Not all stars shine brightly

Spent my saturday and sunday @ school writing feature articles. It was brain-wracking writing long long long articles then having a Jamboree after that. I lack sleep and pimples are multiplying fast. Ugh. Pity my sad state jk.

Must you be under a limelight to be a star?

One look at her and you’d see her as an average person. Dressed in pink polo shirt and hair tied in a ponytail, she was surrounded by a group of kids. The only outlandish thing about her was her attention-grabbing white eyeglass.

She does not sit proud but she talks with expertise. She could pass up as a newspaper adviser or a random journalist enthusiast or even a columnist. She talks knowingly about people, she talks knowledgeably about facts, and she holds a newspaper. When she talks, she keeps it brief and in a professional way. What she lacked attention in image is sufficed with her words.

She keeps a business-like façade. When asked about her personal life she comes out of her pragmatic mask and takes pride in journalism. She is not the kind of person who would like to stick out like a sore thumb, but when asked about writing, she turns into an entirely different entity. Her eyes would light up and a smile would make its way into her face.

 “I have been a newspaper adviser for 7 years”, she said. “I was awarded Most Outstanding Newspaper adviser before I retired”.

Today, relieved from seven years of newspaper adviser duty, she continues to write. She writes the lives of those under her. She guides them not to write the same thing as her but an entirely different entity from hers. She guides them in the same direction but different roads. Perhaps these developing writers won’t be wearing a pink polo shirt or attention grabbing white glasses by then, but they would surely take pride in the same thing as her.

I do not know her personally. She might not choose to shine brightly to stand out, but if a star has a name it would definitely be Mervie Yap-Seblos.