Factors that shape who I am today

In this activity, we were asked to present which things, events and people influenced us to be the person we are today. 

I separated these into three categories. 

The ones in the green box are my family. My family plays a great role on shaping me as a person. As you can see, I listed my parents first then my aunts. My parents used to be authoritarian but due to certain factors like my selective mutism (which my father painfully has to deal with most of the time), they have been leaning towards authoritative parenting these days

I consider my aunts as a second set of parents. Tita Norma and Tita Tess are the ones who took care of me as a child when my family moved to Tarlac and left me in Manila. Back then, my mom could not take care of both of me and my sister Janine while starting a new business so they decided to leave me under my aunts' care. Tita Norma is my father's sister, while Tita Tess is my mother's sister. They used to be a couple back then. I believe that this is also the reason why I tend to empathize with people from the LGBT, since I was raised by them. 

Janine is my younger sister. I have two younger female siblings but I only put Janine in this since we are the ones who live together in Manila, now that we are both in college. I consider her to be one of my closest friends. We are closer than most siblings our age that I know. I think it's because I already close myself off from schoolmates. Therefore, I have more time to spend with my sister.

The blue box contains other things and events that also influence how I am today. I have discussed living with my aunts and living with my sister in the first portion so I would just go on to the other items in this list.

• Being the "eldest" means a lot different from actually being the eldest. And I am more of the former than the latter. Since I grew up with my aunts, I had this feeling that I was an only child. So when I moved in with my parents, having a younger sibling was a foreign idea to me. Up to now, I still don't have that maturity that is needed in being the eldest child. Even my own parents think that my younger sister is more responsible than me. I don't take it to heart though. I believe that I am mature in my own way. I just like to act young because I don't see the need to rush being old. I will have enough time for that when  the time comes.
• Living alone on the other hand is a factor that I don't know if I should consider good or bad. When I entered college, I had to live alone for a while. I got so used to being alone that sometimes I don't know how to be with people anymore. 
• Moving frequently. When I was a child, my family moved houses frequently. This caused me to feel like an alien most of the time since I am always "the new girl" wherever we went. I think, I still carry this sense around, although I am trying to work it out and feel more comfortable and belonging tomy surroundings.
• High School Graduation is a topic that has always been taboo to me. i think that this is pimarily the reason why my selective mutism developed. I am not even comfortable enough to write about this in detail. But I could say that this single event affected me greatly in life and my confidence (or the lack thereof) to follow my own decisions.
• Books - I have always been a book worm when I was a child. These days, I still read but I resort to e-books since it is more practical. My love for books shaped my dream today: to write a children's books.

The items in the yellow box are the other things and people that didn't fit in the first two categories yet still had a great impact in my life.

• My high school friends play a big part on how I choose my friends these days. In high school, my friends are mostly male. I am the only girl in our clique. Some people find this weird because I wasn't in a romantic relationship with any of them and I wasn't lesbian either. Later on, I just got so used to having only boys as friends that I find it hard to befriend girls as they are aliens to me. I don't know how to act and react to other girls. I also find a hard time fitting in and getting the hang of 'girly' things.
• Mr. and Mrs Pimenta are teachers in my primary school. Later on, they became my tutors and then godparents. I became very close to them and I tried very hard to maintain my status back then so as not to disappoint them. They are like my grandparents in a way.
• SRCS is Saint Rose Catholic School, where I graduated high school. While COCC is an acronym I honestly forgot the meaning to. It is the military training in my high school. I developed hard to kick habits such as eating within five minutes among others while training. In here, I made friends and gone through things that changed me too. Due to the vows of confidentiality, I am not allowed to disclose here the things I went through in those years. But what I can say is that, I became stronger (physically and mentally) because of it.
• TVXQ is a Korean group that I discovered some years ago. I would have put Kpop in general but it is this group that made a serious change in my life because almost all of my closest friends and people who matter, I wouldn't have met if I didn't like this group. Of course, I am no longer that big a fangirl as I used to be (they are technically disbanded) but I treasure this group so much because of the friendships I formed through them.
• Paulyn, Chekay, Harloi - These are the people that I go to whenever my life is upside down. I consider them to be part of my family. 
• UP, AIT, UPCC. These three, no matter how much I try to love, are what I usually blame for my low self confidence. I don't have that sense of belonging whenever I'm inside them. This is actually a very long story but to cut it short, I almost lost my morale and my ability to believe in dreams and myself in general because of these three.
• UPMC - The UP Music Circle is the only organization I have in the university. This organization opened my eyes to a lot of things and widened my vision when it comes to music. I also became more sociable compared to my first years in the university when I became part of this organization. 
• Prudencio Rodriguez Jr. is my best friend here in school. Come to think of it, he is my only friend in school that I actually spend time with. We are only classmates in LTS but we hang out for hours and hours. It is amusing that we found each other first online before being classmates. We have a lot of common interests but we also have different ways of thinking which I think help us grow as people and as friends. 
• Paolo and Jhonn - These people confirmed my preconceived bias against dating certain stereotypes. I steer clear from these kind of personality because of bad experiences.

To summarize, these people, things and events greatly affected me as a person and my personality was shaped through my experiences with them and other factors.