Digging Out Memories

Earlier today, me and my siblings completed the major cleaning in the house. We had to re-arrange the furniture, dispose some old stuff and vacuum out those cobwebs and dust balls in the most inaccessible parts of the house. This was to get the house free of allergens before our mom gets out of the hospital tomorrow. Mom was in the hospital most of the week for suffering heavy chest pains. It's surprising that she acquired allergic reactions only lately in her age.

It's been three years since I last cleaned up my stuff in the house--figures how long I'm staying in Manila by myself! I have my stuff of my earlier years sealed in a few boxes. A couple containing elementary school stuff--notebooks, books, medals, toys, puppy love letters, art materials, electronic stuff and anything I've fiddled at that stage of my life. There's a box containing stuff from high school--notes in a few sheets (not notebooks, I was lazy to write notes then), over-eighteen-magazines, deep-think-readables (I thought over my age during my high school), hobby books, trading cards, fan mail and love letters (from girls of other schools), more art materials and still more electronics.

Then there's another big box for my college years. That box contained lecture notes, more notes, serious notes and more scribbled-out-of-the-normal notes (hehe, I was really being radical then). Aside from notes, there are also lecture hand-outs, exercise questionnaires and exam booklets. In UP, we call it the bluebook--because it is literally colored blue! It has 7 leaves, the outermost being blue, stapled in the middle that makes 12 pages to write on. The bluebook is what the institution considers the official answering material for exercises, quizzes and exams. Be it an objective-type of exam or a cover-to-cover terror-type of essay exam. Back in my time, the bluebook costed Php1.25 and can be purchased in the campus cooperative store or in any bookstore outside the campus. Others use it as a notebook, I used it to record Go and Chess games and scribble lots of stuff. Heck, I even made a comic with it!

Looking through my bluebooks in college, I saw again what I buried deep in my stuff. With a score of 5 out of 90, it was a nightmare! With an essay-type of exam for an objective subject, I don't think anyone got a passing grade then! I'll never forget that terror teacher, maybe that's her way of having us remember her! I got score of 130 out of 100 on a subject I really was good at. I also remember getting a score of 2.5 out of 50. At first I read it as 25, only to be really disappointed when I noticed there was a really tiny decimal point between the digits. It was a long quiz on my first of two takes of STAT 101. Then there was one on which my professor had something written like, "You don't need to take this exam. There will, however, be an incentive if you do take this." Wahahaha! Ayun, uno! Social sciences and Humanities was good to me!

It was fun reminiscing that crazy part of my life. Though I admit feeling terrible for remembering only when I see those stuff. Without those, I don't think I can recall the past (is that a bad thing?). And now, I had to dispose some the dusty artifacts. I knew back then when I sorted those out that I still needed those. I think I got that habit from my dad, he always keeps lots of old stuff. Today, I opened those stuff again to see which stays, which didn't last long, which caught lots of dust and which had to go.

It was fun digging out memories. I'm sure there's more, and I hope I get to share them again with the ones I made them with.