High School Yearbook

In keeping with the goal to keep things online and have something to read back and look at when the senior citizen era hits us, I'm posting here some contents found on our high school yearbook. None of the works posted here were mine nor was I part in making the high school yearbook. All credits belong to my wonderful batch mates who volunteered to come up with a memorabilia as the high school yearbook. I'm going on a limb here and claim that the yearbook staff won't mind my posting them here, right guys? Yearbook Staff

So what were we like on our freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years?
First Year (1992-1993)

Second Year (1993-1994)

Third Year (1994-1995)

Fourth Year (1995-1996)

Four years of high school was definitely fun for me, except for the singing in front during first year music class and guitar lessons during third year. While I may be one of the silent packs and was never one of the forefront of anything, I still had good memories of high school. I'm sure during those times and with a high school mindset, not everything then was fun. I'm quite positive there were moments, which I may no longer recall now, where I think I won't make it to high school (on time). Perhaps, others had the same feelings. But the good news of the story, we all made it. We finished high school not necessarily with flying colors, but definitely with a lot of pride on our shoulders. One thing was certain, we did sing our hearts out with "Fly on, friends . . . Fly on and find your place . . .
The Class of '96 Singing "Fly On Friends"

Fly on Friends

In fourth year Music class, Miss Rodel had as form into pairs to come up with a composition for our high school graduation. As there were thirty-five of us in the class (Lopez), I remember being the one without a partner. Haha, I didn't mind it that way because music wasn't my strongest suit. Working alone for me meant I won't affect my classmate's grade. I could decide the lyrics and the melody for myself. I wasn't any good at music composition nor was I good at playing the guitar to accompany my song. I knew my creation wasn't good, but I remembered Miss Rodel giving me a fair mark for effort and for volunteering to do the assignment by myself. From our compositions, we were to select the one song that would be made into our graduation song. I could no longer recall the selection process by now. But the song that was chosen to be our graduation song was the one composed by Michelle Castillo and (Yogi Bryan Jumao-as?) I'm quite certain that it was Michelle's song, but my memory is quite fuzzy about who her partner was. Oh well, if somebody read this little post, and my info is wrong, just let me know, and I'll be glad to correct the error. Anyway, for posterity, here's our graduation song:

UP High '96 Programme

Over the past days, my FB notifications were mostly from my UP High '96 classmates. The notifications were mostly about having a reunion. See, last year was supposed to be our twentieth anniversary. We graduated in 1996, and we thought it would be a good idea to have a reunion then. But nobody stepped up to organize the event. Curiously, the mini-gatherings over the holidays prompted a few people to rally the batch about having a gathering this year. Some of them met last January 2. As it was unplanned, organized solely through FB posts, only few came. The January 2 attendees came to an agreement that come May 2017, we shall meet with everyone for the delayed twentieth year celebration (haha, 21st na lang daw). Actually, it won't be an anniversary gathering, but rather another minigathering to plan for the real grand reunion for our silver anniversary on 2021 and for possible regular meet-ups.

As it turned out, there's now a date for this year's reunion. According to master Gio's FB post, we have to pencil in May 20, 2017, a Saturday on our calendars. Hooray! Now, another classmate, Jikoy, volunteered to make a T-shirt design. Thanks to FB polls (and mind you, after lobbying from some quarters, hehe), the group voted for the shirt design below:

It looks like May 20 will be happening soon, God-willing.

If May 20, 2017 or 2021 silver reunion will happen, then it's possible for 2046 to happen too. Yes, that should be the batch's golden anniversary! By then, we'll be what . . . senior citizens of sixty-six or sixty-seven? Haha, would we still have our memories then? Thinking that far ahead into the future, I figured I'll just post our batch's graduation programme. I'm sure by then, we'll have difficulty remembering who's who. That said, here's phone-captured images of the program. Pardon the very poor picture quality as I couldn't convince myself to spend on an expensive smartphone.

Just in case, you guys will forget the precious "UP Naming Mahal," he he.

In the off chance, there's someone who'd like a copy of the candidate list for whatever reason, I thought it would be helpful to encode it. Hopefully, google docs is still alive by then, haha. All right, here's the list of the iskos and iskas of batch '96.
Anyway, I'll leave with this high school yearbook picture of me at sixteen, and of me twenty years hence, haha. I copied this idea from a friend's FB post that I saw a few months back. Won't it be nice to have an AVP of our yearbook selves? Just a thought.

High School Uniform

Digital cameras were not a thing during my high school. The few pictures I have of high school, unfortunately, don't include me in my uniform, save for the sole picture taken during a pictorial for the batch's yearbook. Yep, below is my only picture of my high school self in uniform. Haha, it's not even a full-body picture.

The first image above shows a painted representation of the school's uniform during my time. The picture on the left shows our uniform during our first year (SY 1992-1993). It consists of a white polo paired with a checkered white-and-maroon-printed skirt. During that time, some students wore a full skirt version while others sported an A-line cut pencil skirt as shown in the image. As for the males, they wore a blue polo and blue jeans. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of that now. But I do remember thinking that our school was by far the coolest. Which other school allows their students to wear blue jeans?

On our second year, our uniform was changed. I can't recall now the reason for the change: whether it was a shortage of the ramie cloth or if it was because of the complaints that the print of the cloth was the same as the aprons worn by the staff and the tablecloth used by a very popular local bakery in the city. I actually preferred my first year uniform. The uniform we wore for second year to fourth year was rather too hot for my liking. At this time, the males also were also no longer allowed to wear blue jeans. The blue polo was also ditched to a regular white polo coupled with khaki-colored pants.

Currently, these two uniforms are now defunct. The school has changed its uniform yet again a few years after I graduated from high school.