Last Saturday my grade school batch had a quasi-reunion. Around 20 people showed up. This number out of a batch composed of 35 ain't so bad. And to think that it's been 10 years since we graduated! We haven't all been in touch through those years; some credit has to go to friendster and the mailing list for getting a lot of us back in contact. It was great seeing Brandon, for example, who I literally have not seen since graduation. But my grade school batch has been surprisingly close, moreso than a lot of other batches. Maybe it comes from the fact that we were such a small school. Or because we were the first batch that merged AM/PM, who were usually kept separate. It was great seeing everyone. Best of all, there were no uncomfortable silences, we all just started talking and updating one another as to what we've been doing, where we're working, where we went to school and what we took up, etc. Some of the parents were exchanging baby pics (there's more parents in my grade school batch than my high school class, for some reason. I guess I expected it to be the other way around). I had a lot of fun and laughed a hell of a lot as we reminisced through the night. Some of my classmates haven't changed much, some have, some have just grown/matured in the direction I predicted (sometimes not such a good thing).

My high school class are also pretty close. The mailing list is active (what little porn I see these days usually comes from there) and we make it a point to see each other at least several times a year. I bump into them here and there and when we see each other it's like no time has passed either. I remember during senior year everyone was getting sentimental about it being our last year together and we would go home at around 5-6 every evening even when we were dismissed early. We'd play basketball/table tennis, or just hang out inside/outside the classroom, usually ending with a rice/egg dinner (a 10-peso meal for poor me) at the now-gone Goodah. Good times.

Anyway, that night I couldn't sleep. I just kept thinking how lucky I was that both my grade school and high school batches were pretty close and still kept in touch, still liked to meet up and see each other and hang out. And I got to thinking about one of my greatest regrets: the fact that I didn't stay in touch with my classmates in the US when I was there for 4th grade. I made a bunch of good friends there, had a greater time than I probably should have, and like a motherfucking fool I didn't stay in touch with any of them. It might surprise some of you that probably my best friend there was a black girl named Lenelle Moise. She was one of the few people who had a twisted sense of humor, and we got to know each other because we took the same school bus home. Another good friend was Wade, and it really pains me that I can't remember his last name. This guy was a comic-book geek like me, and he joined my Tae Kwon Do class after I recommended it. He was so nice he moved up his birthday party a few weeks so I could attend it because I was about to go back to the Philippines. Melissa, who sat across me, I became friends with instantly because she was such a reader. When our Scholastic book orders would arrive every month we'd see whose stack of books was taller.

Man, the regret kills me. If I could get to my 10-year-old self I'd kick my ass for being so heartlessly stupid.

Anyway, so I couldn't sleep. I went online and tried to find everyone on friendster. This wasn't the first time I'd done this, but maybe they'd joined in the interim. Still nothing. So just out of curiosity, I looked up the website of the school, and found a list of faculty, and lo and behold, one of my teachers was still there! So now I've got her email address. I'm going to write her and see if she's in contact with anyone (I doubt it); at the very least she can hopefully give me a class list from one of the yearbooks. Then I'll look for them again. My virtual fingers are virtually crossed.