Chapter 3 - A prince on a quest

“IGWANG nalulunod!” The loud scream by the Bayantel technician at the top of the tower shattered the excited buzz that accompanied the successful test-drive of the Wimax service down below. Everybody to the last man, and woman, turned their head in the pools’ direction. For a split nanosecond, there was a defeaning silence. Then all hell broke loose.

My feet and limbs froze, my heart pumped and my head spun. In situations like this, a father always knows. Deep in my gut, I know it was Ezekiel. But my mind is ferociously resisting the idea, the dire, totally unacceptable possibility: it can’t be him; he’s a very good swimmer; it must be somebody else.

Overwhelmed, Erwin did not know what to do and remained motionless at the tower top, his head turned towards the pool. The Bayantel guy has gathered hit wits and quickly slid down the tower in one fluid motion. But Jimmy, Joe, Richard and their colleagues are already on the ground, racing against time and each other to reach the outermost pool. But Tere and the guys with her have beaten them to the spot, leaving behind a broken Thinkpad that fell off her lap when the commotion started. Tere was almost sure it was Ezekiel: he was the only one in the area at the time. And she was the last one he spoke with.

She was holding Boke’s orange shirt when I finally reached the area. “EK! Ekoy! Ezekiel!” I kept on shouting over and over again.

“Mayo man baga igdi,” one Bayantel guy told another who had waded into the shallow pool.

“Hanapon nindo. Let us look around. He is probably just around here somewhere,” Jimmy Casin hollered to his people.

Joe meanwhile run over to the outpost at the resort entrance, and started talking to the VHF-armed caretaker, hoping to get a good lead. Richard, Tere and Erwin who has managed to come down kept me company as I went around, jumping from one pool to the other, from time to time joining me in a chorus shouting my son’s name.

Thirty minutes later, my voice already hoarse, I finally slumped on a concrete bench, hands cupping my distraught face, bewildered by the disaster that befell an otherwise triumphant event. Jimmy and Richard both sat beside me, Tere deposited Ezekiel’s shirt on my lap, while Erwin and Joe stood nearby, from time to time checking if the broken Thinkpad still works.

“Where could he be? He cannot disappear just like that.”

“My men are still looking, Will. We will find him,” Jimmy replied, his hand tapping my shoulder, trying to reassure me things will turn out right in the end.

“This is all my fault. I knew this would happen. I should not have let him go. Lynn won’t forgive me for this.” My voice was cracking, heart sinking, hands clutching the all too familiar orange shirt, which I bought him on sale at the LCC Mall two summers back.

“I’m sure he’s just around somewhere. Who knows? Maybe this is one big practical joke he’s playing on us. On you.” Tere firmly volunteered, finally breaking an uncharacteristic silence since the moment I reached the pool area.

“Tere’s probably right. The fact that we can’t find him means he is still alive.” Richard seconded in a confident voice that tapered down towards the end of his rationalization, realizing that he has just uttered the unthinkable, albeit in a roundabout fashion.

WITHOUT his knowing, Richard’s analysis was actually spot on. After what seemed like eternity, Ezekiel finally sensed something solid forming at the sole of his feet, and the familiar buoyant feeling of floating in water. But wait! The temperature suddenly rose threefold, forcing him to scamper towards the surface with his Hawk Gear in tow, towards the pool edge that is...chocolate brown earth.

Dazed, disoriented and seared, he tossed his wet backpack a few feet forward and quickly worked himself out of the simmering pool. Breathing heavily, he prostrated himself on the rugged landing patch, laid still for several minutes, and then fell asleep.

Deep in slumber, he did not hear anymore the cautious, measured footsteps that went his way, coming from a group of five that had been there inside the cave ahead of him, waiting for some time now for him to finally show up.

“Can he really be the one in the prophecy, Prince Arjuna?” Krishna finally asked his friend who had been equally perplexed by what the sacred pool spit out. “He’s so skinny!”

“I agree with Krishna,” Sahadeva said. “We cannot expect to defeat the evil forces of Asog with that boy. There must be somebody else.”

“You probably made a mistake in your reading of the prophecy, Sahadeva,” Nakula chided his twin brother, chuckling. “You may be the most learned among the Pandavas, but it doesn’t mean you are right all the time. I’ll bet you: you just bungled this one bigtime.”

