Changes

Little did I know that moving to Manila was going to be one of the biggest changes in my life.

Back in Laguna, I was never really sent to a big school. My mother was actually my first teacher. As I grew older, my parents hired private tutors such as Maestro Celestino, Maestro Lucas Padua and Leon Monroy to impart their knowledge on me. When Leon Monroy passed away, however, my parents decided that it was probably the right time for me to be sent to a private school in Binan, Laguna. Paciano, my older brother, accompanied me to my aunt's house in Binan where I would stay as I studied there.

In that school in Binan, I was taught by Justiniano Aquino Cruz. Since my classmates often picked on me for getting high grades in Spanish, Latin and other subjects, I was often punished by our teacher who turns out to be a very strict disciplinarian. They would even make up stories just to get me punished! Pedro, my teacher's son, was the class bully and he ALWAYS picked on me. Can I help it if I was actually shining more than him in his own father's class?

When I was eleven years old, my father decided to send me to Manila to study there. He initially wanted me to enter Letran, but I ended up studying in the Ateneo Municipal. It was situated inside Intramuros, the Walled City. Growing up around green mountains and grassy fields, the stone walls of Intramuros came as a shock to me. It was a little gloomy, but a new environment couldn't hurt, right?

On my first day in the Ateneo, I saw that my classmates aren't Filipinos like me. Most of them are Peninsulares or the sons of Peninsulares. My professor was Fr. Jose Bech, a Jesuit priest who was kind of a lunatic because of his mood swings and weird humor.

Being a newcomer, I had to sit at the back of the classroom. I learned that you only move to the front row when you earn merit for doing well in class. We had this game back then, wherein we were separated into two groups: The Roman Empire and the Carthagenian Empire. We were at war with each other, and if we win a "war" we earn points so that we could move to the rank of the Emperor.

As I sat on my chair at the back of the classroom, I felt how determined I was to prove myself that even non-Peninsulares people could achieve what they have also achieved. After all, my mother and tutors have trained me well. I cannot wait to be the Emperor! We shall see in a few months, all right?


PC Magnaye
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