One good thing about looking at the past and its memories, is that it allows one to gain insights on how much progress a person has made in the present. It's refreshing to look back at memories, both good ones and not-so-good ones.
I had been writing since I was in grade school, when I was selected by my teacher to be a journalist in our campus paper. I wrote newspaper articles and participated on inter-school workshops and contests. During high-school, I continued my writing, mostly this time, of poetry and personal journals and insights. I was not content merely of reading books and learning from them. I also wished to see my written output being published and shared to others as well. I had quite a number of friends and acquaintances back then, but my aloof and distant nature allowed me to carve a certain and well- cultivated world that paved way to writing and literary imagination. I would compose poems and essays secretly and one thing that's very odd of me was was that after writing, I will destroy them, tearing all the paper into pieces. Thus, I wasn't able to collect my written works which I could probably have viewed until today. There were even instances when I collected my papers and notebooks and burned them all to ashes. When I was nearing the end of my high-school, I even wrote that ten years from then,. I might be working as a journalist. However, compared to writing, I was more actively participating in poster-making and art contests, but sadly enough, my own style as a whole, was under-appreciated. As I approached college, I decided to re-assert my journalistic inclinations, so I joined the university publication. As a staff-writer, I wrote news articles, magazine features, field photo assignments, and explored further creative writing, particularly poetry. I rubbed some pastel sticks on felt paper and manipulated the finished works into digital artworks and gladly, they were featured on a small literary book, 'Digmaang Rosas,' including my poem entitled, 'Walang Dahon.' There were a number of disappointments back then, when I was not allowed to publish a news article, so eventually, I attributed it to a fellow writer. Around second year in college, I decided to quit on the publication. There were conflict of interests, so I decided to simply stop.
In between breaks in my classes, I would frequently visit libraries and scourge through books. I was very happy to find those moments of isolation where I would immerse myself and learn various fields: psychology, philosophy, history, art, literature, spirituality, and a lot of other subjects. There were many books to choose from and most of them, I could hardly remember. I am almost always surprised that while reading, I can personally relate to the authors' voices while at the same time, learning from them.
