I am a sad Iska.

I have a story to tell. I didn't tell anyone about this. Promise me when you read this, you'll keep it with yourself only. Okay? Okay.

Life on Earth is hard to explain. Nobody knows what life brings us. We don't know what will happen in the next seconds, minutes or hours. Sometimes we create decisions that we regret in the future. We're just humans, we create mistakes. We meet people along our journey that could help or challenge us. Each day is a survival. No, each millisecond is a survival. We are all challenge and we need to overcome whatever challenges we encounter. Anyway, let me begin my story.

My life is just an ordinary life. Like any other normal teenagers, I go to school, eat, drink, laugh and dream. I used to be happy. Yes, used to. Imagine, I have a happy family, I eat more than 3 times a day, I have a lot of friends and get good grades. But that was before. Before I created a major mistake.

I'm in the middle of choosing where to study in college when I was encouraged by a friend to take the UPCAT. I admit it, I was encouraged without any second thought. He's special to me and I felt special when he chatted me on facebook just to encourage me. I was excited taking that exam. I always brought the form in school because I didn't want it away from me. Fast forward, I pass the exam but not to his campus. That's the point when I had my second thought of studying in UP. I took other entrance exams. I considered the other schools and rejected UP. Until one day, I happened to comment on someone's post about UPCAT. And someone commented back. He added me on facebook and we became friends immediately. He encouraged me to consider studying in UP. And that's it! I just found myself entering the portals of University of the Philippines.

I regret that decision. I regret that I didn't follow my heart and chose want others think is best for me. It's not that I don't like it here. This school is amazing. Only that I don't fit in. Now I felt alone. That person who encouraged me to study in this university left me behind. Those friends I found during the first semester are not in my side now. My boardmate who's also my classmate left the university. I'm afraid to go back to that campus now. I'm afraid I might be alone. I'm afraid to meet the person who's been the reason of this loneliness. I can't transfer to other universities because it would be hard for my parents.

I hate this feelings. I hate this fear. :(

The Perks of Being an “Iskolar ng Bayan”

Activists, rebels, brave and smart are the words that will surely come first in your mind when you hear the word “Iskolar nga Bayan” or the nation’s scholars. We are stereotyped as students who are always present in rallies and any protest against the government. We are said to be rebellious. We are labeled as brave students who are not afraid to fight against the government’s wrong doings. People say we are smart because we were able to study in the most prestigious university in the country. But what they don’t know, there is more on being an Iskolar ng Bayan.

Passing the University of the Philippines College Admission Test or the UPCAT is not enough to call yourself an “iska” or an “isko”. You can say you’re a true Iskolar ng Bayan once you are able to do all the responsibilities. As the nation’s scholar, our tuition fee is being paid from the taxes of the Filipino people. For this reason we need to give back to them what they have given to us by fighting and protecting their rights against the corrupt leaders.

An Iskolar ng Bayan values education a lot. One is willing to fight for it no matter what happens.

Even though I’m just a freshman student, I can already say that life of a scholar is not easy. It’s not a bed of roses as what others think. Stress is as natural as breathing here. There are nights that you don’t sleep just to finish reports and papers. There are lessons that are hard to understand no matter how you try to understand it. There are times when you just want to sit in the corner and cry because there’s still so much to be done and not enough time to do it all.

Smart is not an adjective that fits for all scholars. It fits for some but not for all. Not all of us who pass UPCAT and study in UP are smart. We have a lot of failing grades. We often get low scores in our quizzes and long exams. Just like the students in other schools, looking for x and y in math is still a problem to us. There are a lot of students who repeat a subject or even their course. Many even didn’t graduate on time.

Not all scholars are hard working. I admit I belong to this category. There are also lazy “isko” and “iska”. A lot of us hate studying. We love to cram in every exam. We often engage in procrastination. We also hate doing the assignments and projects. As a matter of fact our motto is, “Due tomorrow, do tomorrow.”

Despite our busy schedules, we still find time to enjoy life. A true Iskolar ng Bayan knows how to party even he has tons of paper works to do. We won’t let school get our lives. We don’t want to die with boring life. After all we are still humans who need to enjoy.

Accepting the honor of being called as the nation’s scholar comes also great responsibilities. Once you study in UP, you’ll stop thinking of yourself only. You’ll stop being selfish because you’re carrying great responsibilities on your shoulders. You will start to care for the people and for the nation. You will start to develop patriotism in your life. You need to serve the people and need to take honor before excellence. A true “Iskolar ng Bayan” is also an “Iskolar para sa Bayan”.

It’s never easy to be an Iskolar ng Bayan but at the end of the day you’ll going to love each day of your stay in the university.