirements. Every senior my batchmates interacted with was more than willing to warn us about how that grade level would become the most stressful year for us in our Pisay journey. Picture me sitting in the 9-Arayat classroom with my new classmates (6 of them were my classmates ever since Grade 7. If you’re reading this, shoo.). Imagine that the schedule was just posted outside our door, and all of us rushed to take pictures. “Will I even survive?” Grade 9 me asked.

Well, I did, but who knew one subject would become the bane of my existence for Grades 9 and 10?

Before I start venting all the struggles and pain I suffered because of this subject, let me make it clear: I don’t blame the teachers. Both my Physics 1 and 2 teachers were more than willing to answer all the questions I had during discussions and also during homework checks.  Both of them also had engaging discussions. Let me share something my Physics 1 teacher said that I shall never forget: “Garrett, I know you’re an honest student because your answer is always so far from everyone else’s.”

Let me explain the title to you now. Physics 1 was the first subject that I got a grade of 4.00. “Garrett, how did you even survive card-giving day!?” you may ask. Well, I’ll be frank, I almost did not. My abysmal grade was mostly due to non-submission of requirements, which made my parents even more disappointed. My grades still remained low for that subject, but at least it was only because I was not understanding the topics instead of not submitting assignments. Thankfully, I wasn’t alone. I knew several batch mates who also got really low grades in Physics but were exerting the same effort as I did to even understand the lessons.

Aiming for excellence does not always mean aiming for the highest grades possible; sometimes it’s about aiming to understand what you’re studying in the first place. If you give all your effort into anything you do, you already are fulfilling one of the core values of PSHS-CLC. In my case, I was always badgering my nerdy circle of friends to help me with homework and lessons, which they did because they wanted me to be a Director’s Lister (that just means a student with a general weighted average of 1.500 and above). I had to exert way more effort into studying that subject compared to how my other classmates did simply because it was harder to understand for me. Did I ever get a redemption arc? Well, I did in Physics 1. My grade jumped from 3.00 to 2.00, but that was thanks to all the weekends I sacrificed by solving practice problems in my Physics textbook. Was it amazing to see? Yes. Did I want to do that again? No.

I managed to escape Physics in Grade 11 by picking Biology and Chemistry as my core subject and elective respectively. Ironically, most of my friends picked Physics as their core subject.  Hearing them talk about the subject made me realise that I was finally successful in knowing my own strengths and weaknesses after all my FAYP years. I hope you guys can recognise your strengths as well!

5 Things I Wish I Could Tell my Grade 7-Sapphire Self

1. You deserve to stay alive and to eat well. I was very depressed in Grade 7 for reasons I still am not sure of even today. It took me a while to start using healthy coping mechanisms such as writing all my feelings down and talking to someone else about it because it felt good to hurt myself at that time. I also felt immense guilt for even eating anything, because I thought it would have been better if it went to the poor. I can definitely say I recovered because I cringed so hard when I found my old notebooks full of everything I wrote while I was depressed. (Past me, you should have listened when the psychiatrist said to throw out all the emotional vents.)
2. Use your allowance for food! My weekly allowance was actually big enough for me to spend way more than what I actually needed for food. I however skimped on food because I wanted to buy other stuff with it. I can’t even remember any of the items I bought with my allowance. Looking back, those experiences made me understand the mindsets of corrupt politicians. It wasn’t the money itself that made me skimp food, it was the potential purchasing power I held in my hand that persuaded me to misuse the funds.
3. Your grades will be okay. Getting low scores was a big slap to the face, if I remember how my past self-had felt about it. I always got high scores and grades without trying, but now I needed to exert EFFORT? My grades mostly dipped when I was still in recovery, but thankfully they were never low enough for my scholarship to be terminated.
4. Never regret being nice to people who didn’t deserve it. I hated myself so much back then for being naïve and too trusting of people even though they were probably making fun of me behind my back. Hearing someone say that quote though made me realize that being nice to everyone whether they deserved my kindness or not was not something to be ashamed of, but something to be proud of. Sure, I may not be as nice to them as before now, but I don’t beat myself up for giving them the benefit of the doubt.
5. Your highschool life will not be like what is depicted in the media, and that’s okay! My high school life was neither as dramatic nor as epic as my favourite characters’ high school experiences, but that was fine. Studying far away from home helped me learn how to live independently. I did almost everything by myself, and that is quite an advantage over those who chose to study somewhere near their home. Instead of being excited for my first kiss, I was excited for my first Scholar’s Night and Science Camp!

My Grade 7 self had a lot to learn about himself, and he went through a difficult stage in life. Thankfully, he survived everything Pisay threw at him. If you’re starting out in Pisay, I want to reassure you that the adjustment period is tough, but you are tougher. It’s okay to fall so many times, as long as you can get up each time.