Memoir Monday #44. My high school years

Greetings, friends of Silver Bloggers.

This week's Memoir invites us to answer a series of questions from our high school years. A passage of our life that corresponds to that age we call adolescence, characterized by great physical and mental changes.

My adolescence, in general, was a beautiful stage, of many friends, tremendousness, laughter and tears. At this age, studies are the center of our activities and high school, which here in Venezuela we call liceo, becomes the most important space for interaction and in many ways it gives us the external inputs to mold and define our personality.

Today, through the questions posed, I share my experience of that time.

Did you meet your current love in high school?

No, and we were far from coinciding due to space and time issues, since he lived in Caracas and I lived in a city about an hour and a half away. However, I have an anecdote from those years in which I knew about him without knowing that he would be the love of my future.

I was studying, my last year of high school, in a nuns' school that offered three academic modalities in the diversified cycle that lasts two years and where you left with a mention: Bachelor of Science, Humanities or Teaching.

I was studying humanities and one of my sisters was studying teaching. We were in the latter when it began to spread through the corridors that a boy was with his wife looking for a place for him to study a bachelor's degree in teaching. We all prowled in the direction to see the strange couple. The young man was him, whom I would meet, approximately fifteen years later, also in an educational institution and, already separated, from his wife.

What kind of work did he do?

Although he had no formal job, he did try to make some money by reselling clothes and make-up to relatives and friends at the high school.

Where did you live?

Since I was nine years old we moved from the capital to the city of Maracay, where I have remained until the present, although on the way I have lived twice in Valencia, a city that is about 45 minutes away from where I live.

Were you popular?

In the high school where I did the first three years of high school, which we called the basic cycle, which lasted three years and after that you had to go to another high school where you would finish school in two more years. If it was popular, or rather I would say that we were popular, because it is not common for four sisters of different ages to study in the same high school, for this to happen there were two particular facts:

The oldest lost a school year so she had to repeat the third year, and we studied it together, and the youngest received an extraordinary promotion for her knowledge and went directly to high school without doing the last year of primary school.
So the four of us were popular as a team and although in some ways we excelled individually, everyone saw us as the Pacheco girls.

Were you in band or choir?

The fourth year of high school I was in an Adventist boarding school and there was the church choir, although I didn't have a good voice I was part of the activities they proposed so I could do other activities that called my attention more, such as attending and preparing the younger children of the institution, so I participated in the choir to do the other thing.

Have you ever been suspended?

In third year I had difficulty with physics and in fourth year with English, in both cases I was left as a pending subject that I took to repair, a term that was used to present a proficiency test before starting the new school year.

If you could go back, what experience would you relive?
The years of the basic cycle, when the four of us studied together, were years of sharing, of solidarity, of learning to respect each other's individuality.

Did you ever miss a class?

The truth is that I never, for a good reason, sometimes I ran away and didn't go to class, but it was more like a sign of rebellion, of challenge, of feeling that you could do whatever you wanted.

Did you attend soccer games?
No, soccer was not the most popular sport in my country, unlike baseball and basketball, which I attended during the different seasons.

What was your favorite subject?

The subjects I liked the most were Spanish and literature and art education.

Do you still have your yearbook(s)?

The only high school I studied in that made yearbooks was the boarding school, where I studied only one school year. That yearbook was lost in a move, however, I still have some photos that we exchanged with friends and I have mine that appeared in it.

In the nuns' school, where I studied the fifth year, the group photo was the norm.

Did you follow the career you had set out to pursue?

Yes, I studied Industrial Relations at the technical level, which was the career of my dreams, I finished it and never practiced it. I decided to go for my second option, which was a teaching career that allowed me to do many other things I had in mind, such as raising my children and dedicating time to my family.

Do you still have your high school ring?

No, I gave it as a gift to a very appreciated student that I taught in elementary school and when she was graduating from high school she visited me at school taking me the invitation card to attend her graduation ceremony, in the conversation came up the subject of the ring and that she had no resources to buy it, without thinking much I offered her mine and she accepted it with great emotion and gratitude. I feel that I could not have been in better hands.

Who was your favorite teacher?

My third year Spanish and Literature teacher. With her, besides getting to know the most representative Venezuelan and Latin American authors, I did my internship in theater. We staged a play by a very famous Venezuelan humorist writer: Aquiles Nazoa, and the play was called: La cenicienta al alcance de todos.

I had the main role, I remember the details of that activity and I smile, because it was something very beautiful and gratifying.
We presented it at the high school, and it was so good that it entered an inter-high school theater contest that we presented at the Ateneo de Maracay, an icon of the city of historical value.

What were your favorite shoes?

The shoes I liked the most were Kickers, I also loved Berkemann clogs and I had them in different colors. For special occasions I wore the famous machitos, a feminine version of the classic masculine shoe that was very fashionable in the 70s.

What was your favorite food?

At that time, in my country hot dogs and hamburgers were not popular, the sandwich was the most popular, I enjoyed a lot the club sandwich and the submarine, along with a delicious strawberry milkshake.

Who was your favorite singer?

I really enjoyed the Spanish pop-rock youth groups of the moment, such as Los Dars and Los 007.

What cologne did you use?
I used a very soft and exquisite perfume, I wore it for many years: Nina Ricci's Airs of Time.

How old were you when you graduated?

Sixteen years old.

Did you have any nicknames?

No, I never had any nicknames and the only person who ever cut my name was my mom who called me Mary.

Where did you go to high school?

The first three years, basic cycle, I studied at the José María Carreño high school in Maracay, which operated in the afternoon shift from 1 pm to 7 pm. In the morning there was an elementary school called Grupo Escolar “Las Delicias”, where I studied fifth and sixth grade of elementary school. Later on, it was the institution where I worked for nineteen years during my teaching career and where I retired.

The fourth year I studied at the boarding school: Instituto Vocacional de Venezuela, located far from my city, in a town called Nirgua in the state of Yaracuy. A beautiful place with a cold mountain climate.

The fifth year I went to the Colegio La Consolación. Located in my hometown.

What year did you graduate?

July 1977

What has changed the most in the world since you graduated?

Since we are talking about education, I will focus on this one. It has changed a lot the way of studying and researching, for example, when you had to do a paper, that meant going to a library and spending hours choosing and reviewing books to find the most relevant content to do the assigned work. Likewise, newspaper libraries were an important source for staying up to date and advancing in learning.

Today you only need an internet connection and if you are lazy you don't even need to know how to read, your work can be done by Artificial Intelligence and if your teacher is not very committed, he or she will accept it without hesitation. Big changes in substance form.

How have you changed since high school?

Between knowledge and maturity, I feel that I have changed a lot, especially emotionally and in terms of ideas. I am no longer the dreamy teenager who believed in utopias nor the one hundred percent impulsive young woman of yesteryear, step by step I have become a more restrained woman and more situated in the reality of my environment.

If you could travel back in time and say something to your teenage self, what would it be?

I would tell him two things, the first that “everything is temporary”, what today seems to us a drama, a big mistake, is just a life experience that strengthens you and the second is directly related to the first, do not let the stones of the road keep you away from the joy of living, as my English teacher told me when I scratched the subject: On the way you straighten the burdens.