Summertime

Are school over? I assume it is because it is going to be Holy Week next week. It has been decades ago when I graduated so I do not know much about school these days more so during this pandemic. All I know is that school starts on June and ends on March. Though it depends also on the school because back in college, school starts as early as May because we were trimestral.

As a student, I really loved it when it was already finals week or March because it means that school is out and summer is in. I do not need to worry about getting up early and sit for 8-9 hours listening to my teachers for almost 3 months because it was summer break. I do not have much memorable experience of my summer breaks because we rarely go on any vacation as a family. Honestly, I even envied some of my classmates before when they would tell us where they have spent their summer break. Some would say that they went to other countries or they stayed in the province with their grandparents. There were also some who just stayed at home and enjoyed being out of school.

When I was in elementary until early high school, I would usually go on vacations at our relatives' houses and both of which are from South. It was during my summer vacation in the province when I first witness a senakulo or upper play or passion play during Holy Week. I was still young that time and I really do not know much about what was happening. One of my older cousins along with her siblings brought me outside their house to watch senakulo.

During my third and fourth year in high school until college, that is when I rarely spend my vacation with our relatives as I happened to spend it with my friends. With my high school friends, we only have a few out of town trips but most of it were memorable. It was summer break when I first experience to spend almost a week with my friends in South. It was also.during that summer break when we went to Enchanted Kingdom, which was actually my first time. We can never forget about that summer becuase it was really memorable. We also had another summer vacation again in the South for almost a week but this time we were in the farthest part of Tagaytay with no neighbors and no adult supervision. It was pretty fun because we get to be responsible adults that time. What makes it unforgettable was when one of our classmates had asthma attack as if she was having a seizure. It was scary because back then there were no smartphones and all we have was Nokia cellphones. And because we were in a remote area, signal was a little difficult. Thank God nothing serious happened to our classmate as we really tried to get a signal to contact our parents for help.

It was during college when I did had a lot of fun and exciting summer breaks from North to South and even to Boracay, which was also my first time. Sometimes our summer breaks was not long enough because of all the out of town trips that we had. We would go on road trips and food trips just so we can enjoy our summer break. It was in college when I have realized that there are still a lot of places that I wanted to visit, a lot of activities that I wanted to try and a lot of food that I wanted to eat.

Truly there are some summer breaks that are remarkable for us whether it was a summer fling or a summer trip. What are those summer breaks that you cannot forget? Indeed, summertimes are usually one for the books. Better enjoy the summer break while you are still a student because when you start working, you will only have a few days leave to hit the beach or the mountain or elsewhere. So where are you planning to spend your summer? Me? Always at home. LOL. Wherever we would spend our summer, I hope that you will not forget all the health and safety protocols now that the virus is still around and most especially remember to take lots of pictures and have fun.

April 09, 2022

P.S. lead image is a photo of the sun and skies that I took months ago.