I am not much of a writer.

I did a bit of campus journalism in grade school and some academic

papers in high school and here in college but that is pretty much all of my writing experience (aside from
my fan-fiction writing career which recently died out so that does not count). Nevertheless, I will do my
best to execute the task at hand. Actually, I have already thought for a very long time of putting my life
story on paper but I think that it would be like giving me away. I would like to keep some things to
myself, things that are better off unknown by everyone but me and so this autobiography is filtered and
will contain only information known by people aside from me. Everyone has got to have some secrets,
right?
1996. September 8th. Iloilo Doctors Hospital. At around 3pm, Helen and Sotero Abenido
welcomed their first born, a girl via C-section. It was an unplanned pregnancy, I was unplanned. If we
count back about 9 months from that day, we can infer that my parents made me the night of their
wedding, December 23rd 1995. What luck that is for a first time! Yes, both my parents were virgins when
they got married and they were each other's first relationships. Isn't that just beautiful? Bringing me out
into the world was not easy. It almost cost mine and my mother's life. Even inside my mother's womb, I
was already a stubborn child. I was in a head up position and could not fit no matter how hard my mother
pushed. Her vitals were dropping and I was in a dire need to get out, it was my time. So the doctors
decided to do the C-section and when I got out, I was yellow all over since my blood type did not match
my mother's. She was O while I was B like my father. This was one of the stories that my grandfather, my
father's father, told me. If the doctors had not decided the C-section in time. My mother could have died. I
could have died. It brings me to tears whenever I remember this. I believe it was a miracle. I have the
same birthday as The Blessed Virgin Mary. I think it was her who saved us.
I love my mother. I call her Mama. That was how she called her mother, Purita Elegarle Distor.
My lola was sixteen when she married my lolo, Paterno Distor, Sr., who was twenty-six, a whole ten years
apart. It was an arranged marriage, if I recall correctly. It was still a thing during their time, around late
1940's as I calculated from their golden anniversary when I was about 3, year 1999. They were able to
produce thirteen children (my mother was number 12) but the eldest died in an accident when my mother
was still very young, around 2nd grade. They lived in a big wooden home atop a hill in Putian, Capiz.
Lolo and lola were farmers. They mainly planted rice and root crops and lola, according to mama made
her famous kakanin from the root crops that she would sell at the elementary school for extra income. All
twelve children finished college, the girls mostly teachers and the boys mostly seamen. It was 2006 when
lolo passed away, due to a heart attack. My lola eventually got Alzheimer's and cataracts. She moved in
with one of my aunts so they had to sell the house and the land. She would have forgotten who we were,
her children, her grandchildren, her great grandchildren. Sometimes she remembers but would forget

eventually. But when she is asked about our lolo, she remembers. She had once said that, "sang una indi
ko gid siya gusto pero sang nagdugay, ginpalangga ko na siya" (at first I did not like him at all but
eventually, I learned to love him). However, there were moments when she did not want to talk about him
at all. She joined lolo year 2013. She was asleep, she didn't wake up.
My grandparents on my father's side of the family are still alive. They live in San Antonio, Ajuy. I
don't know much about their love story. Lola simply does not want to be asked of such questions. Lolo on
the other hand, blabbers on so many random things ranging from stories about relatives or neighbors or
the family or some stuff about farming (he's a farmer and lola, a housewife). So if he did tell me about
their love story, I would have already forgotten about it drowned and crushed in between other memories.
They have seven children. One of two boys is my father, Papa. Papa is 2nd and the rest are girls. All
finished college, some now happily married, others not but still happy nonetheless.
My parents met while they were in college, they had the same group of friends. When they
graduated, my papa confessed his love for mama. Mama was against the idea of dating her best friend. It
would just be so weird, she had said. But papa was so persistent that even when mama went to work in
UAE, he'd always write to her and send her cards on her birthday and other occasions. Who wouldn't fall
for that? So after mama came home in 1994, she said yes and they married the year after December 23rd,
1995. After me came Shaira on March 16th, 1998. She's 17 now. She still has this scar on the back of her
left hand from an infection from a dextrose needle when she was a baby. Even though she is younger by
almost two years, she is taller than me and skinnier than me. Recently, her farsightedness got worse so she
now wears glasses and looks like a real nerd (not that I'm stereotyping but really the glasses make her
look like a nerd). She is also better at everything I'm good at, academics, arts, logical thinking. I love her.
She is like my twin. When we were younger, people always thought we were twins and I would say yes,
we were just born on different dates. I know that it is impossible but I believe it anyway. My parents had
planned to stop when they get a boy so someone would carry on the family name Abenido and fair
enough, on June 1st, 2000, John Paul came and that was the end of us children. John Paul or JP for short
is the most stubborn and lamest excuse for a brother (I am not even joking). He's just fourteen but acts as
if he is older than me and Shaira. He almost always starts the fights. You have to scream at him to get him
to listen to you and his grades aren't the best thing in the world. He's the youngest and the only son, he's
the favorite even though our parents say that we are all treated equally. He had the best toys. He always
had new clothes while I and my sister had to share hand-me-downs from our older cousins. He's so lazy
(even lazier than me) and uses homework as an excuse to play computer games at a computer shop not far
from our house. I have no choice but to love him for he is my brother. He's okay sometimes, when he's
not whining and asking for things.

