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It was a bright sunny day in the fields of Manila. The fresh scent of pandesal as it was rapidly being devoured by the local customers was a plain sight I was fond of seeing everyday. As I was walking into the place where I\u2019ve been accepted for a summer job, Jamaica happily called me out while walking towards my initial trajectory. \u201cGoing to the Institute of Biochemistry for your summer job?\u201d she asked. I nodded, happily walking again as I was already nearing the institute I was working at.<\/p>\n
Jamaica, or Jam in short, fell into confusion as to why she constantly gets ignored so she followed me whilst being annoying and persistent of getting my attention. \u201cWhat do you want?\u201d I exclaimed. \u201cI want you to notice me, is that even a difficult thing to do?!\u201d she replied. \u201cYou\u2019re wasting my time, I have to maintain my good standing and good impressions of the superiors over me, or else I wouldn\u2019t be able to graduate. Please understand my situation.\u201d I exclaimed with pure anger. \u201cWas it the one time I messed up things for you? That one event where the superiors got angry at you for that one mistake I did? Come on, the superior let you out with a warning and I, myself, apologize to you. Besides, we\u2019re going to the same institute anyways. Why not let me come with you?\u201d she finally exclaimed.<\/p>\n
I continued ignoring her until we arrived at the institution. One of our mutual friends caught up with us and sensed the sheer anger and feeling of disbelief beyond my face. It was James, my childhood friend whom I used to hangout with. Coincidentally, he goes to the same institute as Jam and I do. When his face entered my peripheral vision, I somehow cooled down. James finally steps in and asks \u201cHey, Sol, something seems to be bothering you? Is this that one kid who messed with you the other day?!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, it\u2019s n-nothing\u201d I humbly exclaimed. Jam , who was standing a few feet away from us, butts in to our conversation and explained \u201cIt was me. I made him feel this way and he\u2019s been griefing about it. I could see it.\u201d James asked \u201cWell, what did you even do to him?\u201d Jam replied \u201cHe got called out by our superior for something I was responsible of. I tried reasoning out our superior if I could, instead, take the warning garnered upon him but our superior has already made up his mind and warned Sol that if Sol ever does something foolish again, his card would not be signed which consequentially would prevent him from graduating. I apologized to Sol but he just won\u2019t accept my apology.\u201d<\/p>\n
In my defense, I exclaimed \u201cYou apology wouldn\u2019t change anything. I\u2019m trying my utmost best to try and graduate as early as possible. I\u2019m the son of a farmer and a housewife and any chances of ruining my scholarship would mean death for me and my family! I\u2019m sorry if I act this way but please do understand the situation the people around you are facing.\u201d<\/p>\n
After this commotion, all three of us headed into our respective offices in the institution, with the sadness visible in Jam\u2019s facial expressions, the feeling of confusion in James\u2019s mind and the feeling of helplessness and injustice in my eyes.<\/p>\n
At the end of my shift, I walked into Jam and James talking by the entrance of the institution. James stopped me and asked if we could have a talk at a nearby coffeeshop. I accepted their invitation and headed straight away at the coffee shop.<\/p>\n
As James was ordering at the counter, Jam and I were left just by ourselves at a nearby table. She took the opportunity of telling me that \u201cSol, we\u2019re on our 11th<\/sup> year of highschool, doesn\u2019t time fly by so fast. We need to cherish the remaining time we have left and make memories, memories we could never forget.\u201d<\/p>\n At that line, I thought to myself \u201cWhat have I done? She\u2019s been there for me ever since nursery and middle school. She stood as my friend, sister, and maybe even a mother to me. I shouldn\u2019t have been treating her this way. Maybe I should change. Maybe I should change for the better.\u201d<\/p>\n These realizations I made for myself really did help me. It helped me grow and learn more as a person. After finishing our summer jobs. We went on our normal lives and graduated with high honors. The memories we\u2019ve spent after our summer jobs would truly be unforgettable.<\/p>\n My summer vacation is pretty unique. It isn\u2019t your typical \u201chave fun at home\u201d type of summer. It was summer filled with lots of drama and lots of hardships and realizations. It was a summer vacation that I had to spend in a box-shaped office working from 8-5 everyday. Nevertheless, the experiences I\u2019ve gathered from this summer vacation would truly help me in discerning life choices and the experiences I\u2019ve gathered here might not be good, but it at least would make a good story.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This short story was written during the Young Authors Competition on April 13, 2019 held at UEC Batangas City.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was a bright sunny day in the fields of Manila. The fresh scent of pandesal as it was rapidly being devoured by the local customers was a plain sight I was fond of seeing everyday. As I was walking into the place where I\u2019ve been accepted for a summer job, Jamaica happily called […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[93],"tags":[88,95,94,96],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinekhoo.sg\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5832"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinekhoo.sg\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinekhoo.sg\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinekhoo.sg\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinekhoo.sg\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/catherinekhoo.sg\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5834,"href":"https:\/\/catherinekhoo.sg\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5832\/revisions\/5834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinekhoo.sg\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinekhoo.sg\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinekhoo.sg\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinekhoo.sg\/philippines\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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