BuzzFeed recenty posted an article titled "22 Signs You Were An International School Kid" and it went viral on my Facebook page because a lot of people can "relate" being that a lot of my Facebook friends are from the mysterious Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I call bull! Sure, we went to international schools but the only thing international about them is that they have the word "international" in their names and that they are in a foreign land. Aside from that, they're more or less glorified public schools.
Get your head out of your asses people!
So let me just list what Buzzfeed has to say about being an international school kid and let me point out to you how delusional most of us are.
1. You can honestly say you have friends from all over the world. -- Really? Do you have friends from all over the world? We went to a Philippine international school. All of your classmates were Filipinos. Aside from those kids who moved to the US/ Canada or went back to the Kingdom, all of you are here, in the Philippines, a country that's basically just a speck and ridden with political turmoil. I rarely had classmates who were foreigners and most of these foreigners were at least half Filipino.
2. You can sort them by continent. -- Easy, Asia.
3. Some of them are from countries most people have never heard of. -- Yes, people haven't heard of the Philippines. A lot of countries just sent billions of dollars of aid to our country. You're right, I just made up the Philippines.
4. Which made International Day pretty interesting. -- We had United Nations Day. When I was a junior in HS, for our school presentation, my class danced a bastardized form of the Swing to the tune of Larusso's "On ne Saimera Plus Jamais". Because of that, I didn't know what country we were representing. Was it France or the US? Something in my gut was telling me it was Luxembourg but my teacher back then probably couldn't spell that right so that probably wasn't it.
With Lots of Epic Food. -- If you consider different versions of Pancit, Pinoy Spaghetti and Lumpiang Shanghai epic, sure.
5. At least one of your friends have diplomat parents. -- I do have a friend who has diplomat parents but you couldn't tell, especially when he starts talking.
Which means you've been inside some pretty sweet houses. -- I haven't been to his house. I'm not sure but don't they just live inside the Diplomatic Quarters where all the houses look alike sort of like a Camella subdivision only for diplomats?
6. When you arrive at an international school you enter with one accent… and leave with seven. -- We all spoke Filipino. Even when we were fined every time we don't speak English, we still speak Filipino. What accent? In fact, my accent only changed when I moved back here because I was exposed to a lot of people with conyo accents, Chinese speakers and then I dated a Batangueno.
7. Plus if you had more than four Americans in your year, you probably sounded a bit like…
-- Let me just laugh. Did any of us had American classmates???
8. You’re used to hearing conversations in different languages. -- Yes, Arabic. That's the only foreign language I heard. In fact, when I was in college, I was uncomfortable when my Chinese friends spoke Mandarin when I'm around.
9. You can swear in at least seven of them. -- I can swear in Filipino, English and Arabic. That's only three. If I learned how to swear in another language, that's because I googled it.
10. When you’re drunk you let out your Spanish side. -- Every Filipino has a Spanish side. This isn't new to us. Our language has Spanish in it but aside from telling time, counting and shifting gears, we barely speak the language.
11. And nothing beats the feeling of finding a kid in school who spoke the same native language as you. -- Yeah, nothing beats hearing Filipino from a Filipino in the Philippines. That's the stuff dreams are made of.
12. When you talk to non-international school kids, you realize how ridiculous the stuff you got to do at school was… -- What ridiculous stuff?
Like the time you went to the Louvre aged 10 and hated it -- We went to the same amusement park every year.
All your sports tournaments involved a plane journey. -- We competed with other Philippine schools inside the city. We don't even have intercity sports tournaments. Our schools can't afford a bus, let alone plane tickets for every player.
When other kids were going to the zoo… -- We went to the zoo.
You were preventing WWIII during Model United Nations. -- Refer to number 4 please.
13. In normal school being a new kid is kinda scary. -- It was scary. I transferred schools four times throughout my stay there, I was terrified every time.
But it’s totally fine at an international school! -- Because it wasn't really an international school!
14. Someone in your class was always jet-lagged. -- The only travel that most OFW families get was to and from the Philippines and they normally go on vacays when school was out. Once school starts, everyone has recovered.
15. Missing school to get your visa sorted was just as common as going to the doctor. -- This does happen but it doesn't happen in Saudi Arabia. We miss our college classes here in the Philippines so that we don't lose our visas to go back to the Kingdom. It's also optional. We're here in the Philippines. If we don't get our visas sorted, so what? Will we get deported? No. We're already here.
