Sophomore Year

Sometime around sophomore year, three girls from the batch ahead of us took their own lives. Two of them were friends, and died together. One of them was named Joy, and the other I believe was Belinda. The third was Lizanne Powell. May they rest in peace. I do not remember how far apart the suicides were, except that it happened all in the same year, and it shook up the whole school. Never before had this happened, in my life at Assumption, and mercifully, never again. What happened next is that suddenly, the nuns became more visible. We still had a lay Religion teacher, this year it was Mrs. Batacan.

In spite of this, sophomore year sticks out in my head as perhaps the most fun, easy-going year of high school. Our classes were still relatively simple, compared to the next year and the final year. Our schedule seemed looser, and there just seemed to be more opportunity for adventure and mischief.

For Algebra, we had Mrs. Viloria. And I discovered I loved math even more than I already did. Yes, I am strange. I cannot remember the name of our Biology teacher other than that Karina Galang and I disliked her so much. The tragedy was that Bio is such an interesting subject, and could have been much more so, had it been taught to us properly. Lab class was fun though, because of Karina. Never have I seen excellent dissecting and comedic skills combined in one person. We also benefited from the healthy and fine specimens of frogs and pig innards from their family farm. :)

Speaking of comedy: on the first day of 2nd year, who should we find in our classroom but Miss Cristina Concepcion. It seemed that she and her friends were being split up by the higher authorities. Miss Cricket did not look very happy to be in Section 7. She took one look at us heathens, made irap, gathered up her stuff, and left in a huff. Soon as she was gone, we all broke out in laughter. Apparently, Miss Cricket had friends even higher than the higher authorities, because she was back in Section 3 in two minutes flat. For now. One day, she would be back. No kidding.

Karina was our vice president. Some shifting of girls occurred this year, we gained some and we lost some. Now we had Didi Manahan, Gigi Anido, and Mabeth Webb. We lost at least Melissa Maio, Maby Sandoval and I believe Anggot. I really liked our class. We had some of the funniest girls: Bea Montilla and the songs she invented; Tina Fineza and her antics (remember when she wore an ENTIRE pack of Goody clips on her head?); Karina Galang herself and her super Pinoy expressions (Sampal!); Cindy Dominguez and her John Travolta thing. Sure, we all had our own little groups, that even included girls from other sections, but it seemed that for the most part, we all liked each other and we mostly got along. We also had an unwritten rule where everyone else tried to include every one else in everything (party girls pulled the shy girls to come to the dances; smart girls shared their notes with the ones who did not even have notebooks, that kind of thing!) I loved this about our class, something that we managed to carry on throughout high school.

I cannot remember the name of our history teacher (Miss Boquiren?), other than that she taught us EPCR (Economic, Political, Cultural & Religious). She always wanted us to analyze cultures and civilizations using those 4 factors. I still find that so useful to this day. We also came up with the most hilarious skits and presentations. That’s where I discovered that the quiet girls could be quite funny: Janice Muyargas, Mariel Recto, Rory Ocampo, among others. For Pilipino, I believe we had Miss Paredes. I never struggled as hard in this class, with Florante at Laura. I cannot remember who taught us English.

On the other hand, I will never forget the Sewing Teacher: Mrs. Balbina Tapay. We had to use sewing machines again, and this time we had to make a blouse from scratch, including the pattern. Worse, class had to be conducted in Tagalog. I can still see clearly in my head the day she taught us how to draw the patterns. She got to the darts for the bustline, and was teaching us how to measure: “Utong hanggang sa utong.” I will spare you from whipping out your Tagalog dictionary and translate: “Nipple to nipple.” The English was outrageous enough, did we really have to learn it in Tagalog? We also never quite figured out why the sewing room had this ammonia-like stinky smell. Most of us were just glad to be done with making our own clothes forever after that year. Thank you God, for Barney’s, Bergdorf’s and Banana Republic.

We also had Mrs. Carreon for baking, a class that everyone looks forward to when they get to high school. Not only was it a fun and yummy class, Mrs. Carreon was just such a delightful teacher, and who can forget “No neeeebling”? And the only hazard to perfectly manicured nails was Mrs. Batacan’s typing class. But aren’t you glad for it now? Little did we know the personal computing revolution was just a few years down the road and typing would prove to be an invaluable skill.

