April 9, 1986, in the remote sugarcane farming town of President Roxas in the province of Capiz, another little boy was born. The parents, Edgar Sr. and Gretel were ecstatic because another angel was added to their budding family. The boy was a little overdue, quite overweight, had the same complexion as his father, and the face of his mother.
Three years after, the little boy, with eagerness, which was standing behind his mother, was feeling a mix of excitement and hesitation. He is now facing his first big leap to the real world - preschool. He faced the challenges in school alone for his parents need to work to provide the needs of their now big family. The little boy is now having a blast with his 5 more siblings who included 2 older brothers, one older sister, one little brother, and the latest addition to their family, his youngest sister. Preschool for him was just play and friends. It is there that he learned his first real prayers, learned to obey rules, and share his toys with people he is not related to by blood or kin. Six years was spent in that catholic school. It is where he started to create the self that highly affected his being now. The six years was full of catholic beliefs, gaining friends, loosing friends, learning new skills, showcasing talents, experiencing new things that a little kid could ever experience given the fact that he grew up in a rural catholic environment, and in some way, frustrations. These were his foundations.
After the years he spent in the catholic school, he had to be transferred to a local district elementary school not because his parents could no longer pay but because of the controversies in the honor roll in his class. His mother, a teacher, was furious after asking him what his class standing was. It was a complete mess. His grades were up by 2 to 3 points but he dropped from ranking third to eighth. How in the hell that happened? His mother asked. It was the first time his mother went to the school to ask about her son’s scholastic standing and the reason why her son dropped from the upper rank down. It was then decided that I should transfer for the competition in the school was not intelligence but wealth.
The first year in the public school was a little stressful for the boy; he had to leave his friends that have been with him for six years and start the process of gaining and loosing friends again. Three-quarters of the class was all alien to him. The remaining quarter was his schoolmates in the catholic school who also transferred due to the same reasons. It was a rollercoaster for him, expectations was set so high that he almost choked to it. But he got by for three years, graduating as the third honors with hopes high and expectations were raised.
Before high school, he was anxious, sad, happy, and excited when he learned that he got accepted in a prestigious public high school in the city which was about an hour away from his modest but eerie municipality. He was the only one who went there and most of his friends were left behind enrolled in a semi-private school in our community where all his family graduated. He felt a little proud because he was the first in the family to be accepted in such a prestigious school. Another perk is that he had experienced how it was to live with urbanity, independence, and confidence that he if he could survive this, he will survive everything. His high school was a combination of work and play. He went to school every day learning anything from basic economics to brain exhausting analytical chemistry. Living with his sister and a cousin, he learned a lot of responsibilities where some of which he failed. He was young, curious, explorative, and adventure seeking. He danced as a past time, hung out with friends to keep him sane, and of course coped with academic pressure by experimenting with smoking and alcohol. The academic pressure was so high that he is constantly out every weekend just to forget about it even just for a short period of time.
The way he coped with pressure took a toll on his academic life, after 2 years of brain breaking years as a special science high school student at the same time a dancer and a health nut. His grades suffered that the school was left with no choice but to remove him in the program and reenrolled as a regular student in his junior and senior year. This removal in the program made a big change in his life. He started to feel as if high school was very easy. He got bored with his classes because there were no novel things to learn. The lectures were a repeat of what he learned in 2 years. Instead of mathematics, he concentrated in dancing, instead of mathematics and physics, he dealt with school politics. He was thinking that these were more exciting than academics. He learned a lot of new things than the complete repetition of what he learned in his first two years in high school. He got bored, so he turned to activities that will surely give him novel and exciting things.
Then college came, again he had the opportunity to be accepted in the premiere state university where he was again caught off guard with the immensity of work and catching up to do because of his slacked off behavior in his last two years in high school. He then again coped with cigarettes and alcohol. Because he is now residing near the city, which is a more metropolitan city he used to live in, he was back again to his partying days and hang out time with his new found friends. The work load almost tossed him on the edge and added to the dismay of his very loving parents. He started to hate them thinking they do not understand the added pressure they have given. They encouraged me to enroll in this university with an expectation to not only graduate on time but to but graduate with honors. Who in the right mind would entail their son such a humungous responsibility? He was even encouraged to the point of pushed to try and enroll in a prestigious law school. UP law school perhaps? His mother added. As a typical adolescent, he rebelled with ardor. He reasoned with passion. All he wanted to do was look and experience novel things that will fuel his curiosity that he thinks will make him happy.
It was then decided by his parents that he need some time off the pressures of university and to recuperate from his now chronic gastritis that was due to his mismanagement of time and toxic lifestyle. Due to frustration and anger, after recuperating, he then turned to alcohol as a respite. After two months of self pity and trying to look for people to blame, he realized it was not their fault, it was his. Because of the constant fight with his mother and his father still being apathetic, he decided to exile himself and went away. The exile gave him a chance to look back and assess his life. There he learned independence in a new level. Pride made him decide to be independent. He looked for work, earned a living and decided that this lifestyle gives him the constant novelty he was looking for. He started to work as a writer in a local publication in Palawan but later realized that he is being abused, he is being paid less than the minimum but forced himself to work more than the usual. That took a toll on his health that made him look for a more conventional but less novel work, which is tutorial. He rekindled with his old passion, being a health nut and swimming. This affected his smoking and alcohol intake.
After a year, he went back to the university and coped easily. The first semester was full of focus and determination. He was full of passion; he attended classes studiously, but ended up feeling upset because he didn’t get high grades. That made him think that no matter how he pushed himself to excel academically, he will end up being mediocre. Regardless of how he pushed himself, he got mediocre grades. Damn, that really disappointed him and his parents. Due to this, he left home to become independent again. Not only being physically independent but also financially. He applied for work, got accepted and worked his ass almost every day to make ends meet. This gave him the novelty he was looking for. He could now pay his tuition on his own and earn the money for his allowance. The excitement he was looking for, but due to lack of sense of control, he struggled financially. He mismanaged his expenses that put him to debt. He had no choice but to look for a second job to pay for what he owed for. After three months of back breaking, tonsil erupting, and sleepless night’s work, he was no longer indebted. After that, he learned to manage his finances quite okay but sometimes has little slips because he thinks he deserves a little money for himself.
Still hoping to manage life with more control on his own, I bet there will be more ups and downs. But there is one thing he learned from his life that is, no matter how hard he fall, he would help himself to get up and start all over again.
