A close friend from high school messaged me one day to say our school was celebrating its 80th anniversary. As part of the celebration, they were collecting short video reels from alumni—one for each of those 80 years. The idea was to create 1–3 minute videos in English sharing our experiences at school, and post them on the school’s official Facebook page. I thought it was a cool idea. I also figured they normally invite the valedictorian from each year.

I wasn’t exactly the valedictorian—my close friend was. But maybe because I blog, or because I’ve posted videos and been active on social media before, she thought I might be up for it. For some reason—maybe because it was a request from her, or maybe as a small way to make up for not attending recent reunions—I said yes.

I wrote a short script that came in just above the one-minute mark and even asked ChatGPT to proofread it. I brought out my mirrorless camera to get that nice blurry background look, and recorded early in the morning so the soft natural light from the window could make up for my lack of lighting gear.

It turned into a full-on YouTuberesque production.

At first, I tried reading the script off an iPad placed next to the camera. But no matter how I angled it, it was obvious I wasn’t making eye contact—it was obvious I was reading. So I decided to just memorize the whole thing and speak directly to the lens.

It took me several takes over four days. Each time, I’d stumble on a word or mispronounce something. I was nervous, and I kept forgetting the lines. It brought back memories of high school—how even tiny mistakes got laughed at by classmates. The thought of this video being posted on the school’s Facebook page, for all my classmates—and worse, former teachers—to see didn’t exactly calm the nerves.

Eventually, I settled on one take. It wasn’t perfect—I still muffled a few words—but I was tired, and decided to call it done. I uploaded it to the Google Drive folder provided by the organizers. They said they’d edit the videos, add an intro, background music, and post them one at a time.

As a side note, I watched some of the other reels. I noticed a pattern: the younger alumni, especially those from the last few years, had much more American-sounding accents. I guess it’s a trend now in the Philippines—more and more of the younger generation speak English as their first language, and their accents reflect the YouTube and TikTok content they’re constantly exposed to.

A few months later, another friend messaged me asking how I ended up on the high school Facebook page. I guess that meant organizers had already posted the reel.

That was the start of my six minutes of fame.