Of all the beautiful things in the world, the metamorphosis of a butterfly is indeed the best phenomena that I have seen. Nothing beats the journey of a crawling caterpillar from being hatched from an egg to covering itself and be a chrysalis and afterwards, flying as a beautiful butterfly.
As a human being who searches for knowledge I can compare to a metamorphosis of a butterfly my education, my journey from pre-school to college but unlike the butterfly that flies and adds beauty to every flower it stays on, I have spent my most of days in school as a caterpillar. I was just an average student who went to school every day, listened to my teacher and worked on my homework. I was just crawling and crawling until I bumped into something called direction. My fifth grade teacher saw something in me that I did not know I have. It is the ability to be better than what I am. She pushed me to not just move but move to a certain direction. I followed her as I followed the arrows pointing to my direction of stepping up. I embraced the change as a caterpillar covered itself with a leaf and became a chrysalis. I felt so warm and I knew I was better then. I was not the slow leaf-eating caterpillar anymore but I did not realize that as I covered myself I also covered it from the world. Even though I learned to adapt myself to any weather as I shielded myself from rain or storm I continued hiding myself in my shell. I was afraid of the real, bigger world. I was a coward who was afraid to take risks.
Not until I saw a slight ray of light from where I was. I was blinded yet amazed of those sparks I have seen so I planned to step up higher. In my options of working after highschool or going to college, definitely I will go to college. I took up several entrance examinations from different institutes and universities but the admission test whom I kept on praying to pass since I planted my first step in school was the UPCAT (University of the Philippines College Admission Test). As a Filipino student, it is a great privilege to study at the University of the Philippines. I passed most of the entrance examinations I took which offered me with a bright future but that did not make me happy because I failed in one test, the only test I failed and it was UPCAT. My dreams were shattered. I already visualized my four years of college at the University of the Philippines but I knew it will not happen anymore. I cried a river and I was in pieces not until I received a letter which offered me to study in an institute and take teaching as my course with full-tuition fee assistance grant if I pass the school’s interview. It taught me to dream again and have faith in myself that my one failure cannot stop me to be what I want to be. I went to that interview and at same time, I tried my luck in joining a quiz bee contest but it is not just a typical mind contest because a good amount of cash was at stake of winning which will be a good help to support my study.
Among the 400 highschool students, the top three students were the ones to compete in that mental challenge. I was not in the honor roll so I did not expect to be one of the top three students to join the quiz bee competition as I landed on the number one spot but it did not end there, I needed to compete with the best from our district. Even though success is not yet at hand,
my family was happy and very supportive of me but I did not know that for the second time I will fail them again.
From flunking my entrance test at the University of the Philippines, I lost the quiz bee competition, the cash prize and my self-confidence. When I got home, I just remembered telling my mother that I lost and locked myself in my room. Inside my room, I heard the phone ringing and I shouted for somebody to take it but it seemed like nobody’s home except me so I have no choice but to answer the phone. It was my father saying how much he was proud me no matter what happened and that he was so glad that soon I will have my highschool diploma and will go to college. The next day, my father picked me up from school, he told me that I passed my interview and it is going to be a free ride for me to college.
After all the failures, I have experienced I went to First Asia Institute of Technology and Humanities and took up teaching as my course. Months after my college graduation, while teaching in a private special education school, I passed the Licensure Examination for Teachers who would have thought that the highschool student who flunked her admission test will pass the teachers’ test to become licensed and the highschool student who joined quiz bee contest with cash prizes to earn money does not need to do it anymore because she is now earning a living for her family by doing the thing she loves most, teaching.
This time, I can say that from the chrysalis that is afraid to see the world or show the world what she can, I am now a butterfly that spreads it wings and flies. The butterfly that will not just soar but will help young people to soar as well as she teaches and will pass the beauty of learning from one generation to the next generation until they matter to the world.
