There were two things I was looking forward to for the start of 2012 – the class retreat and outreach, and AJ Rafael’s concert. Both (along with report cards day, a.k.a. today) happened to be scheduled for this week, so you can imagine how much fun this week was for me.

The Retreat and Outreach.

Let’s skip Sunday and go straight to Monday – the class retreat.

I can’t really go into details about it, since I guess it’s supposed to be a surprise for the other classes, but I can say it was fun. I’m definitely much closer to my class. I know them better now.

The next day, after waking up and eating breakfast, my classmates and I went straight to the bus and to the outreach area.

My boyfriend and I were partners this year. We’re different in a lot of ways, but one of the first things you’ll notice upon meeting us is how friendly and outgoing he is, and how unfriendly and shy I am in comparison.

Because of this, most people we just meet tend to gravitate towards him, which I don’t really mind. I expected it to happen again with the kids we were assigned to in the outreach. For some reason though, they loved me. They were fighting over having me as their “mother”, constantly pulling me to things and places they wanted to show me, and a bunch of other things.

I was pleasantly surprised.

The Next Day

My classmates and I were exhausted after all that. It was so hot where we went, and we were all running around and playing with the kids the whole time too. A lot of us just fell asleep as soon as we got home. We all felt tired, and a few of us even felt a bit sick, so most of us ended up being absent on Wednesday – and by most, I mean 27 out of the 38 people in our class. I swear, we didn’t plan for this to happen.

Only 11 people were present that day. We must’ve set some kind of school record.

AJ Rafael

Later that day was the AJ Rafael concert. I went with my boyfriend and my mom. Since we didn’t go to school that day, we left the house early, and ended up getting there 3 hours before the show was supposed to start. We ate, we went around, I almost passed out in a bathroom (I’m not exactly sure why), and then we watched the concert.

AJ Rafael is one of those artists who sounds exactly the same live and in recording. He’s amazing.

Everyone there was singing along to all the songs, and I could tell he was shocked by that. There were times when he would just stop singing to listen to us, surprised that we all knew the words. People would shout song requests, and he’d wonder how we all even knew what those songs were. We made him cry from the happiness.

By the end of the show, most of the people in front just ran up to the stage; basically, the entire stage was full of screaming fans, trying to take pictures of themselves with AJ and the band; the band, trying to continue playing in spite of the others on stage, and the security, arriving only when the stage had already been filled.

I didn’t go on stage, but I still got to meet them! I got them to sign my CD, which I didn’t have to buy there since my friend had already gotten it for me for my birthday last year (thanks Carrie!).

We had school on Thursday, so nothing exciting happened, aside from our teachers snobbing us and joking around with us because of the lack of students in class the day before.

Today was report card distribution. You’d think that would destroy my good week streak, but it didn’t at all! I managed to get a high grade in Filipino (and Philosophy, which I never expect anything from), and got the highest general average I’ve gotten in a while.

I’m just in an amazing mood right now.

I’ll try to continue with the “Introducing Myself” posts (would you call it a series?) next Tuesday. Because of all that’s happened this week, I never really got around to finishing and posting the next one.

My first name, nickname and preferred name is Clarisse. A few people do call me Reese, a few others Clar, one person Clarry, some ClarClar, some Clar.me even, but, generally, I’m just called Clarisse.

I’ve lived in the Philippines my whole life. I’m a Filipino and don’t know of any other blood I have in my body besides that.

I’ve never really felt too comfortable speaking in my native tongue though. I honestly used to speak just straight English before, so much that most people just assumed that I didn’t even understand Filipino. I’m more comfortable speaking in Filipino now though – you wouldn’t hear me talking to you in straight Filipino, but phrases and words are definitely a start. The strange thing is, I can write in Filipino relatively well. It’s just the speaking it that feels uncomfortable.

When I first opened Clar.me in 2010, I was 14 years old. I’m now a 16 year old – who feels like a 14 year old, and looks like a 12 year old – but is still a 16 year old.

My Physical Appearance

I don’t really post pictures of myself on the Internet, so most of the people reading this probably won’t know what I look like. To help you kind of picture it in your mind: I have black hair and eyes. I have light skin. I’m basically a just a short Filipino girl.

I stand at just 5’1″, even after suddenly growing an inch late last year. I say “suddenly” because, for the past 2-3 years, I was pretty sure my growth had already stagnated at 5 feet flat. Over a year ago, I’d already mentioned on this blog that I actually love being short. The extra inch definitely couldn’t hurt though.

I’m generally on the lighter side when it comes to my weight. I did get my mom’s light bones, which could take part of the blame for my inadequate weight, but I still did kind of resemble a stick before. I gained a few pounds in the last year though, so, hopefully, I look a bit more human now than I did before.

Miscellaneous

My last few years of grade school were the hardest of my life. It’s kind of personal, so I’d rather not get into details.

In short though – I was pretty messed up.

I was so shy and insecure. I was too afraid to talk to strangers (I avoided salespeople like the plague). I was too afraid to voice out my opinion. I was too afraid to even recite in class.

I wasn’t very happy. I didn’t notice it at the time, but I barely ever smiled. I was even called “emotionless” for a while there.

That went on until the start of my high school years. The later part of my freshman year though – the time I got my boyfriend, the time I started to get closer to my mom, the time I started working on Clar.me – will always be remembered as the turning point in my life.

It was then that I really started to grow as a person.

Suddenly, I was happy. And I can say from experience that, when you’re happy, it’s hard for anything to go wrong.

I started to believe in myself more. I gained self-esteem and self-confidence I didn’t even know I could have. I was never called “emotionless” again. I stopped just going through the motions of life, and actually started living.

I’ve gone through more change in the last 2 years than I’ve gone through my entire life.

