Reflections

"I think high school is where people change the most," a friend of mine calmly said.

We were sitting at Tapioca Express right after school on Jackson and McKee eating our food, with both eyes glued outside towards the busy intersection. It's a Friday, and we've just begun our Labor Day holiday.

I take a sip of my milk tea and nod my head with eyes still gazing outside.

"Yeah, I think so too."

Amazingly enough for most people, it takes them more than a decade from birth to develop their personality, only to have in one or two years change all that. As children, we eat, we babble, we whine, we moan and we want toys. Our conscience has been looking outwards. We see all sorts of things--from a 'horsie' to the very attitudes of our peers--to the delight of our eyes and take them in, helping establish a foundation for a personality. No time is spent in ourselves during this exploration period.

Then we mature into young adults. We've seen just about everything by now, and life speeds up. For the once magical, blooming fireworks that lit up our tiny faces long ago are now just a work of chemistry with fire. The twinkling stars in the night sky we'd gaze as children are now are mere grains of white sand. Almost everything by now is mundane to us. With nothing to see left, we turn to the one place for something new: inside ourselves. We adventure though, and begin to see extraordinary views of the everyday actions from a different perspective. These different views in turn influence our actions and lifestyle. That's my guess on why such changes happen in high school.

I've finally been able to catch a sunrise for the first time in three months. Up until Thursday, they were always sunsets. But for the time being, a sunrise is quite spectacular once the rays of light burst over the Alum Rock hilltops.


Everything is so calm! Contrasting with the evening at sundown, mornings are quietly lively. The atmosphere was, so to speak, that of a voiceless, outside market filled with people whose faces are politely smiling.

Strolling around school at this time is quite lovely, with its lush greenery lit by the refreshing rays of the morning star. A smile to start the day.

In other words, I have long been admiring the same sun, but just from a different perspective. (;