P.S. -- May 27, 2012

P.S. -- May 27, 2012

           It’s a little after five in the afternoon and I decide to go home to rest before continuing my article. As I leave the office however, huge drops of rain start to volley and I run to the Student Center to take shelter. I spot my classmates seated on a bench and I join them. Then I see they’ve got company: Melody and Leila. Melody’s face immediately lights up and just like that, she runs to me and I instinctively crouch to hug her. After a few moments, when we seemed to have gathered our wits about us, I bring her down.  She runs back to the bench where they were seated and just smiles at me, never saying a word.

Melody’s Welcome

            Melody is the daughter of Sir Doms, our teacher in two major subjects. She is only in Grade 1 and so her classes are held only in the morning. Some afternoons she joins our class and brings with her her crayons, book, drawings, or anything she likes. She plays around the room while we are lecturing. She is especially close to Aira, my seatmate, which is why on some days, we find ourselves playing with her than listening to her father.

            I play with her at times but we are not that close really.  We are too much alike. Melody is essentially shy in front of strangers, and a similar shyness like mine doesn’t get us farther than our playtime. Today, however, she hugged me. She embraced me like I was someone she truly missed.

 A Brush with Fame

            I have been shoved to the limelight these past few days. A hundred or more likes on each of the two photos I not-so-humbly posted on Facebook, a hundred other congratulatory messages and greetings from friends and acquaintances, and a tarpaulin on one side of our university skywalk ensured me more than a week of local fame. Suddenly, I was more than just someone on the dean’s list – I was now a professional, and a regional topnotcher at that.

            I sure didn’t mind. For someone who rarely posts pictures of herself on Facebook unless it was a tag from friends, those two posts were a departure from the normal, but certainly not unwelcome. I kind of liked being on the map for a few days. I even spent my time on a whole other article indulging my own pride, rationalizing why I even needed to indulge it. Because, I reasoned out, not everyone is lucky enough to have a tarpaulin to their name. Not everyone gets the chance to take a test manages to top it too. And certainly not everyone who takes the test passes it.

            By all accounts, these were valid reasons. When I took the test, I wasn’t truly prepared as I assumed the others were. I had only reviewed for two days before the exam. And we’re only talking of minutes here, the 30 minutes or so it took me to solve ten or twenty word problems painstakingly, because I had the colds and the cough after that. And that was only on Math because with my sickness I knew that I could not review on the other areas covered by the exam. Also, whenever I computed my rating, it would consistently fall on the borderline 80%.

            So I took the exam with literally two things only: my wits and nerve. Not a bad combination if I was applying for Survivor Philippines, but the thing is, it was a government position I was prospectively applying for, and I was unprepared. I left the rest to luck, and God.

            When I told my mother I passed, but that I thought it was only a minimum rating, she shrugged off my worries and reassured me that I passed anyway. I couldn’t remember anymore what her reaction was when I told her I topped the exam. From that day on, my mind was in a flurry of festive colors.

            The news that I topped the exam came as a pleasant surprise after two semesters of disappointment. I somehow live a life measured by numbers disguised as grades, and my performance is assessed by its slope. The last two semesters saw me on a downward spiral, still pretty well by other standards, but an all-time low according to mine. I knew that it was probably only a phase I was going through, to teach me again to see myself through others’ eyes and realize the joy that an ordinary student would feel if my grades were hers. But still, I was feeling pretty low. Nothing spells failure than losing in your own territory.

            So when I learned about the good news, I allowed myself a small shriek, and of course, a few splashes of vanity here and there. Nothing spells triumph than being stripped bare of everything but your only gift, and finding that you can measure up after all.

Re-writing Smugness

            I write this in response to a previous write-up on the same subject, which, thankfully, you will never get to read. That article, I’m afraid, is too matter-of-fact, too cold, too objective, but also deceptively, too full of itself. Because it is easy after all to fall into a delusion. The only thing is that a big head doesn’t look well on a small frame. It violates the law of proportion.

            When I went home with the conscious purpose of clearing my system, I had unconsciously expected fanfare where there was none. I imagined that when I got home, there would be a feast, and our dinner table would be laden with crab, shrimp, or squid, my favorite seafood. No such thing, however. The only thing my mother allowed me as a treat was a can of Argentina corned beef. Even Gwen, my two-year-old cousin, acted no differently (not that I expected her to). When she visited our house, she again followed me wherever I was, like a faithful puppy following its master. But when she found more interesting playmates outside our house, she didn’t even say goodbye. Life is, indeed, cuttingly eloquent.

            R once told me he admired me because of my incredible capacity to outdo myself, and the idea that I’m flawed at the same time. The first reason is a pressure cooker of expectations that I’d gladly fulfil if I’m equal to it, but oh, the cushion that the second reason provides! I did outdo myself this time, shockingly, but I can’t do it every single time. That’s why I needed to savor it while still there. I needed to feel proud, so I can laugh at myself again.

A Word, Before We Go On

            I used to think about what really happened that 27th day of May. Maybe there was something in the way I woke up early, or the way the proctor looked at me as if I had somehow wandered into the wrong room (she probably thought I was headed to the church, or to the clinic at the very least because I was coughing furiously), or the way I stumbled over a little puddle when I was about to enter the church after the exam, grazed my knee and stained my white pants, or the way I slept like a baby when I was back in the boarding house. Or maybe there was nothing at all there. And maybe I don’t really want to know. It takes the thrill off of things.

            The rain has stopped now and Melody has already gone home with her father. I pack up my things and start to walk towards my boarding house. As I near the gate, a classmate, who has probably only got the chance to approach me now, congratulates me on my tarpaulin, or my achievement, or both. I don’t know which. He says he hopes to see my name soon on tarps, on paper, on TV, or on the next book he’ll read. I smile back and thank him. Melody’s embrace still feels warmer on my skin.

            At the Independencia gate of our university, MCH vehicles line up to ferry students back to wherever they go after school. I cross the street and go home.