“Can we go back again to the babaylan’s prophecy?” Krishna turned to Dinahong, their native guide and mentor on the ways of the place the locals called Ibalon. Shipwrecked in its shores 10 moons ago after crossing the path of a storm mid-sea, Dinahong plucked them out of the water, tended them over, taught them how to speak some of the native tongue, and has since them proven to be an invaluable companion in this strange new land.

Chapter 2 - The portal through time

MAINIT Hotspring is a private resort nestled at the belly of Mt. Isarog, along Kilometer 15 of the Naga-Panicuason Road, in between the villages of Carolina and Panicuason, the city’s uppermost. It can be reached by turning left from an outpost that says Bicol Hydroelectric Power Plant. The outpost is always manned by a caretaker of the Tan family, which bought it from the previous owner Eusebio “Bio” General, a former city agriculturist of the local government.

The presence of a caretaker, always armed with a two-way VHF radio, is critical. The 1-kilometer dirt road to and from the resort, which treacherously snakes through natural gullies carved by the passage of time, and by water flowing from the mountaintop, allows only one-way traffic. After payment of entrance fees, plate numbers of incoming vehicles are meticulously listed down and communicated at the resort reception, which is more of a twin outpost at its entrance. Travel is cleared with the main roadside outpost before any outgoing vehicle is allowed to leave.

Our descent into the resort, which is roughly 100 meters below the road surface to Panicuason, was largely uneventful. I had been there a countless times, but my first visit is firmly and clearly etched in my mind.

“You know guys, you can call it serendipity but I’ve always thought Mainit would be ideal for the weary IT geeks who want to be recharged,” I told Tere and company as Jim’s Ford Escape was starting to hit the access road, followed by an L-300 crewcab filled with trusted Bayantel hands.

“When I first saw the place, I immediately thought of separate log cabins for each IT company that the Investment Board will be able to entice. Microsoft here, HP there, Intel of course, Dell...you know, the works.”

“Well, Mr. Prilles, your dream is about to come true,” Richard chuckled.

“But you guys beat everyone to it,” I countered with a smile, savoring my own Mastercard moment in the making. At the corner of my eye, I saw my son hunkered down and vigorously fiddling with the control keys of his Playstation PSP. True to his word, he stayed as invisible as he can, save for the brief introductions 45 minutes ago when we met at City Hall as previously agreed. Tere from time to time would ask him perfunctory questions about the game he is playing -- Kingdom Hearts 2, I am sure -- and Ezekiel would reply in equal measure without ever lifting his head.

Upon reaching Mainit, the group quickly split into two: Jimmy and his Bayantel people went directly to check the steel superstructure that had previously been erected on top of one of the 30 meter-high walls of solid rock that shield off the resort. Reminiscent of the Wailing Walls of Jerusalem, this rock formation never fails to grab attention, particularly of first-timers like Tere and company, as it dwarfs even the three pools that Mainit has become noted for, as well as the row of huts and cottages that the owners have built for visitors. Richard, Joe and Erwin, on the other hand, found a clearing just beside the parked vehicles where they unloaded, unpacked and started assembling the Wimax equipment that will be hoisted on top of the tower. Tere and I joined them, while Ezekiel disappeared into one of the showers with his wornout Hawk Gear backpack. Minutes later, he reappeared in khaki shorts and his favorite orange Grizzly shirt, with the black backpack still slung on one shoulder while the other hand still holding his precious PSP, quietly moving into the direction of the Mainit pools.

“SO THIS is how a Wimax setup looks like,” I exclaimed after seeing Joe Baligad breeze through his task of assembling the antenna.

“Actually, this one is a little bit different from the others we have installed at the Ateneo and at the centro,” Richard explained. “It has both omni-directional and sectoral capabilities, considering the rugged terrain of your upper barangays.”

“You mean to say this one is better that those two in the lowlands?”

“Not better. Just more appropriate. Well, your mayor wanted ‘impeccable service quality’. So this is just what the doctor ordered,” he replied, with one eye winking at Tere, who merely laughed dryly.

“Our ass is also at stake here,” Joe butted in. “Remember we have invested a lot in this project, especially in trying to convince those assholes at Innove to make Wimax happen. It’s already a matter of pride, di ba Tere?”

“Just tell me where we ready for a test run, guys,” Tere snapped before walking away towards the direction of the steam pools.

