Back to school

June: just the sound of that month is enough to send chills down the spines of students everywhere. June heralds the end of summer and the start of another school year and while school can be exciting and fun, it’s usually very hard to say goodbye to those endless summer days of doing nothing and enjoying yourself to go back to books, tests and being cooped up in a classroom for eight hours a day.

I often felt that way when I was back in high school thinking about how to squeeze in the most amount of fun during the last few days of summer before finally putting on the uniform and heading back to school. It’s amazing how at the start of the summer vacation you make a list of all the fun things you want to do and then by the time June rolls around you realize (in a panic) that you didn’t do anything.

This always used to happen to me. No matter how much I planned my summer vacation, by the time it was actually vacation I was perfectly content to lounge around the house, watch movies, and basically do nothing, which — when you think about it — is essentially what a vacation is all about in the first place.

Now, though, students are polishing off those shoes, dusting off their backpacks and going back to the classroom. You know it’s this time of year again when you begin to notice a surge of people (kids and parents alike) at the bookstores browsing through notebooks, pens and other supplies. It is utter pandemonium walking through the aisles as kids choose their favorite notebook covers, test pens out on the piece of paper at the counter, and struggle to look for the set of 10 or 12 watercolor paints for art class.

This was actually one of my favorite parts about going back to school when I was younger. A geek to the core, I really looked forward to back-to-school shopping with my mom or dad and made sure to get every item on the school list often times with a backup just in case. I remember buying rulers and protractors and highlighters alongside notebooks (my personal favorite back then, and even now, are the Mead 5-subject notebooks), pads of paper and books.

And can one even mention books without mentioning plastic covers? Usually the spools of plastic sit in the container all year long, ignored save for those few bibliophiles (myself included) who need it to wrap their new books, but this time of year they sell like hotcakes as students cover up their new textbooks and workbooks to keep them dry and free from tearing and cracking. My mom, who I admit I get some of my OCD tendencies from, used to tediously wrap my books back then and get them ready for my first day back.

I actually think the whole fun of getting new notebooks, pens and books is one of the things that makes the thought of giving up the freedom of summer bearable. Much like my mom who only enjoyed back-to-school shopping and not so much the back to school, I like the thought of having all my new school supplies ready for the year ahead. A stack of shiny, clean notepaper was always a promise to me of new ideas and new insights and I loved the creativity that that thought brought me.

I know I am sounding more and more like a nerd with each sentence (and I wonder why people call me Hermione Granger) but I guess I found inspiration wherever I could to get me through two-hour math periods and history taught in Filipino (which was always challenging to me). I knew that even if I couldn’t make heads or tails of the lesson I would, at least, have my metallic-colored pens to write notes to friends or doodle in the margins of my notebooks.

I actually find myself missing that excited and harassed and sad feeling I am sure all students are feeling now on some sort of level. It’s been years since I had to sit in a classroom all day or take tests or write papers and while a part of me does miss the learning process another part of me doesn’t miss the stress and the strict rules. I often find myself wondering what other kids are thinking when I see them in the stores, their arms laden with school supplies, heading to the cashier.

I was thinking that just last week when I made the grave error of going out to buy a lunch box right in the middle of the back-to-school rush. I needed a decent lunch box to carry my low-carb high-fiber diet food (more on that another time) safely and decided to go buy a new one last Saturday — Good Lord! Payday weekend right before school started.

Suffice to say I haven’t seen that many people in the mall in a long time. Department stores were full to overflowing and I didn’t even bother going to the bookstore. Not to mention the traffic was more noticeable and parking was a nightmare. It was a complete nightmare just to be able to buy one thing and navigate through the crowd back to the parking lot, which was also full.

Yup, these are back-to-school signs indeed and in the next few days and weeks we will be noticing even more of them including students in malls, school-sponsored events and traffic — a lot more of it. But hey, such is life and to all the returning students out there — good luck this upcoming school year! Enjoy it while you can!