Things that happened to me throughout the day had mostly to do with my organization, Hilites Magazine. Aside from being Recognition and OSA Awards day, today is also the last org session. All three had something to do with orgs, basically.

So here’s some of my classmates and I with our loyalty award medals, with our principal.

Then here’s me with my editor-in-chief, Bill, and associate editor, Toff, with our gold activity medals. I won the same medal too, last year.

Even though I was deemed disqualified by the ‘decision-makers’ to receive the Magis trophy, I really feel grateful enough already that I was nominated by my moderator to receive the award. Really. As long as I know that what I’ve tried to be in my four years in the high school has been appreciated by my mentors, even though there aren’t any physical award for all of them collectively, I’m more than content. Seriously.

During org period, our moderator gave a dramatic year-end speech that, well, moved some of us. I won’t go on to the sensitive details, but I just want to note down, my Hilites moderator is the teacher I’d remember and miss the most after I leave the high school. (Hm, if I’d remember her, why do I need to note it down?)

Ah, I’m going to miss being a part of the school magazine. Especially since I’ve poured a lot of myself in it for the past four years.

After dismissal, there was the annual OSA (formerly OSO) Awards or the Teddies. Hilites Magazine won the teddy for best in teamwork. Woohoo. I get to keep one of the teddies awarded. Hehe.

Over-all, it has been a very fulfilling and rewarding day. I got to realize even more that there are so many high school Ateneans who are brilliant, smart, and socially-concerned. The recognition day ceremonies lasted for hours because the school had to recognize hundreds of Ateneans who have won national and international competitions! Maybe the reason why I’ve been quite cynical as to how I generalize my Ateneans peers, is because I got myself restricted too much to the confinements of my classmates. Not that it’s bad, but I’ve always wondered if I wasn’t part of my quite-sometimes-apathetic class, would have I been more active in the student council or whatnot? (Because, I’ve always hesitated, thinking I’d stick out like a sore thumb, be recognized as mayabang or an over-achiever.) Would I see Ateneans differently?

There is so much promise and hope in the many brilliant and socially-concered Ateneans. These math, biology, chemistry, baseball, swimming , debate (etc. etc) national and international champions — I just hope they don’t participate in the braindrain of the Philippines. I hope that these same hundreds of Ateneans who got recognition today, will be of good use to the country. We don’t need any more Jose Velardes and Jose Pidal Ateneans. We could use so much more of the opposite. There are a lot, kahit mukang minority at losers lang ang ilan sa kanila.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 18th, 2004 at 10:04 pm and is filed under High School . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.