I am now 18, plain looking with curly hair, 151 cm, and 52 kg. As a young child, I was very bibo.
According to one of my father's sisters, I was very talkative. I would talk everyone's ears off until I fell
asleep. Then as I got older I became shy, I never got to enjoy my social life after nursery school and
kindergarten at the daycare of our barangay and a Baptist school, respectively. I was more of an acads kid
which wasn't really an option but an obligation, a responsibility. Since I was the eldest, I had to do things
right. I was the one who would take responsibility of the family when mama and papa too old to support
us three and to do that I had to do well in school. I actually enjoyed studying and it was a natural for me. I
would always get top marks in class in grade school and it made me happy to see how proud my parents
were of me. I graduated as first honorable mention at Iloilo Central Elementary school. For high school, I
was originally to go at a public high school near our house but instead I went to Philippine Science High
School Western Visayas Campus. I was one of the three passers in our batch but it was only me and
another one who made the waiting list who grabbed the opportunity. It was the best deal you could get,
free tuition, free loan of books, the best teachers in the country, the best secondary curriculum specialized
in science, math and technology. That alone attracted me and made me decide to enter Pisay but what
really made me go there was the monthly stipend, getting paid to study. And I thought that was perfect,
less burden on my parents and I could help with the expenses. That very same year I started school at
Pisay, 2009, my father lost his job. The school he worked at as an administrative officer closed down.
Times were getting tough. Pisay was a blessing, my monthly a allowance of P3000 helped pay the bills
and for the rice for our daily meals while my mother was selling snacks as extra income and my father
was doing freelance work at a manpower agency owned by a friend. It was not much but it was enough.
Majority if my life so far revolves around high school. If you're the best in your elementary
school, it won't matter here. I got my first and only substandard high school mark in 2nd year physics.
Honestly the lessons were hard like they were teaching you how to run before you could even walk. It
was a struggle but I survived. I survived four years of commuting every single school day. Pisay was on
the other side of the city, a good three rides away. I had to wake up at five in the morning and leave the
house at six to get to school. Class starts at 7:30 am and ends at 5:10 pm. Sometimes I don't go home
immediately because of group projects or presentations and by the time I get home it would already have
be almost nine in the evening. The first time I pulled an all-nighter was not in college but in high school.
Mama wakes up at 3am every day to go to the supermarket to buy groceries and ingredients for her small
snack business. On occasions that mama would catch me still awake doing homework and projects or at
least trying to stay awake to do homework and projects, she would make me a warm glass of milk before
she leaves for the supermarket. At first my parents was against the all-nighters but eventually they got
used to it. One must do what he/she needs to do. They got worse and worse especially with Research in
third year. Oh Research, how it made me cry. The only times I cried in high school was because of either