Erwin, who had been silent all throughout, whispered: “It’s just too bad Innove backed out at the last minute. We really hate it when these things happen, bay. So let’s see who’ll end up sorry.”

Sorry is indeed a distinct possibility if Wimax indeed lives up to expectation. A website dedicated to Wimax claims “it has the potential to replace a number of existing telecommunications infrastructures. In a fixed wireless configuration it can replace the telephone company's copper wire networks, the cable TV's coaxial cable infrastructure while offering Internet Service Provider (ISP) services. In its mobile variant, Wimax has the potential to replace cellular networks.”

This technology has been popularly described as “WiFi on steroids,” and grudgingly, that description is quite accurate. Current WiFi variants -- imagine the wireless broadband internet access that has become standard come-ons for the yuppie set in popular coffee shops like Starbucks (that have mushroomed in Metro Manila) or Coffee Beanery at Avenue Square in Naga -- can only cover around 150 yards max per access point, at an unsecured throughput of 11 megabits per second (Mbps), and only one floor at that. On the other hand, one Wimax base station, comprising of a radio and antenna, can cover a small city like Naga from end to end, with throughput -- encrypted at multiple levels, thereby ensuring greater security -- capable of reaching 72 Mbps.

And just imagine if your cellphone or PDA is Wimax-ready: the blazing speed all but guarantees a truly exquisite and exceptional internet experience, not to mention dazzling, paradigm-shifting applications -- think of a truly portable, crystal clear voice and video over IP (VOIP) service, for instance -- that will put Globe’s and Smart’s 3G phones to shame, even if reinforced with the so-called HSDPA technology. And mind you, these handsets are a few years away from being commercially mass-produced.

WHILE Jimmy and his crew are completing final checks on the tower’s structural integrity, and our unit with our work on the antenna, Tere caught up with Ezekiel at the bigger steam pool of the resort.

“So how far have you gone through in that Kingdom Hearts 2 game of yours?” she asked.

Surprised that he has company, Ezekiel turned around and saw Tere standing at the foot of the concrete bridge leading to the steam pools. The bridge conveniently spanned Inarihan River that cuts in between the pools fed by a hot spring and the big one with ice-cold water.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Well, because I’ve finished that game already, in our Playstation 2 unit at home.”

“You’re kidding me. Only boys play PS2 games. And not all of them do,” Ezekiel said, casting a glance at his father’s direction.

“Try me.”

“Nah, you’re just pulling my leg.”

“Well, it was actually my niece. And she’s a girl!”

“Of course she is! Well, Sofie also plays my PS2 from time to time: whenever she comes home earlier than Budi and I do. Only that Papa will have us save the game it if he thinks we’re already overplaying. Or if he wants to use the TV himself.”

“Why, don’t you have a TV set in your own room?”

Ezekiel fell silent. “I would have wanted to, but Papa doesn’t like the idea of having separate TVs. Would have spent some of my savings to have the CRT of our old TV repaired, but he said no. He always says too much TV is harmful.”

“But how come you own a PSP, aside from the PS2 you said you have at home?”

“Well, this is where most of my savings went,” Ezekiel replied, chuckling. “He was so mad at me when he found out. We didn’t speak for a week.”

Tere nodded and fell silent. Reversing course, she asked: “So how is the water?”

“A bit warm. This is how Papa always likes his bath at home.”

“Would you mind if I join you?”

The question took Ezekiel aback. Quite early on, he has felt a kind of liking -- an attraction -- to the sophisticated, confident, mature woman who holds her ground with uncharacteristic ease in the company of men, some of whom are even older than she is. It was quite different from the crushes that from time to time he has had on more attractive younger classmates since high school.

“No,” was all he muttered, groping for words that when strung together will serve as good enough excuse for that refusal.

After taking a deep breath he said: “I promised my father I will stay invisible so you will not feel I am around. That’s why he allowed me to tag along. I don’t want any trouble.”

“Now if you’ll excuse me.” With the quickness of a young cat, Ezekiel jumped out of the pool, grabbed his backpack and headed towards the smaller, more private steam pool upstream.

Tere found himself smiling at the quick turn of events. For a moment, she remembered how it was to be young, to be impulsive, and to be shy in one fell swoop. Then Richard’s booming voice broke those reminiscences: It was time to finally test-drive Wimax, and see if it can deliver the goods, just as the doctor ordered.