16. International school kids have hearts of stone... Because they’re used to saying goodbye to their best friends. -- This isn't true at all. We're not used to saying goodbye. It's a very tight knit community in Saudi Arabia. If we transfer schools, we can always bump into our friends in the supermarket. I transferred cities and I bawled like a baby when I got into the plane.
17. This may be the cause of your deep-rooted commitment issues. -- I transferred a lot so yes, it could be a reason but that's just me and my friend Kevin (hehe, nandamay pa e) but a lot of people from the Kingdom are in loving and lasting relationships. A lot of them actually married/ will marry their childhood sweethearts. Also, my commitment issues are because I'm a free spirit.
18. But all that moving around has made you adaptable to change. -- Not really. It took quite an adjustment for me to get used to life here in the Philippines. It's the same for other OFW kids. There was even an article in Arab News that talks about that fact and how the big adjustment contributes to a lot of these kids losing their way later in life.
19. When people ask you where you’re from, it’s sorta tricky to answer. -- Saudi Arabia. Done. The tricky part is when they ask you what's it like living in the desert. A friend of mine actually asked me if I took a bath and ate shawarma everyday. One of them even asked if I rode a camel to school.
20. Your life story contains a LOT of “then we moved to”. - I had three major moves in my life: moved to Jeddah, moved to Riyadh then back to the Philippines. But because people from here can't really tell Jeddah from Riyadh, the story shortens to "...Then we moved to Saudi Arabia then back here." That's it. Only one "then we moved to."
21. But international school taught you how small the world really is… -- Living in Saudi Arabia then moving back here did the opposite. It actually opened our eyes to how big the world really is.
22. Sometimes school would be cancelled for dramatic reasons like bombs threats and demonstrations. -- Saudi Arabia isn't that much a hot bed for terrorist attacks unlike what everybody thinks it is. When President Bush came to the country, there was a bomb threat but they didn't cancel school. It was actually better if we went to school. He was staying at the Marriott back then and we lived just behind the hotel. We did get our classes suspended due to a heat wave. Temperature reached 55 C. It was an emergency.
But all in all, international school was pretty awesome! -- Was it really an international school?
(Even if the IB programme almost destroyed you.) -- What the F is an IB programme?
Source: http://www.buzzfeed.com/autmnjones/signs-you-were-an-international-school-kid-grak
Get your head out of your asses people!
So let me just list what Buzzfeed has to say about being an international school kid and let me point out to you how delusional most of us are.
1. You can honestly say you have friends from all over the world. -- Really? Do you have friends from all over the world? We went to a Philippine international school. All of your classmates were Filipinos. Aside from those kids who moved to the US/ Canada or went back to the Kingdom, all of you are here, in the Philippines, a country that's basically just a speck and ridden with political turmoil. I rarely had classmates who were foreigners and most of these foreigners were at least half Filipino.
 |
| practicalmagicianpost.blogspot.com |
2. You can sort them by continent. -- Easy, Asia.
 |
| troll.me |
3. Some of them are from countries most people have never heard of. -- Yes, people haven't heard of the Philippines. A lot of countries just sent billions of dollars of aid to our country. You're right, I just made up the Philippines.
 |
| asia.cnet.com |
4. Which made International Day pretty interesting. -- We had United Nations Day. When I was a junior in HS, for our school presentation, my class danced a bastardized form of the Swing to the tune of Larusso's "On ne Saimera Plus Jamais". Because of that, I didn't know what country we were representing. Was it France or the US? Something in my gut was telling me it was Luxembourg but my teacher back then probably couldn't spell that right so that probably wasn't it.
 |
| s2.quickmeme.com |
 |
| quickmeme.com |
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| memecenter.com |
Which means you've been inside some pretty sweet houses. -- I haven't been to his house. I'm not sure but don't they just live inside the Diplomatic Quarters where all the houses look alike sort of like a Camella subdivision only for diplomats?
 | |
| tattoopins.com |
6. When you arrive at an international school you enter with one accent… and leave with seven. -- We all spoke Filipino. Even when we were fined every time we don't speak English, we still speak Filipino. What accent? In fact, my accent only changed when I moved back here because I was exposed to a lot of people with conyo accents, Chinese speakers and then I dated a Batangueno.
 | |
| memecrunch.com |
7. Plus if you had more than four Americans in your year, you probably sounded a bit like…
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| images4.wikia.nocookie.net |
8. You’re used to hearing conversations in different languages. -- Yes, Arabic. That's the only foreign language I heard. In fact, when I was in college, I was uncomfortable when my Chinese friends spoke Mandarin when I'm around.
 |
| media.tumblr.com |
9. You can swear in at least seven of them. -- I can swear in Filipino, English and Arabic. That's only three. If I learned how to swear in another language, that's because I googled it.
