So, High School?

When did our classroom become this small? When did I get so big? Just how much have we grown?

When I was in high school, the classroom looked just right, enough to fit the 30-plus population of our section. It was even too big for my classmates and me to play around, lie down on the floor, and spread our chairs for who knows how wide just so we can have our big space to hang out in the center. It was also too big that when the cleaning duties are brought up, everyone starts to point fingers at who will be the ones left to clean. Yet looking back, our classroom isn’t something grand; it’s just a room where every section of every other batch comes and goes.

The students were the ones who made it special and big, to fit them and their memories, as they shared the room for a year, at a fleeting moment.

The chairs back then were also small and rusty, but still looked fine for a student to sit in, store some stuff on, write some notes, and sleep on the armchair. Now, it seems like it may break apart with the slightest touch. The seating arrangements also look very different from before, but maybe there was nothing much different, just that the high school us were not the ones sitting on the chairs there anymore.

The windows, too, and the doors, thinking about it now, were made simply so that the light and air may come in and out of the room, but to the silly little minds of the students, the windows and the doors made them excited.

The sight outside the window will define the mood of the class. If the sun is high up, it will be too hot outside, if the weather is just right, it will be perfect to hang out by the nipa hut, and if the rain is pouring, there is a possibility of class suspension where everyone can go home and take a break from school. Meanwhile, the door is like the starting and ending point of a racetrack, because when the bell starts to ring, the students either race to be the first to go out for break time or race to go inside before the teacher comes in for the next class.

Then there are the corridors too, where there are usually signs of “no running,” or “keep quiet, classes are ongoing,” which the students do not usually follow. The corridors are where all the fun stuff happens. It is where you meet your friend from the other section and hang out in your free time, since it’s closest to the classroom. It is also where you start to line up for a flag ceremony, and so all sorts of commotion happen. Then, for naughty students, it is where they are kicked out to lie low and reflect on their wrongdoings, or sneak in their mischievous acts.

The people, the smell, the food, the ambiance, the rooms, and the hallways. No one can ever fully understand and realize how many memories a place carries unless they are the ones who lived it.

To students, a school is not just any educational institution; it is what was once their second home, their escape, their place to hang out with classmates and friends, and the school grounds that welcomed them on their first little steps, onto bigger strides of their own. It is where they probably met their first love, their first friends, embraced as a family, shaped their passion, recognized their skills, built their character, and curated a piece of life’s puzzle.

It was not long since I graduated from high school. The time I had spent studying in high school is still longer than the time I spent away from it, and so, every piece of it still lingers.

My high school seems familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. It seems far, but not too far, as I still held it close. All else was the same, but they looked different, Or maybe it was my perspective that looked at them differently.

Well, seems right because I guess my high school self will not be able to recognize my current college self, either.

I have already outgrown the same space I once fit my whole self in.

And thus, to know that we are not the same students we once were is sad, nostalgic, and beautiful. But most of all, it is something to be proud of.