From JASMS to Miriam

I was in grade two when it was announced that my school JASMS was going to be converted to a mall. The school was moving to Batasan and that was far from where we lived. The move was going to be implemented the next year, so I could have stayed for one more year, but my mom decided to transfer me right away.

Ma decided to make me go to Miriam, an all-girls school where Ma and lola graduated. Lola was part of the first batch of Miriam graduates. The whole batch was as big as one class (forty plus students), and Miriam was still called Malabon Normal School.

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The Light

Instructions: (From Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg) Tell about the quality of light coming in from your window. Jump in and write. Don’t worry if it’s night and the curtains are closed or you would rather write about the light up north—just write. Go for ten minutes, fifteen, a half an hour.

Don’t be afraid. Write what you can. You don’t need to be poetic. I’ve never written about the light. Description is one of the writing skills that I’m still learning because I used to hate description. I used to skip descriptions whenever I read a book, and I never got the point of why the reader has to care about whether the character was tall or short, or had red or black hair. Descriptions bored me until I took poetry classes, and I realized that descriptions need not be boring. Now I’m scared of descriptions because I compare my descriptions to the way poets do it, and my writing pales in comparison, but I have to stop thinking about them and just write.

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I Played Mary, He Played Joseph

Litte Ja as the Virgin Mary

The hoop was three times as high as Matthew, but that didn’t stop him from playing basketball. Grade seven girls were weakened by his charm, and everyone knew that was like being worshiped by the gods. They would watch him play, and they’d scream when he made a shot. Once he finished playing, they’d follow him around the campus until recess ended. We didn’t have lunch because our classes were half day. If we had, I bet those girls would have stalked him until lunch.

I envied those girls. They could follow him around and not look stupid because they were older than he was. I wasn’t, and I didn’t want him to know what I felt inside.

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