Everything Has Changed: Reconnecting With New/Old Friends (Part 1)
From left to right: Carl, Leslie and Kenneth at their Grade Six graduation. Very festive for a Grade Six graduation. Too festive for my tastes.
On the night of my family’s Despedida (another way of saying ‘farewell party’), I leaned against my parent’s bedroom mattress, pondering about the prospect of moving to Vancouver. I wasn’t only leaving my home, I was leaving the fragments that filled the holes of my heart. I was leaving the family who swam with me on pristine island beaches, the friends who shared their fast-food lunches with me and a nation who built the boy that I used to be. I suppose I understood that it was the best for me, but the agony of starting over again was only painful. Nevertheless, I picked the choice to leave those fragments and flew away.
I hoped to continue connecting with my family and friends back home, but the 15-hour difference made that goal rather lofty. When I’m watching the CTV Saturday Morning News at nine in the morning, my friends are deep into their dreams at midnight. The path of close-tied long-distance friendships was never crossed and the distance between me and my homeland only widened as the days went by. The distance eventually got too far by the time I got to high school; the gap was so wide and seemingly unsalvagable. By the 10th grade, the longing to come back went missing and I never had the feeling to look for it ever since. I didn’t talk to friends and relatives nor did I have the feeling of needing it.
Looking back, it was a shame to let those relationships dissipate.
The ones I regret letting go of the most were the ones I forged in Benthel Asia School of Technology. I attended Benthel for three years after my one-off stint at Saint Augustine International School, an experience I can no longer remember (and I think it’s for the best). In fact, it’s strange for me to feel that my time in the Philippines centred around those three years and not much else. I must admit that I cannot remember many things about my time at Benthel, but I can distinctly recall my classmates. In those classrooms were moments of competition between everyone, times of enjoyment on the soccer field during school events and unfortunate bullying (that I instigated many times) against those we considered weird.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that my time at that school is a pivotal point in my personal growth. The story of me wouldn’t be complete without Benthel.
When thinking about who to pick as a feature for this website, I had a feeling that I should have a conversation with someone from Benthel. It had to be someone who can remember everything I have forgotten; someone who I was also comfortable talking to; someone who can give me a good overview of what has happened since I left. That person was Leslie Mirabelle Miraflor. She was my classmate for all those three years. She’s 4’11 (not that it’s important, but it’s funny) and she dabbles in a bit of songwriting. I cannot say that I can remember any memories with her at Benthel, but I knew she was a close friend who I can rely on to spill some details.
It’s Leslie next to some leaves.
I initially planned to only have a talk with Leslie for this project, but I was feeling quite ambitious (and cocky). An hour before our Zoom call, however, I told her to invite any other people she wanted to talk with.
While we waited for the others to come, the start was rocky. I turned my microphone on first; the first thing Leslie told me was that I sounded “different.” I suppose puberty got the best of me, but her comment would become the thesis of this 2-hour-long online conversation.
In the first few minutes, it seemed to me that she didn’t want to be there. It could be that her casually snarky and contemptuous remarks to my attempts at being friendly were perhaps responses made by an unconscious mind. After all, it was 9:30 a.m. in the Philippines, which is an unreasonably early time for any teenager.
Kenneth Aruta then joined the call. He was one of the few classmates who I can recall very clearly. I had a running bit where Kenneth was my pseudo-gay lover. I was so committed to this joke that when I visited the school back in the 9th Grade, I bought a T-shirt for him that said ‘I Love Mikael', which matched my ‘I Love Kenneth’ shirt. If I had to pick any guy in class to have this fake one-sided relationship with, it had to be him. He wasn’t particularly physically impressive, in hindsight, but he was a Greek God when compared to the other fat-asses in the class.
Here’s Kenneth posing like an absolute God.
When Kenneth joined in, I had to throw out every question I planned to ask. I now had to deal with the situation of interviewing two people I haven’t met in years. I started with a rather boring series of questions I thought of on the spot, asking about how they are managing online schoolwork (there were no in-person classes in most Philippine schools at the time due to the pandemic), which universities they are planning to go and what paths they’re gonna take career-wise (Kenneth’s might be serving in the Airforce, while Leslie is a bit undecided between nursing and law).
Kenneth’s also became funnier, which I noticed when he would sneak little jokes during the call. From his suggestion that Leslie is “simping over” Formula One race car drivers, bringing up the uncountable number of times Leslie and her boyfriend Jasper have broken up, as well as telling Leslie to “sing” when she was trying to test her mic. It could be possible that Kenneth was funny all this time, but I may not have noticed when I was at Benthel as I was more concerned with landing my own jokes.
Then Carl, who Kenneth called a “future billionaire”, came into the Zoom call. The last time I saw Carl, he was sporting an apple-cut hairstyle. I constantly made fun of him for having a crush on our classmate Francheska. I did too and so did everyone in the class. I suppose making fun of other Francheska fans was a way to deflect from any conversation of myself liking her.
Carl will be, if God allows it, a billionaire. Although he downplayed his successes, the Facebook posts of his awards and accomplishments in computer science speak loudly, saying that he’ll do just fine.
