Dense Hearts

1: Boners and Riders

Western movies seem to have given us the wrong perception of what high school is really about.

I stare at the powerpoint our teacher is flashing in front of us. I squint as I try to absorb the words I'm faced with and I start to regret sitting at the back of the class when I could've sat at the front where the teacher ass-kissers were seated, ready to kiss the teachers' ass whenever necessary.

I suddenly start to feel bad for badmouthing them inside my head when I'm actually an ass-kissing machine sometimes myself. But I dismiss all emotions of guilt so I could focus on the discussion.

I remember entering 7th grade expecting to get partnered up with a handsome guy for a project so that we would end up falling in love with each other and become high school sweethearts.

I ended up getting partnered with girls the entire year, except for Kristian, who was a guy I knew since pre-school. And I don't think I could ever bring myself to fall in love with someone whom I vividly remember to have spat saliva into a water bottle and squirted the girls with it in third grade.

So I guess the whole partners-falling-in-love thing has lost its appeal to me.

I stifle a yawn by biting my lower lip and covering my mouth, hoping our teacher didn't notice my disinterest in his topic.

I've been basically going through the first few years of high school waiting for a note-worthy, movie-like situation to happen to me. I hoped something as subtle as a guy dropping a love letter into my locker or as absurd as a food fight happening in our cafeteria would occur.

But of course I kept those pointless thoughts at the back of my mind. Because as much as I want my life to be a movie, I also have a lot of shit to deal with. Shit like maintaining my scholarship in a prestigious school which charges an annual tuition fee of almost 80K- money that my mother doesn't have and can't even imagine to pay for.

Shit like working my ass off studying twice as hard as everybody else so I could keep my grades up as well as get into my dream university, the University of the Philippines.

I can't even begin to explain why I want to go there, but let's just say it's where I feel I would belong.

Somebody in front of me stands up to answer a question raised by the teacher. I furrow my eyebrows while I mentally slap myself for not paying attention. I close my eyes for a few seconds and sigh.

Someone please shoot me now.

I've got five things on my list of what to do or achieve before I leave the school I've been studying in from kindergarten to 12th grade.

1.) Pass all the College Entrance Tests.

I know I plan on going to UP, but the competitive side within me really wants to take as much exams as I can so that I would have other choices in case my original plan wouldn't push through. I plan on getting accepted into Ateneo de Manila, De La Salle University, and the University of Santo Tomas among others.

God I really feel like an absolute nerd sometimes. A lot of people might think I'm a loser for obsessing over my college applications, but that's just how I hustle, baby!

I might be the biggest snot in our school for being such an academically-concerned biatch but it's only because I have to. I have to be on top, I just really fucking have to.

Which leads me to my 2nd plan. Which is to graduate as the batch Valedictorian.

I sigh a breath of relief when I heard the bell rang, indicating lunch time. It seems that I've been deep in my daydreams that I didn't even bother standing up to bid our teacher good-bye as she walked out the door.