physics or research, but mostly research. I'd rather not elaborate on this. I do not like to dwell in such
things that involve me crying.
Anyways, high school was where I found the best things. I met my real first love there. I made
friends with the most awesome people ever, who loved me and supported me in everything as I did to
them. And most importantly, it was in high school that I really fell in love with Kpop. Yes, I love Kpop,
you can judge me all you want. I was already into K-pop that summer before I started at Pisay, but the
upperclassmen as influential as they are made me go deeper and deeper until I drowned and choked and
after some time I learned how to swim in it and bathe in it like it was automatic and as natural as
breathing. It is now a big part of me and I've never felt so content and happy about anything other than
this. This is my kind of happiness.
There are so many other things that I am thankful to Pisay for. Pisay changed me into a better
person. It has molded me into someone I can be proud of in spite of my shortcomings. I may have left
Pisay but Pisay will never leave me.
"I am a Philippine Science High School scholar committed to the pursuit of excellence..."
My sister also studied in Pisay and graduated last April. She's starting college next semester at UP
Miag-ao with BS Chemistry. As for my brother, I think he'll be lucky enough to survive any high school
given the shift to the K-12 curriculum. He will be grade ten this upcoming school year at Ramon
Avancea National High School.
Right now, I am here at UPLB taking up BS Agriculture, my first choice of campus and degree.
There were a few important factors that led up to this moment. First was the Summer Science Internship
Program at Pisay during the summer after 2nd year when I interned at the Department of Agriculture
Region 6. The experience was wonderful. I really wanted to work there and one of our superiors there
suggested I take either Agriculture or Chemistry in college. And so I did. Second was my hero, Temple
Grandin. Professor Grandin is autistic but her autism was what helped her discover many advances in the
raising of cattle. She is one of the inspirations why I am where I am. Third is my grandfather, my father's
father. I had learned that it was his dream to study Agriculture here but the great grandparents
disapproved of this and they also did not have the money to send lolo to school here in UPLB. So I am
continuing his dream for him. And finally, I chose this to help the country, although I think that we are
close to a hopeless case in terms of self-sustainability in Agriculture. I want to help the country not just
because I signed a contract in Pisay which included a mandatory four-year return service as well as a
contract for my DOST scholarship here. People belittle Agriculture. They say in this generation, we

should focus on modernization and the development of infrastructures. But I say that is just cow poop.
What we really need is Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. I strongly believe in that and will defend it
with a passion because without these three, how will mankind survive? How will we eat without food?
How will we build things? It is through these three disciplines that we obtain the raw materials of
everything from wood to the plastic ends of shoelaces.
Of course there were a few things that got in the way of me studying here. Mainly it was
financial, then there was my mother. I had just finished dinner one night when my classmate called to tell
me that I passed UPLB. I was so happy and my father was ecstatic. The first in the entire clan to get into
UP. Meanwhile, my mother was just quiet, she did not say anything. She did not even congratulate me. I
cried that night not just from happiness but also from something else I could not quite point out. Was it
disappointment? Anger? That of all people, it was my own mother who did not want me to follow my
dreams.
After a lot of reasoning, my mother caved in and allowed me to go. I understand where she is
coming from. It's hard for a mother to let go of her children, especially in our culture as Filipinos but I
feel that a mother should not hinder a child's need to grow in the figurative aspect as well as allow
him/her to learn to be independent.
It feels good to be free and to be independent. But sometimes, I can't help but miss Iloilo. I would
get so homesick, and cry myself for hours until I fell asleep. I miss the times at home. The summers at
Ajuy when we were little and attended Flores de Mayo and the Christmases at Capiz. The fun times. And
the bad times. When I almost drowned twice. The first during holy week of fifth grade at a waterfall in
Capiz then at high school during PE class in 4th year. When I got robbed by a lady when I was in grade 2
because I didn't know any better. And when Yolanda struck the Visayas and I wasn't home with my
family, I was here a whole sea away. I badly wish that going home would be much easier.
I rarely pay attention to any national issues or events that do not directly impact my family like
politics. I opt to not involve myself in those kinds of things that will never be fixed. As for religion, all I
can say is that I love God and I believe in him.
To end, here are a few last things about me. I am addicted to crafts and DIY, I live by the saying,
"Why buy when you can DIY." l absolutely adore cats and would choose them over any other animal. My
favorite food is corn. So if you see a weird girl eating corn with a cat, that is probably me.
Like what I had mentioned earlier, I am not a writer. I prefer reading. I read and study writing
styles of various authors hoping that their magic would rub off on me but so far that has not happened.

But if I were a writer I would purposely omit some information and it would be up to the reader to read
between the lines.
Thank you for your time. My story ends here, for now.

My First Eighteen Years: An Autobiography

by:
Shannen D. Abenido
PI10 T-5R

May 4, 2015

APPENDIX

note: These were all I had to bring since I left home two years ago.