A Student's Diary

Blue Book and the Bottle-up Games

            I seriously messed up my own grades again. I could have cried a river of blood, but I didn’t. I can’t.

            As I look down on my blue book for the nth time, questions rushed through my mind like a stream during a storm. Am I fit to continue this course or is it already time to shift to another one? What had gone wrong? What will mama and papa say? What will happen now?

I helplessly sighed and closed my eyes. I wished somebody would tell me…

I’m too tired to blame others; the school administration, the instructors, the curriculum, my über intelligent classmates, and the library’s ‘no to photocopying policy.’  I’m just too stirred up to think. It wouldn’t change what was written in my blue book, so what’s the point?

I sighed once more and tried to smile. “How are your grades?” I asked my friend who was busy looking at her own blue book.

She looked at me and lazily sat down beside me, “just another semester of one subject grade ruining my chance to get the half-scholarship.”

“Lucky you! Mine are no better this time. Argh!” We both fell silent for a while until I can no longer take the unbearable feeling of disappoint between us, “C’mon, let’s go out and have a food trip. I’m craving for fish balls and takuyaki. Staying like this wouldn’t change a thing anyway.”

“Yeah, I think that’s a better idea. There still another chance for us next semester, though,” she said sadly.

I nodded curtly as if I believed her. Yeah, right. I have told myself those things a lot of times but this time it won’t work … it will never work again.

It’s been weeks since my first semester grades came out, I never felt any better but life has to go on, I can’t stay depressed forever. I decided to get back to my old carefree self. That’s where I’m very good at anyway, pretending everything is alright.

            Or so I thought. Truth be told, I can never fake my feelings, anymore. I was never okay with it. I hated myself for not being smart enough, for not working hard, for not studying well… I just completely hated myself for not being a good student. Maybe, I will never be a good teacher, either. Maybe…

            I took a deep breath and sighed as I watched the sun slowly fading from the horizon, I felt trapped inside a bottle that I cannot even move a finger, the suffocating feeling is no longer bearable. I was supposed to be in my classes at this time but I decided to skip them to let my head cool before my mind would explode. I have to admit now, I am so fed up with this grade thing. Really. You know what I’m saying? The “please-your-instructors-to-get-a-high-grade thingy,” and all the other stupid things we do just to get good grades. Does having a grade of 77 makes me a lesser person? Is this the reason why I’m in this school, in the first place?

            “Ate, Ate…”

            I wiped my tears and took some coins out of my pocket and the left over bread from my breakfast this morning and gave it to the street kid who was busy tugging the sleeve of my blouse.

            “Thank you, Ate. My brother and I haven’t eaten anything for three days now and he’s been complaining of stomachache since last night. You know what? I envy you because you have something to eat every day and you’re in school, too. My nanay  just get our food from the garbage, so there are times when we have nothing to eat. She cannot afford to send us to school, either.” The child said while munching the bread I gave him, he wiped his mouth with his white shirt that had already turned brown from years of years of service to this poor thing.

            Shame dawned on me. Why did I let myself live according to the contents of my blue book and forgot the very reason why I’m here in this school, studying to become a teacher someday? And that reason was no other than this innocent soul in front of me and all the other kids like him, who were not lucky enough to enjoy the things I just took for granted my whole life. I have always dreamed to become a teacher to these children and help them to make their dreams come true and that dream is more important than the grades written on my blue book. Now I remember.