Monday, March 28, 2005

Graduation Day, and 10 Years After

I was back in Pisay today, to attend my brother's graduation. He's the last of us, three brothers who all went through Pisay. I've never seen the pool up close before today. It doesn't look very deep.

I'm incoherent. It might be because I've been reading the Sluggy Freelance archives since I got home.

The graduation ceremony was mostly boring. I think most are, unless you're one of the graduates. Or one of the graduates' parents. Or one of those CAT guys who stops people with digital cameras from getting too close. Too bad I forgot to charge the digital camera batteries before going, or else we would have actually had more than five pictures.

The commencement speaker was some guy from batch '69 [1] with lots of degrees, awards and accolades. I swear, if I ever become commencement speaker, I'm gonna be really easy to introduce, since I won't have so much crap attached to my name. But you never know what might happen in 16 years [2].

The commencement speech was dull, the usual thing commencement speakers say, talking about the graduate's future, the uncertainty, the excitement blah blah blah. If I was the one giving a commencement speech (I have a feeling this blog post will be a basis for my never ever getting that chance), I'd probably talk less about hard work and more about passion. Hard work is nice, but it's passion, drive, energy that gets you places.

They have this new thing this year, where they don't have a valedictorian, salutatiorian, etc. Instead, they have people with "High Honors" (weighted average 1.50-1.20) and people with "Highest Honors" (weighted average 1.20-1.00) It's like the college system of cum laudes. Except it sucks. "Valedictorian" looks so much better on a resume than "Highest Honors", but if you're relying on high school accolades on your resume to land you a job, you probably won't get it anyway, so I guess it works out. Sort of.

Only teacher who recognized me there was good old Vlad. The guy's been teaching Econ for ten years! Well, okay maybe not. I heard he took time off to either take an MBA or go surfing in Hawaii, maybe both. But judging from the comments in the graduation speech, he still enjoys torturing the kids. Ma'am Serrano might have recognized me, but then again, she recognizes everybody.

The PSHS Gymnasium is an unforgiving boiling kettle of intolerable heat, especially during these hot summer days. I wonder if I will ever step foot in it again.

Edit: I'm a moron. I really was incoherent. I forgot I was going to talk about the ten years after part until I saw the title published on the page itself.

Anyway, yeah. Ten years. It's been ten years since I left Pisay to face the cruel world. And where am I now? No earth-shaking accomplishments yet? It's like when we were graduating, things were exciting, we were going out to conquer a brave new world! Maybe peng was right, ten years might just be too short to "Stand tall and shake the heavens" [3] At least, I haven't heard of anyone else in the batch stunning the world with their brilliance yet, so I guess I'm not behind, yet.

[1] first Pisay batch ever. They had a 5-year curriculum then.
[2] Figure it out.
[3](3 points for getting that reference)

6 comments:

btflpenguin said...

i've thought of some medyo-earthshaking things our batchmates have done: work for the human genome project, win a palanca award for poetry, participate in bb pilipinas beauty pageant, hmmm wala bang politiko na?

Unknown said...

Gosh! This brings back grad rites memories.
And the memory that I almost did not graduate from Pisay :|

I miss Vlad. He was one of the best teachers, ever! He was crazy but not too crazy. He was mean when it came to exams. But that was ok. He still rocked!

I haven't done anything earth-shaking yet. Well, there was Digital Pinay - I was one of the bloggers who had so much to say about it but that was about it. *laughs* Feeling ko tuloy wala akong nagawa!

a said...

I give up. Who has won a palanca award?

Hey Clair, the Digital Pinay thing was neat. Don't knock the power given by your ability to speak out on such things. Granted, the Digital Pinay thing was not much compared to the myriad troubles our country faces on a day-to-day basis, but it's a small step that shows how modern-day technology empowers simple individuals like you and me and allows us to affect the issues in our own small way. I wish I had an issue I could fight! =p

btflpenguin said...

marc gaba, poetry. hehe.

Anonymous said...

Wow! Marc Gaba won! Wonderful :)

As for the Digital Pinay thing -
I kinda am glad I did it, am kinda still freaked out that I did that. I mean, my name was all over the place. Not that people really bothered to look at my blog a lot but the word did spread.

Ah well. :) That is my being rash. At least something good came out of it ^_-

Have you read Sean's blog? hehehe. Prizes up for grabs ;) Aside from the fun of solcing the puzzle!

And when are you and Lorenz going to post a tanaga or two? ;)

btflpenguin said...

may tanaga ako! may tanaga ako! ang hirap at medyo wala syang kwenta pero meron akong gawa. san ko post? dito? kakahiya...