When We Were in 8th Grade...

last night i drove to sylmar to pick up my sister and some of her friends. tin's classmate, rodney, had just turned 14 years old (Good God!) and he invited some friends to come over for an after-school partay. i got to the gated community at about 7:15 (cuz tin told me to get them at 7 pm) and was greeted by rodney's mom, mrs. bravo (who used to be a 1st grade teacher at st. francis when i was still there). all the kids were swimming and the oh-so familiar "aaaw man, we're leaving?" came out of my sister and her friends' mouths when they saw me. well, i offered to pick them up later but one of her friends had to be home by 8 so we needed to motor. so the kids went back to the house and got dressed while i waited patiently in the family room talking to mrs. bravo and eating fruit salad. she was like, "so where are you going to school now?" after i answered, "oh, i've been done for 3 years," she let out this "YOU ARE? OH MY GOD HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN?" the last time she knew for sure i was still in school was when she was a teacher's aid and i was an 8TH GRADER!

GOD REMEMBER WHAT IT FELT LIKE TO BE AN 8TH GRADER? to be at the highest post in elementary hierarchy? the ones all the younger kids wanted to hang out with? life was just so much simpler then, with not much to worry about except the beginning stages of adolescence when you're starting to figure out what kind of friends you want to have and how you want them to define you, and then looking forward to passing a high school entrance exam and eventually graduating to begin again at a new school! and OH THE DREAMS we dreamt for our lives in the future, which seemed so far away, felt far more reachable back then than they do now.

just listening to my sister and her 3 friends' conversation in the car was enough to bring me back 11 years. tin and her best friend, josephine, were talking about something girly, while the two boys, raneil (who's sitting shotgun) and j.j. are discussing how they wanna find summer jobs after graduation. raneil's like, "why do you wanna work at KFC for? how much do you think you're gonna get paid?" and j.j. shoots back with, "raneil, man, if i work full-time that's like $250 a week!!!" i remember when i worked at universal studios after high school and $178 a week (net) brought the greatest joy to my life!!! and then they go on to discuss which high schools they wanna attend and why, which leads to living on their own when high school is done. UY! they both just sounded so sure of their plans. this is what i want to happen and that's that. it made me laugh to remember how we used to talk this way about our futures; "after high school, i'll be in college majoring in chemical engineering, and then after graduation i'll work for NASA , and then i can get married." that would mean i would've been married...last year. but THAT'S how i used to think and i know a lot of us had the same kind of vision about our lives.

and here we all are, 12 years after elementary school. this isn't exactly what i envisioned i would be in a dozen year's time but i think i've accepted the fact that things don't always turn out the way you plan them. i'm still waiting (more like hoping) for a lot of things to happen to me and God-willing, i'll be a lot more satisfied with myself in a few years. until then, the dreaming and the visions don't cease. here's to another 12 years to wait and see...