The Sophomore Year (1970-71)

Three Dog Night - Joy to the World (1970)

Second year was a turbulent time for me -- emotionally, mentally, socially -- it was one big angst-ridden rollercoaster. Aside from having to cope with the hormonal imbalance generated by adolescence, there were all sorts of upheavals happening all around me.

Following my frenzied extra-curricular involvement during the previous year, I remember feeling a sense of rejection from my classmates. This despite what I thought was a terrific year for our class in terms of accomplishments. Perhaps it was during this time that I started to become sensitized to the ill feelings of my classmates to me because of my overweening pride.

I began to see subtle evidences of rejection and ostracism, especially from those outside the Star Section. I lost in my bid for re-election in the Sophomore Council (or was it that I didn't even campaign because I knew I hadn't a chance?) Regardless, not being in the council was to me the ultimate repudiation of my abilities. Well, I seem to remember thinking, if you don't want me, then I renounce my involvement and let's see what you can do. That year, I completely withdrew from involvement in student organizations. That's why I don't have any pictures in the organizations in the yearbook.

I withdrew to nurse my wounded pride. Ironically, this was also the time when my creative writing flowered. I poured out my anguished emotions into writing poetry and produced several notebooks filled with dark and foreboding verses. Little did I know that my writings would become instrumental later on in winning the favors of my girlfriend-to-be.

Unfortunately for me, all my cockiness during the first year was not only noticed, but apparently resented by the upperclassmen. Shortly after Cristy died of cassava poisoning, one morning I found my carefully tended pechay plants trampled and all but ruined. Someone had decided to conduct marching maneuvers all over my garden plot (I think after the pig died we were put on the farm, so to speak.) We each had a plot where we were supposed to plant pechay or mustasa. I remember I had very nice looking and healthy plants, which probably also further incensed whoever it was who trampled them.

So it was a pretty bleak morning when I surveyed those poor pechay, reduced to broken stems and tattered leaves. It was my first taste of injustice and impotent rage. I almost cried right then and there. Not for the pechay, mind you, but perhaps for the loss of innocence. I realize now that this was a defining moment of my high school years because it was then that I began to realize that it did not really pay to be an achiever, or to be too proud of one's accomplishments. I began to be more circumspect from then on and dimmed my public visibility.

Part of this circumspection was to confine my circle of friendship to a limited few -- specifically to my barkada within the Star Section. This was the time that my friendship with Senen, Pone and Mon started -- a friendship which has endured over the years and remains strong up to the present. I don't quite recall how it was that we came together, but I remember we used to spend lazy afternoons after class hanging out in the Pagoda sharing jokes, dreams, frustrations, wacky philosophical debates and all sorts of crazy schemes.

The fact that the Pagoda had a wonderful view of the corridor between the 2nd and 3rd Pavs had absolutely nothing to do with our preference for this particular hang-out (yeah, right). From the Pagoda we could also see the girls who were being fetched, especially those who were rich enough to have cars. The Pagoda was a great place to hang out -- and the best way to do this was to sit on the backrest of the bench rather than on the seat itself. I never could figure out why. And so, the seat of the bench was usually dusty or muddy, but the top of the ledge was clean as a whistle.

Out of these 'sessions' was born the 'GOP' -- short for 'The Grand Order of the Peers'. This was my 'barkada' and provided the acceptance and support that I sorely needed during that difficult year. We spent long hours discussing and debating about all sorts of unbelievable subjects. And from these were hatched hare-brained schemes on projects that we could work on.

One of our very first projects had to do with helping out Mon who was always late coming to class in the morning. We reasoned that this was because the bell in the Principal's office was too punctual. If we could somehow make the bell sound later, then Mon would even be able to beat it coming in. The problem was the clock which was the reference for the bell was in the office just outside the room of Mrs. Pineda. She was always in her room during the day, and so the only way we could reset the clock was going to be after office hours when the staff would have gone. The trick was to implement diversionary tactics so that no one would notice that the clock was being reset.

Mon Sicam was assigned to talk to Mrs. Pineda about some inane subject in her office so that she would not get out of the room. Senen and I were to take care of the janitors who would be cleaning up for the day. We decided to cajole Mang Jose and Mr. Tolentino (who probably had a feeling that something was up and refused to go home early that day!) into sharing some snacks with us, i.e., greasy peanuts and camote washed down with milk. Their stomachs refused to rumble (must have been made of iron), and we were taking an awfully long time. Mon was already running low on inane topics to discuss with Mrs. Pineda. and was frantically signalling us to hurry. At this point, Mr. Tolentino finally decided to go and that left only Mang Jose. Through sheer persistence, we were finally able to lure him away from the office. This enabled Pone to sneak in and adjust the clock. Whew! Mission accomplished!

And so was there a happy ending? Not quite. After the office clock was adjusted, Mon adjusted his body clock as well after only a few days and started caming in late again! We gave up. We never bothered to find out if they readjusted the clock.

