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by Arniel Joseph Gilo
My last year in Quesci led me to a lot of expectations.
I expected the first day of school to be a blast. After all, this would be our senior year. What happened in reality, however, was I had to drag myself to go to school. I do not know if it had something to do with the fact that my friends and I are still tired from the month-long college entrance exams review classes. As the trike dropped us off in front of the gates, I felt my stomach churn, knowing that this was our batch’s last year of being a student of this school, and this might be our hardest year yet.
I expected the school year to be hard. What happened in reality? Boy, it was tougher than tough! The first half of the year was one of the hardest months of my life. The raging workload and hard lessons, plus the constant episodes of anxiety and burnout, made me come to school drained of energy and of motivation. In fact, our entire section was like this, that even our teachers began to remark how passive and fatigued we all looked. We just could hardly keep up with everything that is happening, especially with the impending doom of having to take our college entrance tests soon. The first half of the year ended with most of us tired and burned out, that we wished the year was already over.
I expected the end of 2019 to be more relaxed because of the holidays. The reality was each passing day became more and more bittersweet, knowing that the year was ending. We had our last Christmas party in Quesci.
I expected January to be exciting since college entrance results will start coming out. The reality was my batchmates and I were nervous. We spent most of our time pacing around anxiously, checking Twitter, and the occasional scare that the results were out. The first wave of results arrived mid-January, and I felt proud of my friends and classmates as they would cry out shrieks of joy knowing that we finally had somewhere to go to after graduating. We spent the last two months of the year preparing and reviewing for our final exams, one final battle before graduation.
Of course, I had my March expectations – the best (the most stress-free) month of the school year. The month where we will just be doing graduation practice, then hanging out and having sleepovers with friends after. I expected that happy graduation day which would seal my life in Quesci. Then a family trip to Korea would serve as my reward for those six years of hard work.
The reality was everything went haywire. A pandemic which began in the province of Wuhan, China began to wreak havoc in all parts of the world. People began appearing with masks plastered on their faces, their minds filled with fear and confusion, knowing well that our country is not fit to face a crisis of this magnitude. Exams were canceled, gatherings were prohibited, and entire countries were put under lockdown. There is a sliver of hope, wishing that this will all come to pass soon. However, this was not the case. This would never have been the case. Eventually, the graduation rites and balls were cancelled as well. The disease not only ravaged the lives of those it infected, but also the hopes and dreams of everyone all around the world.
As of writing, 4.7 million infections had already been confirmed in 188 countries all over the world (Aljazeera.com, 2020). In our country alone, 12,513 cases have already been confirmed, with a 6.5% fatality rate. These statistics are extremely alarming when compared with the progress of our neighboring countries, some of which have already flattened the curve greatly and have been experiencing zero new cases for the past few days. As students of science, it is our duty to serve our country in the future, especially in times of crisis like this.
While many of my expectations for this school year were far from what happened, I am glad to the realizations that came with the unexpected turn of events. I realized our graduation’s value lies not in the grandeur of the celebration. Instead, it symbolizes that after years of sleepless nights spent on burning our eyelids off, we finally have grown and are ready for the next phase of our lives. “Scientia et Virtus, Knowledge, and virtue.” I understood that the values our school taught us in the past six years are what would help us greatly when we step to the “real world”.
For the next days, I would rather not expect. Instead, I will dream. I will dream to have a great journey – the kind of journey that is not free of challenges but one that will mold us to be even better people. After all, I once dreamt to be a Scientian.