Elementary Days

On my first day of school, I hesitated to let my mother leave me there on my own. I felt out of place since most of my classmates already knew each other from kindergarten, while I was a completely new face.

But you know how it is when you're a kid. It's so easy to make friends with anyone—something I find much harder to do now.

You may not believe it, given my current body mass, but back then, I was so underweight that I was included in the school's feeding program.

I also remember going to school one day with my cheeks and jaw completely covered in a paste made from tina—a blue dye traditionally used to whiten clothes. Back then, many people believed it was an effective remedy for mumps. Despite how ridiculous I must have looked, I insisted on going to school anyway because I loved being there.

It wasn't because I enjoyed studying, though. I simply loved being around my friends.

If anything, I was actually quite lazy when it came to schoolwork. I was fortunate enough to grasp lessons more quickly than some of my classmates, so I still managed to earn awards and occasionally rank among the top students in class. Looking back now, I wish I had taken my studies more seriously.

Aside from doing well in class, I almost always volunteered for any school activity that interested me—dance competitions, poem recitals, declamation contests, and stage plays. Perhaps the only competition I could never join was singing. At that age, I was already well aware I had zero talent in that field.

There were also times when I represented our school in district-level feature writing competitions. Those contests took me to places I probably never would have visited otherwise, such as Basud, Jose Panganiban, Vinzons, Paracale, and Mercedes. Sadly, those were the first and the last time I've been to those places.

Elementary school is one of the periods of my life I'll always cherish. It was where I met my best friend, who, thankfully, is still my best friend to this day. There are also a handful of classmates I still keep in touch with, while others have become part of the past. Even so, I'm grateful to have met every one of them, and I continue to look back on those memories with fondness. 

After all, when else would I have believed that a kapre (a tree-dwelling giant) lived in the huge old tree at our school? Or that one of my classmates had been possessed by an evil spirit one afternoon on the school grounds?

It was also the time when I convinced myself that, at the tender age of barely a teenager, I had somehow fallen in love with a classmate—only for him to transfer to another school not long after. An infatuation that, much to my embarrassment, continued well into high school.

Even back then, I apparently already had a weakness for the she fell first, but he fell harder trope. Unfortunately, that never came to fruition. Perhaps it was his looks, or his serious yet timid demeanor, that drew me to him. Whatever the reason, little me had apparently decided that he was the one.

We were classmates until Grade 3, when he moved to another school, ending my great love story before it even had the chance to begin. So, with no romance to occupy my time, I directed my energy toward school activities instead.

In Grade 4, I joined the school organization, which meant I was sometimes tasked with reprimanding schoolmates who were older than me. It was a rather amusing position to be in—a fourth grader telling students several years older than me what they could and couldn't do.

I remember one particular incident when a few Grade 6 students were gambling on the school grounds. I approached them and reminded them that what they were doing was against the school rules. One of the boys, who was much taller than me, walked toward me, perhaps hoping his size would intimidate me.

It didn't.

I stood my ground and continued to tell them that they had to stop. When they realized I had no intention of backing down, they eventually gave in.

I was in Grade 5 when I experienced being courted for the first time. He was in Grade 6 and attended the same school as me, so he was only a year older.

His family owned a small sari-sari store, and he would occasionally take a few of their products and give them to me—junk food, biscuits, and sometimes even chocolate. I suppose that was his way of showing his affection. It never turned into anything serious, though. When he graduated, he eventually lost interest in me, and that was pretty much the end of our little school romance.

Years later, in a rather unexpected turn of events, I ended up becoming the godmother of his firstborn.

By the time I reached Grade 6, my bond with my friends had grown much stronger. We went on school trips, camped overnight at school, and even got into fights with students from another section.

Back then, catfights seemed too petty for us. Instead, whenever we had a disagreement with the other section, we'd go to their class garden and stomp on their plants.

It was, admittedly, a rather evil thing to do. One of our subjects actually graded us based on how well we maintained our gardens, so we knew exactly what we were doing. We weren't just destroying their plants—we were potentially destroying their grades, too.

Childhood friendships, apparently, came with a little bit of chaos and a questionable understanding of warfare.

Whenever boys from their section got involved, the boys from ours would come forward to defend us. It somehow became an unofficial battle between the two sections, with everyone ready to take sides.

It was a lot of fun—or at least, it was for us. I can't say the students from the other section felt quite the same way.

Before graduating elementary school, I had my first real fight with my best friend.

At the time, I was constantly away for school competitions. Spending so much time with students from other schools, as well as classmates I hadn't been particularly close to before, meant that I gradually formed new friendships. Without realizing it, I had been spending less and less time with my best friend.

Apparently, she wasn't happy about it.

Her jealousy eventually reached a point where she, along with a few of her close friends, decided to side with the students from the other section—the very same students we had considered our enemies at the time.

We had just returned from a competition and had only been excused from our morning classes. We were still expected to attend our afternoon class, so as soon as we arrived at our classroom, we were immediately told what had happened.

According to our classmates, my best friend had betrayed us.

At least, that's how it was presented to me.

I remember holding an orange purse—a birthday gift my best friend had given me that year. When I saw her whispering and laughing with the students from the other section, I slammed the purse onto the ground, making sure she saw exactly what I was doing.

At the time, I was strangely satisfied when I saw the sadness on her face. I watched as she quietly walked away, convinced that I had made my point.

I can't help but laugh now when I remember what happened next. After she was gone, I picked up the purse as my school allowance was still inside it.

That fight didn't last long, as we eventually reconciled, along with students from the other section. As we were all graduating soon, we didn't want to leave with unresolved conflict. 

Just a few months before graduation, several nuns visited our school to introduce an opportunity to attend a private Catholic school for secondary education and technical-vocational training called the Sisters of Mary.

I was interested at first. The idea of living in a dormitory with my classmates, away from my parents, sounded like an adventure. I imagined the freedom, the friendships, and the excitement of experiencing life on my own while still in school.

But, of course, my father firmly declined.

As far as he was concerned, I was still far too young to be living away from home. I sometimes wondered if I would have ever been old enough in his eyes. Even when I was already in college, he gave me the exact same reason whenever I considered attending a school that was too far from home.

Apparently, growing up didn't automatically make me old enough to leave the house.

Ultimately, a few of our classmates decided to attend the Sisters of Mary. I remember us crying our eyes out when we realized that we wouldn't be attending the same school as them in high school, and that we would barely see each other after that.

At that age, the thought of losing the people we had grown up with felt almost unbearable. We didn't know yet that this was simply one of the first times life would pull people in different directions.