A BAYANTEL technician stands on one side of the tower top, facing Erwin who is checking if the nuts and bolts holding the Wimax antenna in place are secure and strong enough to resist category 4 typhoon winds that might come Mainit’s way. Below, Jimmy, Richard, and I have milled around the concrete base on top of the solid rock wall. From our vantage point, we can see the whole resort and admire the serenity that blankets this particular spot: the steam pools to the left, the bridge spanning Inarihan River, the ice-cold pool to the right and the row of neatly arranged huts and cottages.

Below, Tere is hunched on a bench inside one of the cottages, with his IBM Thinkpad sitting on his lap, powered by a six-cell Li-Ion extra battery pack capable of lasting 9 more hours than a conventional laptop battery. Beside her sits a cylindrical customer premise equipment (CPE), also known as a subscriber’s base, which will allow linkup to the Wimax base station. Around her, some of the more curious Bayantel technicians have gathered around, eager to bear witness to a historic moment: the trial-run of a technology that can potentially turn their distressed company around.

When Richard gave the go-signal, Erwin turned the 110-volt UPS on, putting the test on stream. On cue, Tere opened her Microsoft Outlook Express email client and pushed the “Send and Receive” button in the toolbar. Instantly, the 10 messages she purposely left in her Outbox disappeared, changing its typeface from Bold to Normal. At about the same time, her Inbox displayed the opposite, its typeface turning from Normal to Bold as more than 50 messages zipped in, one after the other. “You have 50 new messages,” her emailer announced. And her taskbar showed the final confirmation: the golden envelope icon magically appeared in its “tray.”

As all of these were happening, Ezekiel, red-faced because of Tere’s unexpected offer, has regained his composure and started testing the water in the pool upstream. Finding it to his liking, he stood up and placed his backpack near the edge, took off his shirt and laid it across a nearby bush, fully covering the shrub. Absent minded, he failed to realize that the little unremarkable bush is a pili tree that has already bore a fruit.

After making sure that everything is all right, he slowly descended into the pool and tried to wade on its waters. To his extreme shock, there was nothing underneath! The concrete base supporting the steamy water -- which the other pool had -- has simply vanished under his feet. With his body weight pulling him down, and his feet frozen by surprise, he instinctively flailed his left arm with one final thrust towards the pool edge, hoping against hope to grab into a ledge, into something, anything that will arrest his freefall. Alas, all he felt was the familiar strap of his backpack, sending it hurtling towards him, joining his body as they dropped stonelike into what seemed to be a bottomless abyss.

Chapter 1 - So it begins

WHEN everything is said and done, I will blame Teresa Pacis and Arlita Narag for it. Or probably even Butch Abad and her auntie, Fe Hidalgo, for that recognition event at the Department of Education that brought me and those two Intel lady executives together. Or even my principal, Mayor Jesse Robredo, who sent me over in his stead.

It was one cold day in December 2005 at the DepEd central office in Pasig. Previously I’ve been trying to get in touch with Intel Philippines, with the hope of initiating talks on bringing the Wimax technology to Naga City. Call it a quirk of fate, I shared a table with Tere and Arlita. The discussion went on to my baby -- the school board reinvention -- and how we are using local resources to bring public school students into the 21st century.

My eldest son Ezekiel, his brother Jack Ryan and sisters Sofia and Hilary are among those students. It is therefore in my best interest that the public schools in our city are kept abreast with modern technology. Including Wimax, Intel’s own baby that promises ubiquitous broadband internet experience within a radius of 8 miles. It might as well be into 8 thousand years.

“Why don’t you visit my city, and see for yourself what I’ve been blabbering about over the last 15 minutes?” I challenged the two nattily dressed execs sporting the latest gadget out there in the market. Tere, from time to time, would check emails on her Treo 250, Arlita would accept some calls through an IPAQ personal digital assistant with quadband GSM capabilities. I kept my Nokia 3220 firmly in my pocket, as showing it would reinforce the technological divide between a 39-year old local state worker on the one hand and his private sector counterparts, already in their late 40s, on the other. But I had all the confidence in the world that we had been doing the right things in Naga -- and no amount of gadget inferiority can change that fact.

