First Impressions and Childhood Nicknames | Academics 2017



So for my Asia Pacific Studies class, we were given the assignment to list down other people's first impression of ourselves and our alias when we were younger. For today's post, I'd like to share with you my class paper. :)

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1. The most common impressions that I got from my friends are;

a. Know-it-all
- She always sat in front and was a little too attentive in class, she always answers questions and when she's wrong.
- She always had a book and pen with her and her library list is too long.
- She always answers "based on what I read" or "According to *some author or smart person*".

b. She wants to do it all kind of girl and attention seeker
- She always volunteers for class beadle tasks for each subject and joins clubs or other activities.. on top of her activities outside school. It's like she doesn't sleep.
- She accepts many tasks and then complains about how many things she has to do and that her schedule is filled.
- Her resume is filled with all sorts of seminars and activities
- She's Lakambini of this and Representative of that or Associate of this and Sponsor of that. I think you can find her name in every club and org available and not just a member but an officer. A major officer.

c. Control Freak
- She always writes in her planner and tells everyone what to do in group projects or where to eat or where to go after school. If things doesn't go according to her plan she either gives up or gets mad. She gets scary sometimes.
- She practices presentations too much and always has back-up plans and things for anything that might go wrong.
- When I ask her if we can go somewhere she checks her planner first before saying yes and then dictates the time when we can meet. Then she gets angry when I'm late and how many activities she had to move.

d. Suplada, unapproachable, mataray, high maintenance
- She was always made up and her clothes didn't have any stains or creases. I've never seen her wear 2-inch and below heels.
- She has a "resting bitch face" and when she walks it's like you don't want to stand in her way or talk to her.
- She always seemed occupied with some important thing and you don't want to bother her.

e. Rich kid
- She wears nice things and her clothes look well-made and expensive. She always speaks in English and doesn't know the meaning of some Filipino slang.

I was not surprised with their answers because I hear these most of the time, but I didn't know that I seemed like that to them. They did say that I have kind of relaxed overtime and that I have a lighter side to me.

2. My alias when I was younger was Esang. My nickname, Nessa was changed to Esang to make it uglier because of superstition. My grandmother told me that when I was 2 or 3 years old and was spending my first summer at our ancestral house in Nueva Ecija, I had a lot of imaginary friends and I didn't want to go home. The night before our trip back to Bulacan, I went missing and was found next to an old acacia tree in our manggahan (mango farm) covered in dirt and dried leaves. The caretakers who found me asked where I went and I pointed to the tree and I said that I don't want to leave because my friends would get angry. My elders called an albularyo (witch doctor) who told them to place a doll by the tree and call the doll Nessa and change my name so that the engkantos (tree spirits) would not take me again. We were able to go home to Bulacan and I never had any other imaginary friends. I don't remember being called Esang or staying for more than a day in our ancestral home. I was told this story when I was graduating elementary and had a project about growing up. I was looking for baby pictures and I found a scrapbook with my preschool notes, mementos, etc and the name written was Esang. The weirder part is that this has happened to every firstborn girl of our family's generation ever since my great great great grandfather brought home a girl he got pregnant and his mother didn't accept the girl and made him marry someone else.

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