They walked these hallowed halls

Wil and I decided to revisit Jubilee today after my unproductive morning of waiting incessantly for nothing in Fully Booked, Gateway. So much for manipulative serendipity. =(

As we arrived, we noticed that security got tighter. We had to have a purpose of visiting just to enter the campus, so we told the officer in charge (whatever happened to Georgette?) that we came to see Mrs. Yan. The OIC however directed us to Mrs. De Guzman. WTF.

Anyway, we took the opportunity to chat with the teachers and the staff. Some, we looked forward talking to, and some, ummm.. let’s just say that we enjoyed the company nonetheless.

Mrs. Raymundo, our grade one Filipino teacher, now holds an executive position. I reminded her of the time when she used to punish me every day at lunch by letting me squat. This wasn’t an exaggeration.

Ms. Ordinario, whom Jim, Dodong and I met again in February, is still the same. Again I teased her about wanting to teach Statistics (she taught us Geometry and Stat in our sophomore and junior year), and Wilson reminded her that “didn’t Jasper Lim used to have a massive crush on you?”. Nice retort.

I miss Mrs. Solinap. You remember her. She’s our petite and perky AP teacher who used to carry her maiden name Pajarito before she got married. I can fondly remember the time when I used an itty bitty notepad as the notebook for her subject just to spite her. I later went home that day with a sore right ear. By the way, did you know that Pajarita in Spanish means little bird?

Heh. Moving on, we also got to chat with Mrs. Sofia Chua (Lin Lao Shi). She’s thinking about stopping teaching in two years because her daughter’s nearing highschool.

Mrs. Nancy Clemena also passed by, and we got to chat with her too

Oh, you may think that it’s a picturesque moment, no? Yes, but not quite. When everyone in the room realized that I was a Psychology graduate, I suddenly became the darling of the discussion as they were desperately looking for a school guidance counselor pala. Damnit.

As if the moment was not awkward enough, Mrs. Sally Coyukiat (our Executive Directress, the head honcho for you non-Jubileans reading this) peeped in the office and joined the discussion. Everyone then told her that I was a Psychology major and she candidly persuaded me to apply too.

…!#$ Save me Mrs. Yan!

Mrs. De Guzman and pretty much everyone else didn’t allow us to explore the campus at first (apparently because of security issues), but have they forgotten that we were the golden batch? That we were the LAW? So when Mrs. Coyukiat came into the administrative office and personally suggested that we should take a look around the campus, I wasn’t able to hide my smirk. We then explored the campus like little boys in a toy store.

I felt like I was back in time. Back in the time where we had healthy class section rivalries, where Pollux would dominate the freshmen year, Hibiscus in the sophomore year (however they cheated to win so the prestige really belongs to Mimosa), Nickel for the junior year, and Galileo for our senior year, with Pascal trailing not far behind.

Who could forget those inspiring teachers? I’m sure everyone could still remember the science mantras that the late Mrs. Ramos taught to us.

Not a lot of people know this, but Wilson and I have a deep respect for the late Donia Gonzales. Not many of you know her. She was a secretary. We used to chat with her whenever we needed documents to Xerox, and connived with her everytime I was late to arrive in school.

Jubilee also had its share of uninspiring teachers.

Enter Mr. Ramos. Our third year math teacher who only cared about Friday madness and the first row of students.

Wil, Stip, Lea, Bev and I were seated at the very back at that time and we got so pissed by his selective attention. We then tried this one experiment where we’d raise our hands for the remainder of the class and point our bad fingers at him just to see if he would notice us. He didn’t. He was too busy letting Stibog kiss his scrawny ass.

Finally, who could ever forget the puppy loves? The crushes, the heartaches, the sexual tensions in a love triangle, and your eye sparkling moments? C’mon, we all had at least one.

We then found Mrs.Yan and got to chat with her. She’s still the same Mrs. Yan that I know, still witty, still articulate, still my idol. =)

Wil and I also snuck around the closed chapel and its cloisters. The renovations that they made to the chapel are breathtaking.

But what got our attention was the deteriorating state of our library. The Charlie Brown kiddie encyclopedias that we used as references, circa early nineties were still there! Not to mention the complete 1992 edition of Collier’s Encyclopedia. Numerous other TEXTBOOKS were on the shelves.

We never appreciated the library because we never had good books to begin with. Wouldn't it be nice if we'd initiate a batch-wide bookdrive to address the problem? So much for our JCA Parents Association and for our JCA Alumni Association.

So much has changed since we graduated highschool four years ago. Some teachers moved on, some passed on. Some structures were raised, some razed. But even after all the changes, one thing still remains and still remains true, that our roots belong to jubilee.

Always remember that every red colored grade, every SDR record, every peck on the cheek, and every moment of joy that we experienced in highschool is a mark. It will whisper and we will then hear the laughs that we had in our memories. We will remember that, at the end of our every endeavor is a celebration of our making. Our roots.

I personally consider my little visit today as a little gift for myself, to remind me of living.