After us visiting the Intel plant in Cavite in February the following year, and seeing Wimax in action, followed by two more meetings in Manila, including their Bangkal, Makati office, Teresa finally showed up and returned the compliment in October. It was smooth sailing from there on: last Saturday, we were setting up the final Wimax transmitter in Panicuason that will guarantee that Naga becomes the first digital city in the Philippines. Joe Baligad, Erwin Oliva and Richard Parcia were there representing Intel, and the wide smiles plastered in their faces are as priceless as those Mastercard moments: they have delivered the goods insofar as setting up a Wimax pilot city in Southeast Asia is concerned.

Jaime Casin led the Bayantel contingent: unlike the conventional WiFi setup (where all one needs is a decent DSL connection that he can farm out to WiFi-enable gadgets within a 150 yard radius), Wimax needs a carrier -- a telco -- to buy into the technology, provide the backhaul, and adjust its equipment to optimize delivery of wireless broadband internet service of up to into a 15 kilometer non-line-of-sight service area. A non-believer at the outset -- mainly because Bayantel had been cash-strapped by a receivership arrangement it grudgingly entered into to stave off lurking creditors thirsting for blood -- Jimmy was advocating CDMA. The receivership was a bitter offshoot of bad technology decisions made by the Lopezes who decided on a fixed line network instead of GSM, and of a financial disaster arising from a botched foray into wireless telephony that was the Extelcom investment.

But Intel would have none of that proprietary CDMA technology and vigorously pushed Wimax instead: the Naga City Government had to advance the P4 million capex required, in exchange for perpetual wireless broadband internet connection for all 36 public high schools -- including Grandview Elementary which is a stone throw away from our house -- and the 14 connections for City Hall, to be shared among its 28 agencies within the compound as well as the nearby Civic Center two blocks away.

One Wimax transmitter planted on top of the main building at the Ateneo de Naga High School campus in Pacol, two kilometer from where we live, would have sufficed for Naga, as the farthest built-up areas are only 13 kilometers from end to end. But Mayor Robredo did not want to leave anything to chance: it’s either boom or bust; service quality should be impeccable, or we might as well forget our dream for Naga as digital city, about Wimax and the partnership with Intel that we’ve painstakingly built. So, on top of the two antennae set up at the city center and the ADENU campus in Pacol, we finally put up the third transmitter at the Mainit Hotspring -- with permission from the Tan and Teclo families -- to create a three-point Wimax umbrella that will envelope the whole of Naga and nearby towns.

My mistake was to bring Ezekiel along. I did not like the idea of him joining our party at first, but my eldest, a graduating 19-year old 3D animation student at the Ateneo main campus at the centro, was relentless in his insistence on joining.

“I cannot afford distractions here. You know how important this is to me,” I said while poring through a stack of papers containing the work and financial plan for the final Wimax antenna.

“I’m old enough to take care of myself,” he shot back. “Besides, Jack is responsible enough to look after Nokie and my two sisters,” referring to the two other recent additions to the Prilles household. There was that deliberate emphasis on “responsible” -- responsibility being a constant touchy subject between a growingly disappointed father and his eldest son who doesn’t seem to belong.

“Don’t worry. I’ll stay so invisible your guests will not even feel I’m around. I’ll just take a dip at one of the steam pools,” he pleaded in a soft but firm voice. The tone was a stark contrast to the stony silence that would always rise, wall-like, between me and my son. A reserved, quiet young man, Boke as well called him endearingly was Jack’s exact opposite, who is naturally gregarious, outgoing, highly sociable and popular -- attested by the many boy and girl friends he has made at the Grandview and Green Valley communities.

Little did I know that seeing him dip into that particular Mainit steam pool would be my last. Or so I thought.


THE PRILLESES of Pacol are transplants, part of the low- to middle-class families that trooped to socialized housing projects mushrooming in upper Naga. Stumped by the sudden rise in land values at the fringes of the city center, property developers like Fil-Estate, Ayala and the Jamaica groups struck an agreement with the Naga City Housing and Urban Development Board in the late 1990’s: they can put up the required 15% socialized housing component of their upscale projects in the peripheries of the city, where land is still a lot cheaper.

