Turning point

From the looks of this grainy picture, you can tell this was a long time ago. d: More than a decade ago, to be exact. Freshman year. In the new high school building up in the mountains of Antipolo. I have in my hand a glass of what I'm assuming to be iced tea. My staple recess for all four years of high school. A glass of iced tea and two doughnuts—one Nutty Chocolate and one Chocolate Butternut (My all-time favorite doughnut. Dunkin Donuts the best! What Krispy Kreme?). I guess all that sugar is now manifesting itself by way of my jiggly stomach and thunder thighs. =))

I remember so many things when I look at this picture. My hairstyle: hair tied into a half-ponytail because my hair was buhaghag (still is). My too-big-for-me Tag Heuer watch that I forced my mom to give to me (she eventually got it back when they gave me another watch, which I thought was nicer—now I have three watches, but I still use that watch because I think it's the nicest). My standard pearl earrings, which I've contemplated on changing (just switched for slightly bigger ones in college) because some people have this superstition that you're going to stay single when you wear pearls (hello, saan nanggaling yon?), but 10 years down the line, I still wear pearls. Oh, and yeah, I'm still single. Haha. Money in my sailor blouse pocket, which was always filled with odds and ends. All of which would scatter to the floor when I was rushing to get to the line outside our classroom right after the bell rang.

"Best Days" was our high school anthem and to this day, I still think of those four years as the best. I met my lifelong friends and discovered my three loves in high school: baking, dancing, and writing. I used to sell my Maple Vermont Walnut bars at food sales (shortened periods! long recess!). Danced to Michael Jackson's "Rock with You" in my first year of high school for the high school dance. Got my poem published in a book before I graduated.

How nice it is to still get to live part of that life when I'm at work. (: