I'm almost finished with Suikoden III, finally. I'm in Chapter 5 and I've just lost all 3 true runes. Darn, I loved that lightning rune. It's been a wild ride, I've been levelling and upgrading equipment for about 2/3 of my 108 characters. Haha.. It's gotten addicting. I've grown attached to some of the characters, too. Now this kind of traditional RPG stuff is what I've been missing since I started playing Ragnarok a few years back. Next on the list of RPGs I currently have and will play again is Xenosaga.
Ultimate Spider-Man though, was a letdown. Short and stupid missions again. Lousy rewards and secrets again. Short storyline again. Sheesh. It's a good thing web swinging is still as addictive as ever, else I would've quit the game early.
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Life becomes funny when you look back at it in hindsight. There's a movie on at HBO, Mean Girls, that I've just watched. And though it overdid some things, it does paint a somewhat accurate picture of high school life, albeit a much shallower one since we're in the Philippines and it's set in the good ol' U.S. of A.
Besides the hot girls in the movie, I had the chance to compare and contrast my real high school life with the fictional high school depicted in the movie. Some allowance must be made here, since high school here isn't really the same with other countries.
The film basically deals with the different cliques that can be found in a typical high school, and how they interact with each other. The interaction in the movie is school-wide. Here, it's more by year level and class, although there is some school wide interaction every so often.
I transferred schools starting my first year of HS. This gave me the opportunity (or disadvantage) of being a new student in school. I could start fresh, start with a clean slate. I remember my first year self thinking that I wouldn't be a nerd anymore, and that I'd be more outgoing. And we all know that I may have achieved the latter, but the former... needs a bit more work. I also remember taking a stroller to class for the first few days, until someone told me that was a no-no. I couldn't bring a stroller to class and be 'cool.' So I ditched the stroller. When you're in high school and you're a new student, you don't ask why.
I found myself being welcomed by the 'cool' clique, or so I christened them. This lasted all of 1 semester. It's not that I disliked my new-found clique, it's just that we sort of had different views of things, although it was really fun hanging out with Allan and the other guys. It's just some of the girls I couldn't stand. In particular, there was this girl named Jane whom I'll admit I had a crush on. (I was blinded by newbie-ness.) Thinking about her now, in hindsight, I would have to say that she makes a great HR manager, because she was just great at manipulating people. The actual experience would be better left untold.
I shifted to another clique, and it was a triummvirate this time. We weren't the 'coolest' but we weren't pariahs, too. Perhaps the best word to describe us would be 'under the radar.' I kept a low profile in my social life, although, with my high grades, it was only a matter of time 'til I got stuck with the 'nerd' label again.
On a side note- yes, I really did study hard that first year of high school. The next 3 years would be the exact opposite though, but I was really studious that year.
Cary and Bible stuck with me 'til the end of my first year of high school, when Bible went abroad to study (He's Korean), and I got accepted into the honors section. That's when I kind of lost touch with Cary and the rest of my first year buddies (Allan, Janice, Stacey, Edelyn and a few others). It wa fun while it lasted, but I was too young back then to have the sense to forge and strengthen bonds of friendship. The turbulent years of puberty sweeps a lot of things away.
Three years in the honors section gave me the chance to normalize, to stabilize, to regain a foothold. Being stuck with each other for 3 years forces you to establish links with other people, whether the links be steel chains or friendship bracelets. From this vantage point of stability, I could observe high school social life in a broader sense. The honors section always had that stigmata of being outcasts, since we were 'set apart' by the school itself, and our image was that of nerds, mostly. That's far from true, though, once I really got to know the class.
As with the broader high school society, our class had cliques too. I was lucky enough to meet the right guys as soon as my second year started. I've looked back then, and I've looked back now, and I can safely say that my clique is the best one for me. I met the coolest people I could ever meet in high school, and I wouldn't change a thing.
Of course, there'd be the jock types. But with one twist. Some of the sports guys were also some of the math guys. You might say there was a paradox lurking somewhere here. There's also the comics, which I strived to become and never quite achieved the status of (comic). Perhaps I tried too hard? Hehe.. Then there'd be the social types. Mostly, these were the girls, and some of the boys. I think the clique I was part of was partly social-type, since my friends would be the ones organizing gimiks and other trips. Then there were the brainy types. Oh who are we kidding. We were all brainy types, and we all were grade conscious. There were 2 subclasses, though. First would be the brainy AND studious. They were the ones who excelled and landed in the top of the class. Then there are the brainy BUT lazy. Sad to say (Although I'm faking it on the sad part), I was one of these, the ones who were mediocre in their grades but could have achieved more IN academics. Of course, my way of thinking was that academics isn't all there is to life, and I can say that although studies were a big part of my high school life, I also had some of the best experiences I will ever have in high school.
Our class though, had another way of defining cliques. This time, it was by leader. Yes, there are leaders, and there are the ones who gather around the leaders, which isn't to say that they are followers. In fact, leaders are leaders only in name, like the banner of a kingdom or some other simile like that. First there'd be those bannered under Jon. I'm one of those. Then there are those bannered around Jed, although I think Harley is the one pulling the strings. Some of these are the jocks-slash-mathnerds, and some are plain good in math. Then there's the Regine clique. Which is like a matriarchal clique. Regine's our valedictorian. There are other assorted cliques, but I'm too lazy to write them out. You get the idea.
The main point is, cliques do exist outside of movies, and I'm no stranger to one. It's just fun to think about the silliness of high school, now that I'm outside the bars and strolling through the zoo.