My wife, Lynn, was one of the audacious takers of these housing projects. A high school math teacher over the last 11 years, she signed on the contract with the Grandview developers against what I thought was my better judgment even before the first cornerstone was built. When things cleared, it was a windfall decision: a small downpayment netted us a two-story terraced house in the eastern part of the subdivision, with a practically painless P2,500 monthly amortization spread over the next 10 years. Households who invested later had to pony up at least 50% more than we did. After pouring in another P100,000 in improvements, we joined the ranks of the new homeowning class of Naga, a city of 150,000 in central Philippines.

The main basis of my opposition was the fact that the planned Grandview subdivision will sit alongside a thriving community of urban poor settlers in Naga, who later called theirs Green Valley to distinguish it from ours, divided only by a creek that flows from Inarihan River in Mt. Isarog. They came in ahead of us, driven by the Kaantabay sa Kauswagan socialized housing program of Mayor Robredo which in the late 80’s sought to ensure affording homelots for all urban poor residents. Benefiting no less than 25% of the total city population, that pro-poor program also ensured that his administration will control City Hall come hell and high water. Whatever remains of my castilaloy bloodline tells there me something irregular with the idea, rooted on the fear that my children will be corrupted by their counterparts in that community.

Those fears were proven mostly wrong by time. A symbiotic relationship arose between our communities, as Grandview residents -- who mostly had to travel to the city center to work during the day: as teachers, government and private sector workers, businessmen, enterpreneurs, practically everything there is to be done under the Bikol sun -- had to rely on the Green Valley neighbors -- who came over to do the laundry, watch over our children, and provide all-around help -- to ensure that their households will run properly and efficiently. It was the practise of game theory at its very best: mutually beneficial cooperation yielding the most optimum outcome.

And so for close to a decade now, we have come to love the conventional union of these two communities, evidenced by the rise of a Catholic parish that serves both, with its church built beside the creek; and Grandview Elementary School just right across the street -- where Jack aka Budi graduated from, and Sofia and Hilary aka Pep are currently enrolled. Grandview is a veritable melting pot of families from different parts of Camarines Sur. The neighboring Pardes just right across the street are from Tinambac, along with many others; the Bucos are from the Sipocot-Libmanan area; and the Ordases from Iriga City in the Rinconada section of the province. The Martins, Ruizos, Razons, Primaveras and many others like them have moved in from the urban lowland barangays of the city itself, enticed by the powerful appeal of finally owning one’s house after years of moving and renting from one unit after another.

Our family is no different: my parents are from Pili by way of Iriga and Nabua, my wife’s from Oas in the neighboring Albay province. She is three years my junior but twenty years ago, we were classmates in a physics subject at the University of Nueva Caceres, one of the three in Naga; fell in love and got married on the basis a common faith, found work in here, and finally moved over and rented houses -- first in Bagumbayan Norte then in Calauag -- when commuting daily from Pili to Naga and vice versa is no longer practicable.

That partnership produced six wonderful children, each one uniquely fashioned: Jack was a born leader who has a way with people regardless of age; Sofie was extraordinarily responsible, caring and hardworking, a boon to Lola Oas aka Corazon, her grandmother that manages the household when we are off to work; Pep was the straight-shooting, highly sociable and fashionable girl who sings as well as she dances; Patricia aka Nokie is a walking contradiction: a dervish of a girl who, on the one hand, fearlessly stands up to Budi’s cariño brutal but on the other can give Pep a run for her fashionista ways; and then Bianca aka Lambada, the burly self-proclaimed enforcer of the house whose constant battles with the smaller Nokie is a common sight in the Prilles household.

And then there is my enigmatic Ezekiel: he graduated at the top of his elementary class in Pacol, but somewhere somehow lost zest in his high school studies at the science-oriented program of Camarines Sur National High School. All his teachers, from freshman to senior without exception, said that intellectually, Boke is a class by himself. When at his elements, he can be eloquent in languages, and exceptionally sharp in math and the sciences. But disappointed with mostly uninspiring teachers -- my wife’s diagnosis of this sorry episode -- he progressively withdrew into a shell, and breezed through high school with minimum effort but without the distinction that her parents dreamed of upon graduation. But in all those years, he remained a voracious reader with an eclectic taste -- ranging from the adventures of Harry Potter, the Fellowship of the Ring in Tolkien’s Middle Earth, contemporary space travel, and Bicol history and culture. The last one is our common interest, and in my opinion the redeeming value of what I thought was an uneventful high schooling in the city’s best public school program.