Another memorable project of the GOP was the humongous black locker. As part of the course requirements for Practical Arts, we were supposed to submit a woodworking project. We persuaded Mr. Diaz to allow us to build our own locker. This was not going to be an ordinary one, but would be twice the size and would be all black with the GOP logo on its face. I don't remember the reason, but Egay Manaois joined us on this project. It probably had to do with the cost involved. This was a bit tricky because there were only 4 lockers that we planned to build, so what to do with Egay? Well, the problem resolved itself because one of the lockers ended up to be slightly bigger than the other 3! And so this was shared between myself and Egay.

Another major accomplishment was our molecular model in Chemistry. Rather than just make the usual simple molecule like water (H2O) or carbon dioxide (CO2), we built a huge chlorophyll molecule which required the entire desk at the Chemistry Room to stand in! This predilection for grand projects was to be a hallmark of the GOP all the way to our Senior year.

Considering I was socially deprived of female company during all of my elementary days, I became very much interested in girls. Of course there were the usual vicarious thrills of BTS and PIC (Playboy was at that time the Holy Grail of teenaged voyeurs), but these gave only temporary satisfaction at best, and an uncomfortable 'puson' at worst. After all, there are limits to the imagination...

And so the next best thing was a real, live girl. Not that I could actually work out my fantasies with them! But I was intrigued with the stimulating intellectual challenge of being able to have a 'syota' for the first time in my life.

The girls of Homeroom II-33 under Mrs. Ganaden were a curious bunch. There were about 5 or 6 cliques or gangs, each with its own distinctive idiosyncracies. There were the 'aktibistas' (Guy, Mo. Richie, etc.), the silent types (Janet, Alma Eloisa, Edna, etc), the sosyal gang (Ditas, Maru, Peewee), and the studious types (I remember the group of Je-el, Ruth, Beth and Corinna took the best notes in class, but I can't recall ever having been allowed to borrow or copy them.). The love of my life never really attached permanently to a particular grouping and so I was free to pursue my initial attempts at courtship without the hassle of having to contend with a gaggle of nosy female kabarkada making pakialam. While this started out in 2nd year, it was only in our Junior year that it really became serious.

As a result of the nature of my peer group, as well as my interest in the opposite sex, I was completely apathetic to the social upheavals happening all around. Student activism was blazing all over the campus, and even UPHigh's walls got its fair share of newspapers splashed with red paint. It's not that I was against what the students were fighting for, I was simply not interested. Naturally, the student activists regarded us with disdain, but we simply couldn't care less.

Matters came to a head during the Diliman Uprising, which led to the establishment of the Diliman Commune (or was it the Republic of Diliman?). On the first day of the uprising, I happened to take the bus and when we reached Philcoa, I was surprised to hear the bus driver say "hanggang dito na lang"! Buses were not allowed into the campus and so I had to walk from Philcoa all the way to Katipunan.

The students manning the barricades had commandeered cement drainage pipes and all sorts of wood and rocks to effectively block the roads. I remember seeing, as I passed through the barricade, a whole line of molotov cocktails and pillboxes stashed at the back. The experience was strangely exhilarating, but this was the sum total of my 'involvement'. Classes were suspended and I had to stay home and follow the events through the newscasts and radio coverage.

During the second year, now that we were more experienced about our surroundings, we started venturing to the other areas near and around UPHigh. Occassionally we used to take lunch at Narra Residence Hall, which was just across the road. Lunch was P2.50 and included a soup, a meat or fish viand, some vegetables, rice and a banana. At this price it was slightly more expensive than eating lunch at the Multi, but it was a treat because of the vastly better ambience. The only trouble was that the canteen operators had this thing about recycling leftovers. Towards the end of the week, some of the viands had gone through a couple of makeovers or transformations. The meat dish of say, Monday, came back as another dish on Wednesday -- different trimmings, for instance. If it remained unsold up to Thursday, for sure it would become Friday's soup. Based on our pedestrian standards, however, these were gourmet treats.

Or, we would go all the way to the Vendo machines at the side of the Main Library. Here hot and cold sandwiches, and iced softdrinks were dispensed by huge Vendo machines which seemed to me perpetually breaking down. No matter that the sandwiches were cleverly constructed to appear filled with huge slices of salami or whatever (they made the slice of filling overflow the edge of the bread and folded it down, thus seeming quite thick at first glance). Aside from the deceptive presentation, the sandwiches were pretty tasteless. But it was the experience of walking inside the Main Campus which made it worthwhile.

Our Sophomore year was also marked by Typhoon Yoling, which was a real howler that literally blew the roofs off houses. (Pone's house in the campus had the whole roof flying away!) The first and second pavilions were devastated, as well as the library. I remember coming in the following morning and looking at the aftermath of the storm's fury. Big sections of the roof had gone. Papers and books were drenched and scattered. The big trees between the pavilions were broken like matchsticks. It was a mess.

As I was looking at the scene of the destruction, I think it was at this point that I realized that I was starting to love this old school. I can't explain why I felt this way, but my feelings of despondency over having to leave San Beda vanished and I began to really appreciate what a good school UPHigh was, pala. That change in perspective opened my eyes and marked the time when I started to really enjoy high school. From then on, it was really great.

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To be continued ... Third Year!
Back to Sophomore Year