I AM, have always been, and will always be a Catholic. I went to a Catholic school all my life. From kinder and prep at the Holy Spirit School, I went to Maryknoll (or Miriam as it is known now) for elementary, high school in Assumption and college at the Ateneo and the College of Notre Dame. Nuns and priests took over my parents? role as soon as I was deposited at the school gates.

It wasn?t always easy. From these revered religious figures, I heard horror stories that took me years to shake off.

I was told that you went to Purgatory if, during your life here on earth, you weren?t exactly an angel. This conjured up images of a really big waiting room where you were to sit until your name was called and you were judged worthy of being accepted into heaven.

How did this affect me?

Well, when I was growing up, fried eggs were a favorite side dish for all our meals. (Obviously, cholesterol was not a big concern then.) But I never touched the egg whites, a not-so-exemplary eating habit. So I grew up thinking that once I died, I would sit in Purgatory and would be made to eat all the fried egg whites I had ignored in my lifetime. I couldn?t figure out though whether they?d all be rotten and spoiled by then. Despite those childhood fears, I still don?t eat egg whites to this day.

Most memories of growing up Catholic harken back to a straight-laced, repressed and oppressive childhood. Not in my case, where being Catolico cerrado only meant that religious celebrations were ever present in my daily school life. October, celebrated as the Month of the Holy Rosary, meant forming a human rosary in the school quadrangle. Each class was assigned one bead and you had to wait your turn to recite your assigned prayer out loud. It didn?t matter if you got the first or last decade, you?d still have to stand under the hot sun until the entire rosary was finished.

In Maryknoll, a student was always chosen to lead the whole school in prayer everyday. It was sort of like an honor to be selected. You were excused from class for a few minutes and you got to ring the school bell. The entire campus was literally at your fingertips. I was chosen from my batch. I was doubly pleased because my sister was the representative from hers and in fact, was assigned to train us. There were three reps per batch, a prayer leader, a guitar player (the prayers were Mass songs) and one person to lead the ?Panatang Makabayan.? First you rang the bell, then you turned on the mic and led the school in singing. We couldn?t actually hear the students from where we were so we didn?t know if they were actually singing or just making fun of us.

I was also part of the school choir. No, I didn?t have to pass any ?American Idol? ? type auditions to get into this one. My class was chosen because the Religious Administrator (yes, there was such a creature) liked us and decided that we were the choir. This meant singing during the first communion Masses and school functions, including the special Masses early Saturday mornings (not fun). But it also meant being excused from regular classes to practice and attend school gatherings (really fun!).

High school was a different story. While still in Maryknoll, I had heard stories about Assumptionistas and how they weren?t very nice and welcoming. But as it turned out, I had absolutely nothing to fear. I was welcomed by my new schoolmates and made to feel right at home. The friendships that I formed in high school are still going strong to this day, more than 20 years later.

Assumption was very strict about what we could do, especially while wearing our uniforms. We were not allowed to ?disgrace? the school by drinking and smoking in our uniforms. If you were spotted doing such forbidden stuff even outside the school during off hours, you could be suspended. We weren?t allowed to appear in commercials nor to dye our hair with fun colors. I remember one batchmate who colored her hair fuchsia. She was made to sit outside her classroom till she dyed it back to its natural color.

There were also strict rules about boys coming into the campus on regular days. The only exception was during our Junior Year Playfest. This was a long-awaited event where we got to invite boys to be part of the cast and crew of original plays that we staged. During the rehearsals, we?d silently do a countdown till it was time to meet the boys at the gate. This was definitely the high point of our day! And my class felt especially proud because we had college boys working with us in our play, while the other sections only had high school boys. Amazing the things that made you feel good back then!

We also had annual retreats. The first three years were overnighters in the Assumption retreat house in Antipolo. I?d never been on a retreat before so I had no idea what to expect. So it kind of surprised me that on the way to our retreat that freshman year, my classmates decided to bring a bottle of wine and drink it during our trip. This would have gone unnoticed by the teachers except that one of my classmates spilled wine on her shirt and we were caught. Because I didn?t drink a drop from that wine, I was saved from suspension. I wasn?t sure if I was relieved or sad because I felt like such a nerd for not drinking.

Because of all the rules, we had to get creative. We found a construction site a few blocks from school where we?d go on CAT day (when we were wearing jeans and white T?s instead of our uniforms) to sneak a puff or two. Technically we were in civilian clothes and it was off campus. When the house was finished, we had to find a new smoking corner.

We were good girls, but always managed to stage a prank or two on our teachers. Like the day we decided that we would hum from the line formation on the first floor all the way up to our classroom on the second floor. We were all smiling and left the teachers confused as to where the humming was coming from.

Because it was an all girls? school, drama was inevitable. We had class encounters before every retreat which turned into bull sessions. We aired our issues and cried them out. And though you were with the same section during those four years, for some reason, there were still new issues every year: new grudges, new conflicts and scuffles, including name calling (soufflé comes to mind). Girls just love drama, don?t they?

The school didn?t allow us to have a junior prom, so being the resourceful students that we were, we decided to hold our own. Someone loaned us her house (big enough for the entire batch and our dates), someone subsidized the food (we only had to pay a token fee) and someone who owned a printing press volunteered to print the invites for free. When the Assumption admin found out, all hell almost broke loose! Thank goodness our parents managed to calm the nuns. It was agreed that we?d have a theme prom to cut costs (meaning no elaborate beaded designer gowns). The result was a mock wedding where you and your date came in coordinated costumes. The ?king and queen? were ?wed? in a fake ceremony. My date and I came in Old Filipinana. I borrowed my grandmother?s old terno. We won the ?oldies but goodies? award! The prize, a feather duster! Of course the school administration wasn?t pleased when they saw our invitations. The headline on the cover: ?Will you marry me??

Between all that drama and playing hooky, there was, of course, a lot of praying and meditating. These were Catholic schools after all. We had our rosary sessions in October when we were made to kneel on the cracked cement tiles. We also had to memorize prayers to be recited on specific days of the week. Every special occasion was celebrated with a Mass. We even had our graduation in a church. The earlier batches had theirs at the Manila Cathedral, but for my batch, austerity was the operative word so we were the first batch to have our graduation at Don Bosco. This made us feel like poor relatives.

I know, I know. You might have expected some sordid secrets behind the ivy walls. But that wasn?t what Catholic school life was all about. It was never about being the wild girls who broke all the rules. It was about finding our own way of having fun despite (or maybe because of) the rules. It was about being resourceful and creative. It was about bonding with friends over the silliest things that you still laugh about to this day. It was about having a blast while still getting a good education. ?