Carl injected the nerdiness needed to fuel the conversation for at least two hours. As soon as he came into the call, he sounded quite mystified when he saw my face. “Your face changed...the surprises of puberty,” he said. He then went on to talk about a moment about me he remembered and I have forgotten. He told me about the time our class had to do a “moving quiz,” which was never explained well to me during the call. For some reason, one of the questions was about the concept of job shifts. Carl was apparently stumped by the question, but I “carried” the team by explaining to him what the concept was. I wasn’t sure how to respond to the anecdote. Maybe that was some clue to who I used to be back in Benthel. One thing that certainly changed was my level of assertiveness, to put it kindly. “Carrying” was a nice way of saying that I was bossy, which is true about me back then. I was the dictator during projects, commanding people what to do to get my hands on great scores.
“Look, here’s a thing I made.”
Other than awards and grade school memories, Carl’s got ambitions. Big ones. Although I bet he’s going to good universities, his dream (he believes) is somewhere in Canada. He told me that he wants to come to Canada to study. I am quite sure that Carl’s a shoo-in to places like UBC or UofT. He’s got the grades for it. I warned him, however, of the costs that come with studying in Canada. If you want to go to UBC, it’ll be a two-hundred thousand dollar cost that you’ll have to think about. I also asked him why he’s not aiming for American schools, in which he replied: “I think that the morals [in America] are different from what we [Filipinos] believe in.” In my mind, I replied as well: “Fuck morals.”
Within the two hours of talking to Carl, Leslie and Kenneth, I entered into a rabbit hole of nostalgia. They all listed out names of other classmates and it was a list of names that I wasn’t familiar with. French? The only French I know is the dijon mustard on my fridge. They asked if I knew Yohan or Marian or Trixcy. I gave them a decisive ‘no.’
That’s not to say that I forgot who everyone was. It’s just that I can only remember people who were themselves unforgettable. For instance, there was a classmate who shat his pants at least once a month. Unlike my dogs, he wasn’t potty trained. At any moment, his chambers would open—and everyone would be able to smell it.
Although it was an unfortunate circumstance for him, I was able to use it as an excuse at one point. One day, I needed to do a number two, but it was impossible to do so without letting people know that you did use the bathroom. The bathroom was close to the classroom, but it was in an atrocious state. The toilet flush didn’t work, the faucet wouldn’t turn on, tissues weren’t there and it was cramped. It was a horrible scene. So much for paying thousands of Pesos for tuition. Whenever a guy wanted to have a number one, we would often do so on a cement wall in front of our classroom. Although I didn’t want to use the washroom at all, I had no choice. I still didn’t, however, wanted to tell people that I was the one who left a Jackson Pollock in the washroom. So when people saw the Pollock and started questioning who left it there, I blamed it on the classroom shitter. Cruel? Yes. Smart? Absolutely.
As we reminisced even more about our days together, we subconsciously longed for days of reconnection; not just talking on Zoom, but meeting up somewhere to have a reunion for the friend group. The three of them had the short end of the education stick. This year, since Benthel is fully online, school is now a mere smudge in their schedule, leaving students at their own devices. Kenneth has been biking during the pandemic, while Leslie is...well...I think she’s just at home. During these COVID times, the thought of actual in-person interactions has been brewing on their minds for the last few months.
The 2013 Grade 4 Christmas Party
Seriously, what the fuck is with my pose?
I was rather skeptical when I heard the details of this reunion. The idea they offered was that we were all going to hang out at Hotel California, which is owned by the uncle of our classmate Andy, who also lived on the top floor of the hotel. That was a complete non-starter. North Korean labour camps are more hospitable than Andy’s room. So that’s a no for me.
We did, however, ponder about the other ways we could get together. Cebu has grown rapidly as a city and that came with new opportunities for everyone. The biggest addition was SM Seaside, the 470,000 square-metered mall facing the Cebu Strait. For some reason, they had the idea of putting in an Olympic-sized ice skating rink. An ice rink in the Philippines is like saying that someone is going to open a Wendy’s in Iraq. Not a good move, Cebu.
But a good move I did make during the call was to ask everyone about their love lives. As a bonafide Filipino, I wanted to get a dose of dopamine by hearing their love stories. As previously written, Leslie’s got her hands full with Jasper and the constant cycle of breaking up and then reconciling minutes later. My probing into Carl’s love life was limited, but I was able to figure out that he is currently in a two-year relationship with a girl he met at his new school. Kenneth, surprisingly, doesn’t have one, but every girl on the campus is “simping” over him.
Don’t worry, Kenneth. You’ll be the prince and I’ll be the princess. It’s a love story. Kenneth, just say yes.
We all have diverged from where we started. I’m in Canada, slaving away to finish this goddamn article. Kenneth and Leslie are still in Benthel, but Carl moved to a nearby school for his high school years. Since we all changed after seven years, I only expected awkward silence that was only filled by me saying that I haven’t seen them in a long time — and that did happen. A lot of times.
That predicament, however, was par for the course. We still did ponder about this possible reunion and kept asking each other about what we remembered about our time together at Benthel. Carl and I briefly talked about our Spotify playlist, while Kenneth and Leslie were suggesting their favourite anime. (AKA ‘weeb’ entertainment.) There was some kind of inkling from them that indicated that they wanted to get to know me again. Although I cannot speak for everyone in the call, I had a feeling that we wanted to do something to get closer again. It was not only a feeling of nostalgia but also a genuine interest in something we have either forgotten or rediscovered.
Our two-hour-long conversation came to an end when Kenneth had to take a crap and Carl had to take an online quiz. We said our goodbyes and off they went. Leslie and I stayed at the call to ponder about our next victims.
Recommended Song: Everything Has Changed - Taylor Swift featuring Ed Sheeran