 |
| altmnl.com |
10. When you’re drunk you let out your Spanish side. -- Every Filipino has a Spanish side. This isn't new to us. Our language has Spanish in it but aside from telling time, counting and shifting gears, we barely speak the language.
 |
| quickmeme.com |
11. And nothing beats the feeling of finding a kid in school who spoke the same native language as you. -- Yeah, nothing beats hearing Filipino from a Filipino in the Philippines. That's the stuff dreams are made of.
 |
| quickmeme.com |
12. When you talk to non-international school kids, you realize how ridiculous the stuff you got to do at school was… -- What ridiculous stuff?
 |
| commitnesstofitness.com |
Like the time you went to the Louvre aged 10 and hated it -- We went to the same amusement park every year.
 |
| www.reactiongifs.com |
All your sports tournaments involved a plane journey. -- We competed with other Philippine schools inside the city. We don't even have intercity sports tournaments. Our schools can't afford a bus, let alone plane tickets for every player.
 |
| survivingcollege.com |
When other kids were going to the zoo… -- We went to the zoo.
| i.chzbgr.com |
You were preventing WWIII during Model United Nations. -- Refer to number 4 please.
13. In normal school being a new kid is kinda scary. -- It was scary. I transferred schools four times throughout my stay there, I was terrified every time.
 |
| teen.com |
But it’s totally fine at an international school! -- Because it wasn't really an international school!
 |
| blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca |
14. Someone in your class was always jet-lagged. -- The only travel that most OFW families get was to and from the Philippines and they normally go on vacays when school was out. Once school starts, everyone has recovered.
 |
| media.tumblr.com |
15. Missing school to get your visa sorted was just as common as going to the doctor. -- This does happen but it doesn't happen in Saudi Arabia. We miss our college classes here in the Philippines so that we don't lose our visas to go back to the Kingdom. It's also optional. We're here in the Philippines. If we don't get our visas sorted, so what? Will we get deported? No. We're already here.
 |
| img.pandawhale.com |
16. International school kids have hearts of stone... Because they’re used to saying goodbye to their best friends. -- This isn't true at all. We're not used to saying goodbye. It's a very tight knit community in Saudi Arabia. If we transfer schools, we can always bump into our friends in the supermarket. I transferred cities and I bawled like a baby when I got into the plane.
 |
| auburn.edu |
17. This may be the cause of your deep-rooted commitment issues. -- I transferred a lot so yes, it could be a reason but that's just me and my friend Kevin (hehe, nandamay pa e) but a lot of people from the Kingdom are in loving and lasting relationships. A lot of them actually married/ will marry their childhood sweethearts. Also, my commitment issues are because I'm a free spirit.
 |
| media.tumblr.com |
18. But all that moving around has made you adaptable to change. -- Not really. It took quite an adjustment for me to get used to life here in the Philippines. It's the same for other OFW kids. There was even an article in Arab News that talks about that fact and how the big adjustment contributes to a lot of these kids losing their way later in life.
 |
| media.tumblr.com |
19. When people ask you where you’re from, it’s sorta tricky to answer. -- Saudi Arabia. Done. The tricky part is when they ask you what's it like living in the desert. A friend of mine actually asked me if I took a bath and ate shawarma everyday. One of them even asked if I rode a camel to school.
 |
| media.tumblr.com |
20. Your life story contains a LOT of “then we moved to”. - I had three major moves in my life: moved to Jeddah, moved to Riyadh then back to the Philippines. But because people from here can't really tell Jeddah from Riyadh, the story shortens to "...Then we moved to Saudi Arabia then back here." That's it. Only one "then we moved to."
 |
| gifstumblr.com |
21. But international school taught you how small the world really is… -- Living in Saudi Arabia then moving back here did the opposite. It actually opened our eyes to how big the world really is.
 |
| media.tumblr.com/ |
22. Sometimes school would be cancelled for dramatic reasons like bombs threats and demonstrations. -- Saudi Arabia isn't that much a hot bed for terrorist attacks unlike what everybody thinks it is. When President Bush came to the country, there was a bomb threat but they didn't cancel school. It was actually better if we went to school. He was staying at the Marriott back then and we lived just behind the hotel. We did get our classes suspended due to a heat wave. Temperature reached 55 C. It was an emergency.
 |
| theaccidentalextrovert.files.wordpress.com |
But all in all, international school was pretty awesome! -- Was it really an international school?
 |
| media.tumblr.com |
 |
| weknowgifs.com |
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