My Grade 2 experience, as a whole, wasn’t as colorful as it had been in Grade 1. For one, the teacher didn’t seem to be on my side and rarely acknowledged my efforts to do well in her class. I tried my best to excel, but it often felt unnoticed. Still, that was just at school. At home, my days remained joyful and full of excitement. There, I was free to be myself, surrounded by family, play, and the simple pleasures that made my childhood special.
Doing well in school
In Grade 2, I was in section 3, which meant I had to attend morning classes. Our classroom was still in the same building, but located on the opposite far end. My teacher was Mrs. Fausto. I can still vaguely picture the contours of her face, she wore eyeglasses and carried herself with a sense of quiet authority.By this time, I was doing fairly well in school. My memory had improved, and I could recite our entire book about Dr. Jose Rizal from beginning to end without even opening a page. I was also getting better in math. I had learned both addition and subtraction, and I remember some of my classmates would peek at my answers. I didn’t mind, it was fine with me if they copied. But sometimes, I was a bit of a mischievous kid, I’d let them copy the wrong answers first, and then I’d quietly change mine to the correct ones later.
There's a sense of favoritism
Despite my growing interest in school, my teacher never seemed to appreciate my efforts. It eventually dawned on me that she showed favoritism. One morning, she suddenly scolded me, calling me dirty and disgusting. Confused, I looked down and saw my shirt was stained with corn coffee that I had spilled some during breakfast earlier that day.Facing my first bully
I also had a classmate who bullied me. He was smaller and thinner than I was, but for some reason, I feared him. Perhaps it was because the teacher always seemed to take his side whenever he picked a fight with me. His name was Jose. One time, out on the playground, we ended up exchanging punches. I cried hard, so hard that I wet my pants. My older brother, Junjun (Artemio Jr.), was there with his classmates. He shouted, “Fight, you coward!” But all I could do was cry, I tried to throw punches though even reluctantly while crying.
Knowing a relative classmate
I also had a friend and relative named Edgar Umbay. He was the son of my father’s niece, Belinda Umbay. Their family owned a store in the public market, and their house was located behind a place we called Villa Tambis. I often visited their home, and they were always kind to me. His parents would give me food, and I felt welcome there.
Learning how to garden
Since our classes were in the morning, we usually had gardening activities in the afternoon. One day, I went to Edgar’s house to get some fertilizer, as our teacher had asked us to bring something for the school garden. We planted onions, and they grew quite well, thanks to the natural fertilizer we used: dried horse manure.Discovery of an unusual stone
Adjacent to the school garden, we discovered some peculiar crystallic stones embedded in the ground that quickly became the source of our amusement. We played around them often and gave them a name, “live stones.” They earned that title because of something strange and almost magical: whenever we held a broken one close to our heads, especially near our hair, it would pull at the strands as if with an invisible hand or some mysterious force was tugging at them. It felt like there's a magnet, though it caused a slight sting that made us wince and laugh at the same time.
To this day, I’ve never encountered anything quite like those stones again. Whatever they were, natural phenomena or just the wild wonder of childhood, they’ve remained in my memory as one of the many odd and fascinating mysteries of my youth.