How My High School Life Ended Up That Way

 

I recently found out an odd fact.  I have no trace of any files or writing files regarding my high school life.  I do have journals of it, but it has mostly consisted of my schedules and to-do tasks such as homework or things I have to get done.  I was astonished by this fact.  How come I did not write anything, something like my thoughts on an event or just how my day went?  This is weird, considering that I am actually an active writer back when I was in middle school.  I have journals and books to write down my thoughts and feelings.  What exactly happened to me in high school, then?  Now I find it hard to reminisce things.

After thinking about it for a while, I guess the reason behind my lack of writing is because I was far too busy in my daily life.  I only write in order to keep up with things, not to actually express myself.  Summarized, when I was in high school, I have the chance to write, but I didn’t use it to write down anything related to my personal stuff or something like that.  Oh, the irony.

That’s why I’m going to write a quick summary of my high school life.  By posting this in my blog, I have no intention to boast off or anything, I’m not even sure someone would actually be willing to sacrifice their time reading this one post until the end, lol.  But here it is.

Back then when I was in my final year of middle school, I have made up my mind to enter the language department in high school.  My family supported this, and I can’t be more grateful.  The sad thing is, my middle school is a very conservative one.  It has its own pride and name, and basically every teacher there are very obsessed to push their students to enrol in the science department.  I was a lazy-ass kid back then, when it comes to my academic skills, meh, just so-so.  Neither do I excel or suck at it.  I have to admit that during my whole life, my lowest point in academics is those three years I spent in middle school.  Why you ask?  I was too obsessed with fangirling over Kpop and anime.  I never took other subjects seriously except for art and language.

I hated doing all of the science-based subjects and projects.  My middle school has this weird admiration and obsession for physics, math, biology, and chem.  A science project is mandatory for the final test before we graduate middle school.  I hated everything about science simply because it’s not my cup of tea.

Long story short, I graduated middle school and applied for the high school which has a language department.  It’s my city’s second-best public high school, by the way.  Most people would be surprised as in “You came from xxx middle school?  Then why don’t you apply to xxx high school (the number one best public school in my city)?”  My answer is simple, they don’t have a language department, to begin with.

There is a series of tests that everyone should go through before being accepted as a student in my high school.  I remember there was a psychology test and a test about general subjects.  There was also an interview session.

When the result is out, I was really upset because I found my name listed in the science class.  It’s called MIPA here (Matematika IPA).  I definitely wrote language class as my first option and social class as my second option.  I clearly stated to my interviewer that the reason I applied here is for the language class.

So, I told this to my parents and the next day, me and my Mom were talking to the principal.  It would take a few days to grant my wish, so I spent my first 4 days studying in the MIPA class.  Words spread quickly throughout the whole school that I am the ‘weird’ kid that asked to be transferred to the language class.  People be like “She’s leaving MIPA class?  How come?  It’s the class people wanted to enrol in!”

Nevertheless, I got transferred and I started living my dream of learning languages in the language class.

To sum it up, my grades and academic achievements are pretty great.  I’m always on the top 3 of my class and I’m quite fine in every subject except math.  I joined the debate club for a year and a half and then focusing on the dance club for the rest of my high school year.  One of the hardest things I had to go through would be to experience being the minority of the minority.

You see, the language class is the only department consisted of just one class.  Not to mention that I only have 15 classmates.  And, I am the only Christian student in my class.  I’m so grateful that the other Christian students in the science and social class care about me so much so that I don’t feel left out.

And… yes, the only thing I regret about my high school life is probably my social life.  I fought and had bad relationships with some people.  I had a big fight (a cold war, to be exact) with one of my best friends.  I am stuck in a relationship that I know won’t go anywhere.  I failed to keep a healthy friendship with a few of my seniors because they’re trying to hit on me.  I had this ‘love-hate relationship with a teacher and I ended up disliking the subject she teaches when in fact the subject is originally one of my favourites.

There’s a lot of good memories from high school, but I feel that I sacrificed my body for it.  I remember ALWAYS having bruises on my legs and hip because I work out and dance a lot.  I got admitted to the hospital twice because of dengue fever and high fever.  I sprained my heel and ligament from performing a drop split so often.  I experienced so much sudden nose bleeding.  And the worst part of it?  I figured out that I had haemorrhoid and I can’t run from this fate because it’s been running in my family DNA for generations…..

The day I sprained my heel.  I can't even properly wear my shoes because it hurts so much.
The next morning it was swollen red.

If I have the chance to hop on a time machine, I don’t want to change anything from my high school life because I’m grateful for how it is.  I might go and change my middle school, though.  I need to get a grip and mind my grades lol.

My high school life is quite adventurous.  I managed to actually travel with my friends to Malang and to Surabaya by ourselves.  I learned how to do stage makeups, to perform in front of many people, to express myself.  I learned various languages and broadened my views.

I remember the feeling of stress.  When I was in my last year in high school, it was obvious that everyone in my batch are having this kind of pressure upon us.  We would have extra classes in the morning and later in the afternoon.  We would go home at 4 pm.  The counselling room was never empty because students will always come and consult about their career options, about which university to choose, etc.

The journey to graduation really felt like a lone war.  It’s about yourself anymore, what you can do on your own.  There’s no comradery because even your best friend is fighting to get the same chair as you in the university.  I, thank goodness, managed to escape those rivalries because I earned myself a scholarship to a private university.

I’m so grateful because I managed to be quite an active student back in high school, and I managed to learn 3 years of Japanese and Deutsche (though I forgot almost all of my Deutsche because at that time I don’t really have the passion to learn a European language).  Having a higher language ability than most people is definitely one thing I am proud of.

Though, my social life during high school is a complete mess, just like what I mentioned earlier.  After graduating I realized that you feel you lost most of your connections with your schoolmate and left with very few people whom you still kept in touch until today.  That’s fine.  It’s all-natural.  Seleksi alam (idk how to translate this into English).

It’s amazing to think that even today, I am still in this industry: language.  I write stuff, I translate stuff, I read stuff, and it’s all related to language.  And I’m damn sure I’m not going to part ways with this subject anytime soon, might as well be part of it until all of my hair strands turn grey.

One of the best things I experienced:
Performing on the DBL Arena