K A T A R I N A (•GXG•)

XXXV.

K

3 years later. 

"Welcome to the most prestigious university in the country, Bridgett University, where all the aspiring teens and sons and daughters of the most known business tycoons choose to get in!"

"Welcome to the most prestigious university in the country, Bridgett University, where all the aspiring teens and sons and daughters of the most known business tycoons choose to get in!"

"Welcome to the most prestigious university in the country, Bridgett University, where all the aspiring teens and sons and daughters of the most known business tycoons choose to get in!"

Ayon ang muling paulit- ulit na tunog sa Bridgett para sa mga bagong pumapasok sa University.

Oh, how I missed this place.

Parang last month lang, graduates na kami.

L A S T M O N T H

"Right now it's tempting to try to sum up the past four years. It'd be nice to pack up everything we've learned, fix a little handle on it and carry it with us onto the shiny train of future to say "This was my time at the Bridgett University! Wasn't it really great?" That's the start of the batch's Summa Cum Laude's speech. "It doesn't really work like that, of course. In our academic years, we want to analyze and synthesize. In our real lives, we make fairly poor subjects for the same kind of study. We want epiphanies and profound truths. But real life, the day-to-day isn't always vibrant with significance. Things turn out ambiguous, incomplete, sloppy. There were books we lost, expensive milkshakes that weren't quite worth the wait." The whole batch laughed that. "Boring Friday nights, well at least for me? Kasi sigurado akong halos lahat sainyo buhay na buhay ang Friday nights."

"Thursday too! Happy T diba! HAPPY T!" Someone screamed from the back.

The batch's Summa Cum Laude smiled. "Anyways, loose ends don't get wrapped up, lessons aren't learned. But guess what? It turns out this is okay. More than okay even! It's just plain wonderful. Grand, resounding revelations only define some of the things we do in college. The rest, even the majority, are shaped by simple time with the people around us; the ones joking with us..." Napatingin ako kay Gen at ganoon din naman siya. We smiled at each other. "... quizzing us on definitions, or standing beside us in line for a shake." Doon na kami nagkatinginan na apat. Vero, Prim, Gen and I.

"I realized that the future isn't some high- speed train, that's impatient for the next station. It's a carful of all friends I've made, honking at me from the driveway to get going and all I have to do is pour a travel mug of coffee, maybe grab a map and get out of there. Be with them. Make more moments." Vero, Prim, Gen and I held hands habang patuloy pa rin kaming nakikinig ng speech. "Because it's not that we're going somewhere, it's just that we're going. Embodying the verb tense: being present. Progressing."

The batch's Summa Cum Laude then roamed his eyes around the whole place. "So look at your college life, but not as some literal big picture that's been sketched, studied and carefully captioned. See it as a mosaic. All the absurd little episodes of your time here, all the proofing each others' papers, all the trips to places when you should've been cramming, all the breakfasts laughing in the dining hall: these are the fragments you've been gluing together. These are the things that possess the truest vitality. These are the things that build you. This was our time at Bridgett University. Wasn't it really great?"