I'm filled with bitterness today. Thanks.

There was nothing I desired more than a Literary Arts Award. I never wanted a Best in Math or Best in English, a Highest Honor even. All I knew, in my mind back then, was I deserved that award. But it took me four years to finally get what I wanted.

I wasn't a teacher's pet. I wasn't a favorite. Well, except for one class where I got the highest grade for behavior. Probably because I've grown a sense of pity, or whatever word is more suitable, to the teacher being bullied by my fellow classmates. There were those teachers who, as the society say, were civil with me. Some were okay, some obviously showed their hate towards me. I could not ever forget the teacher who made me act in front of everyone despite my refusal from the beginning. Or the teacher who said I was acting up when I was really sick.

And then that teacher who told my class that even if one is an honor student, if s/he did not receive a special awards, she was just a plain honor student. Thanks for adding salt to my wounds, Ma'am. She's one of my favorite teachers, though. My desire for that Literary Arts Award grew more intense than ever.

I joined one Essay Writing Contest to another. And some story making contests. I won some, then some I lost. But each year, I know I've won some, alongside some poster making contests. But I never wanted an Arts Award for those. I still wanted that Literary Arts Award.

On my third year in High School, I was really expecting a Literary Arts Award, especially when I overheard a classmate saying that she had one even though she did not won any writing contests. To think that our English class only studied one short poem the whole year, I don't think she, or any of us for that matter, added any significant insight to the four stanzas of Richard Cory.

But I won first place. I never got a Literary Arts Award.

I asked my teacher about it, he said he forgot. I was too late, he said. The awardees were already submitted to the principal. That is perhaps the first time I cried because of a school matter.

Then came my fourth year. Of course, they would give me a Literary Arts Award; they knew I wanted it. I got elected the president of the Language Club, which only existed by name. There were members, I barely knew them and vice versa. They voted for me, of course. I was a Senior and would take up a Communication course in College. And I got a seat as a writer in our school paper.

And so I finally got a Literary Arts Award. Somehow, though, I felt as if I did not deserve it anymore. They gave it to me just when the fruits of my labor were already rotten. 

This is the reason why I hate writing.

And this is the reason why teachers should pay attention to their students. They should know their students. Because not knowing them will affect their lives in the future. They might turn into one bitter, self-conscious, never-good-enough person like I am.