I used to be so afraid of everything – even change. Change frightened me the most. Now though, I embrace it.

2011 has been amazing, but now it’s 2012 – and I’m looking forward to it! It’s the start of the year – the perfect time to get back up on that blogging train. It’s January so I might as well try to be a bit festive by writing a new year’s day related post.

Last year, I started my blogging year…on time, unlike right now. But I also started it with a list of my new year’s resolutions. They’re still basically the same this year, so I guessed posting another resolutions blog would just end up being really redundant. I was thinking about posting my progress on those resolutions, but I honestly don’t have much to write about it.

I was running out of ideas. Then I thought, a new year does represent a new beginning. It represents change. And I’d like to think that I’d changed this past year, and I’d definitely changed a lot since starting this blog.

I also realized that I’ve never actually formally introduced myself on Clar.me. Fine, there’s the “Owner” page, but you have to admit that the descriptions there are kind of general and vague.

So I thought I’d use this opportunity to introduce myself now, but also to introduce the person I was when I’d just started this blog in the process. It would give you guys a chance to get to know me better, and give me a chance to reflect on how much change I’ve gone through in the past year and a half or so running this blog.

I tried writing this post today, but it ended up so long that I decided to just cut it up into a few parts and post it all within the next couple of weeks. We’ll see how that turns out.

In short, what I’m going to do is write a few posts about myself now and try to compare with who I was at the time I’d just started this blog, both to see how much I’ve grown in that time, and also to let you guys know more about who I am and what kind of person I am outside of Clar.me.

While I’m not yet done writing them, please post in the comments anything you may want to know about me, if there is anything, and I’ll try to include it in the next posts.

Again, happy new year! I hope 2012 treats us all as well as 2011 has treated me!

Stop freaking out first. Stop typing that comment telling me I didn’t have a childhood (I get enough of that already when I tell people I hated The Teletubbies as a kid). Stop it and let me explain.

My parents just didn’t want to lie to me. That’s essentially what Santa Claus is anyway – a lie.

For me, it isn’t even a good lie. Saying that Santa will give you presents if you’re good, and give you coal if you’re bad gives the wrong message. So I’m going to be good just because I know I’m going to get something from it? Aren’t you supposed to be good because you know it’s the right thing to do?

I guess it would be considered a white lie by most though. Santa did make a lot of kids pretty happy, though I’d like to think that my brother and I were perfectly happy without him.

Anyway, it’s not like my parents just point blank told me, “Santa Claus is just a big fat lie!” They didn’t actually tell us anything about Santa, about whether or not he even existed. They just didn’t encourage it and waited for us to figure it out for ourselves, which we eventually did anyway. We still got presents anyway; they were just from our parents, and they never told us to be good to get them; they just gave them. No need for any sort of sugar-coated blackmail.

I’m sorry for disappearing for a while there. I had projects, exams, singing engagements – a lot of good, a lot of bad, a lot of just okay. In short, a lot of life – a lot more than I’m used to having.

I’ve also been getting high on nostalgia a lot lately, playing all the PS2 games I used to play, hoping my PS2 doesn’t just give in and die on me while I play – which is completely possible (though I hate the thought of it), considering it’s about 6 years old already. It’s all I’ve been doing lately. It’s a miracle I managed to type this post at all.

Anyway, hopefully, I’ll be posting again soon (if I can manage to tear myself away from Final Fantasy long enough to write another blog).

Merry Christmas!

As most of you know (and as the rest of you should know), I have a twin brother. Growing up, we did everything together, including watching T.V., so we basically liked the same shows, and it can be seen in our birthday parties.

The first birthday cakes I can remember are our Dexter and Dee Dee cakes. Obviously, his was Dexter, and mine was Dee Dee. Apparently, we used to love that show, probably cause we could relate to it. I’m not sure about then, but nowadays my brother loves making things. He’s like an Industrial Designer in the making. Plus, then, he really loved insects (a very rare thing for little boys to be into), so by extension, he was really interested in scientific things. I, on the other hand…I was probably just an annoying person. I definitely remember that about myself as a kid (and now, sometimes).

Another set of birthday cakes I remember were our Wartortle and Charmeleon birthday cakes. Tell me you don’t know who they are, and you’ll break my heart. My brother and I used to love Pokemon, and we still love Pokemon, going from the T.V. show to the card game to the video game, which I think is kind of backwards for most other people. I still play the game every now and then, and I still have most of my cards.

Wartortle and Charmeleon, for your information, are the evolved forms of Squirtle and Charmander, respectively. We even got Squirtle and Charmander stuffed toys (which we still have) and Wartortle and Charmeleon remote-controlled toys (which are kind of broken, with mine breaking first) sometime down the line. I always got Squirtle and Wartortle, and my brother always got Charmander and Charmeleon.

Of course, me being a girl and my brother being a boy, we had to have different show preferences at some point. Like almost every girl my age, I also had a Lizzie Mcguire phase. I even had a few Lizzie Mcguire books and a Hilary Duff CD. I remember myself being so proud to have the same birthday as Hilary Duff (which I really do, by the way).

I also loved watching a bunch of other shows (mostly those shows you see on Tumblr with captions about being a 90′s kid), including Legends of the Hidden Temple, Captain Planet (every morning before school), The Amanda Show, Clarissa Explains It All (I remember being so amused that her name sounded like mine, and that her guy friend’s name was Sam when I thought Sam was a girl’s name), etc.

I loved those shows. It’s too bad they have to keep making new versions of shows that were completely awesome already. The new versions all suck. None of the new Pokemon series can compare to the original. The Asian Art Attack we have on nowadays is terribly boring, honestly. And whatever happened to Lilo from Lilo and Stitch?