I may have found a formula for increased productivity at work:

Sleep early. Wake up early. Go to the office early. Go home early.

I know, I know. This sounds kinda like what my mom and grandma insisted I do since prep school (I skipped kindergarten).

I guess my ongoing “rebellion” against punctuality can be partly attributed to the verifiable fact that, until I was in Grade 4, I was one of the earliest students to be in school. Blame it on my grandparents, who were really early birds (I grew up in their house and was in fact raised by them when my parents decided to live in Leyte). Of course, my beloved grandma used to be a teacher, so she really has a thing for punctuality.

I’d arrive in school around 6:30 (classes started at 7:30), dragging my black maleta-looking bag with wheels. It had to have wheels because it was so full of books and so heavy that if I had to carry it on my back, I wouldn’t have gone past our gate. And it wasn’t even a stroller thing. The wheels were part of the underside of the bag, kind of like the new uso these days - those rubber shoes with wheels. The wheels would go shwink-shwink-shwink (at least that’s how it sounded to me), echoing across the still-empty corridors of the school. I’d sit at my desk and write, or stroll around, waiting for the other kids to arrive. Of course, there were also some other students, whose parents were way more anal than my grandparents, who actually arrived ahead of me.

By the time I was in Grade 3, I thought I was so uncool.

So when I got to High School, I started going home late. Of course I had valid excuses - play rehearsals, volleyball practice, etc. the day/night before. But perhaps the unconscious, and more truthful, reason was that I wanted an excuse to come in at 8 am for my 7:30 classes.

Posted under Navel-Gazing