Growing Up In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

“Better a witty fool than a foolish wit,” William Shakespeare once said through his play Twelfth Night, and I will classify this line as a life changing saying. Growing up, the mould my parents filled me in was a person who is independent, practical, and logical. In no doubt, I was a clumsy child. I did break things often, trip myself while walking in streets, accidentally harm another person physically while doing something exciting, yet the most life-changing from all of these accidents was having my parents be disappointed of me because of these faults, therefore I have decided not to, again, disappoint any other person with only being myself. During the fourth grade, I remember myself being excited to wear the outfit of a native Igorot

I was being constantly bullied even though my parents already have informed the bus owner numerous times to have these students stay away from me. Whenever the topic would be brought up again, it is when their laughs are at its loudest, and I do remember holding back the tears in my eyes – being one of those kids who endures her pain just for the sake of others’ entertainment, I continued to bear whatever words they shot at me. I purposely did not want to search how an Igorot looks like, or at least seems like. I have never searched who they are as an ethnic group. It was not that I was upset because they made fun of the person I portrayed, but it was because I was made fun of – they were laughing at me, involving an ethnic group that are both (myself and the ethnic group) supposed to be respected. During the half of sixth grade, that person still did call me Igorot and I did my best to counter her acts. I tried answering back, yet she bullied me more due to my not-so-fluent Tagalog. I tried laughing with her, yet it made me feel like I was slowly allowing her to do what she was already doing to me. My goal was simple – to stop her. I tried becoming the mature one, and it worked. During the times she would bring it up, I would automatically change the topic; the idea was to make her feel like name-calling is indeed a lame