Our retreat this year was in Silang, Cavite. We managed to do many irreverent and unholy things during this little escape, but they should remain forever secret.

Towards the end of the year, we had a class night at White Sands, thanks to Didi and family. The Towers (Gigi, Janine, Mabeth) all had vans so we rode some of those. Rina took her black family car, con todo driver, Toni took her mom Tita Manette and sister Ana along. The other moms who came were Tita Nening Manahan, Tita Sarah Anido, and Mabeth’s mom. I can’t remember if there were any more parental units. THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN. Plus, we managed to come back home to Manila in one piece, safe, happy and nicely tanned. I still have pictures (see Sec 7 website.) Don’t worry, we were all thin back then, bikini bodies and all. Really.

After class night, some of us went to our first prom, La Salle’s junior prom. Karen Montenegro has the pictures, and to this day, she won’t tell me how she got those. Sometime that year, I also got my first suitor. No, he did not become my boyfriend. I turned him down (and he went and got himself another girlfriend the very next day, go figure.)

This year, our partying was in full swing. We probably organized one a month, our PRO was very busy. Janine, that was you, right? The other sections also had their filled-up party schedules, and we were very good with coordinating so we didn’t have them all the same night. Thus, if you wanted to, you could find a party to go to every weekend. But, I didn’t. I stuck to my parents’ rule of ONE PARTY PER MONTH. I was so good, I complied. I never made takas. Really.

I don’t know why anymore but on a certain day of the week, we got dismissed early, while other years still had class, leaving about two more hours or so before you got to go home with your carpool or bus. This left a lot of time for us sophomores to explore Makati Commercial Center. I can’t even count how many movies we watched (in uniform, lying flat on the floor, in the very first row, with Birdhouse pizza boxes in tow) or how many times we made ronda around Quad: window shopping and playing games in the carpark. We weren’t supposed to be roving in our uniforms, but we did anyway. We were nicely behaved in public most of the time. Really.

Okay, here is something naughty but funny that we did in 2^nd year. Whoever remembers whose house was the “scene” of the crime, keep it to yourselves, please DO NOT post the name anywhere. We do not want to embarrass anyone, plus we are ALL equally guilty. A bunch of us were off somewhere one afternoon, at someone’s house. Someone had a forbidden Betamax tape. We all piled in front of the Betamax and started the tape. Some of us were so shocked, that we started weeping (really!) Some of us, and that includes moi, started laughing like hyenas. And some of us, were watching AVIDLY! And then, a few minutes into the film, like judgment from up above, BROWNOUT!!!!!! Omaygad! We were going to get caught! How were we supposed to get the evidence out of the Betamax? Lintak na Meralco yan! So we all ran out of the house, giggling and nervous at the same time. (Okay, we were pathetic!) But, our host was so cool: she calmly called her house back, spoke to the maid and said: Pag balik ng koryente, paki-eject yung tape sa Betamax, tapos itago mo. Whew! Safe! I somehow managed to not get into trouble for the very few naughty things I was actually guilty of in high school. Really.

I probably did the most sleep overs in 2^nd year high school. Spent so much time at Toni’s house that I learned to make cheese omelets from her mom! And only at their house did I get to swim with giant blocks of ice at the bottom of the pool when it got too hot. Spent a lot of time at Nana’s house, with most of the fun from running away from her gazillion dogs and watching her eat catsup with EVERYTHING, while she watched me drown myself in Coca-Cola. At Nana’s, I actually met a family that literally prayed together every night, (and that is why they stayed together!) Hey Eusebio family, I really appreciate that, inviting me to pray with you at night. Spent a lot of time at Mimie’s house, playing with make-up and figuring out ways to get more Shower to Shower powder from the Rotary Exchange student living with them then.

So sophomore year was nice and easy, other than the tragedies of the three girls. I never forgot those girls. I don’t know why they decided to end it all. I only know that I decided I just wanted to be nice to people as much as I could.

We were learning to be more social with boys. We were making new friends, renewing old friendships. Most of my friends in sophomore year are still my friends to this day. We had eased into high school life quite nicely. It was actually just the calm before the storm.