One fine day in January 2018, my close friends and I — Jampfig as we call our high school barkada– decided to pay a visit to our beloved high school, St. Joseph’s College. It was the first time we visited St. Jo altogether after so many years. Most of us lived in the metro, some in the provinces and three are currently based abroad. Sadly, one of us already passed away, gone too soon. Oh, how we miss her.
Our group belonged to different sections, but we heavily bonded during our time living together as ‘internas’ in the glass-encased structure we call Jurgen’s Hall. Although we make it a point to catch up with each other’s goings-on from time to time, meeting up has been extremely difficult as we have so many different roles to play nowadays: wife, mother, daughter, sibling, our respective professions or for that matter, a cat- or dog-mom. The hideous traffic along EDSA doesn’t help much either, but, thanks to technology we regularly keep in touch through social media.
We met up at a fast food near St. Jo and were excited by the fact that the surroundings have changed but familiar spots were still there like the McDonald’s nearby where many a Josephine spent time enjoying fries and a sundae. As always, we couldn’t quite wait for each of us to share all the juicy details of our lives but today was meant to revisit St. Jo and reminisce about our high school life. We giggled like teenagers as we anticipated the thought of reliving our high school moments even just for a few hours.
As we entered the school grounds, an overwhelming wave of nostalgia hit us. There was the spot of the old red phone booth where many a Josephine requested to be picked up by her parents or made ‘telebabad’ with friends, long gone by now. We fondly recalled the familiar faces of the guards who strictly kept us within the gates, the Sisters and also our teachers who were there for us as we went along our high school life. There were our classrooms, especially memorable when we were hit by the 1990 earthquake in first year and the corridors where we lined up to march to our CAT formations. We kneeled at the chapel where multitudes of our fervent prayers have been uttered and heard. We went past the OSA office, a room which was all too familiar to us latecomers and cheeky ones — yes, we know who we are (*wink*). A trip through Jurgen’s Hall brought back memories of freshly baked banana bread and lovely memories of dormitory life. The gym, where we danced during PE and high school dances seemed less spacious now. And of course, we cannot fail to mention the quadrangle where we spent a good part of our high school life lining up daily for the flag ceremony, practicing for our activities, watching our athletes play volleyball, and who could forget our Aming Tribo fairs! We had delightful times going on the fair rides, singing with the best bands, being jailed and getting married with our crush (hopefully) — in the jail and marriage booths of course!
*Sigh* This was where we spent four of the best years of our life. St. Joseph’s College was where we started off as nervous freshmen entering the Mater Dei Auditorium for our orientation, laughed at ever-so silly stuff, got upset at each other for reasons that do not seem as significant now as they did at the time and shed tears during graduation. That and all the other indescribable emotions, experiences and dilemmas we had in between. This was where we grew up to be Josephines.
As Josephines, we found out a lot of things both school-related and about life in general. I vividly recall the unfortunate frog we dissected despite all the ‘eow’ moments we had to endure as well as our failed attempt to dress a chicken which ended up with it breaking free by wildly flapping its wings and us girls shrieking in the background. I’m positive some still remember how we chanted “Base militar, armas nukleyar..”, marched with our fellow students from other schools fighting for what is right and going on immersion trips to communities.
During those 4 years, we discovered ourselves. We fell in love, fell out of love and cried ourselves rivers. We learned how to make and keep lifelong friends. We learned to be curious about life and explored it. We learned to celebrate our success and rise from our failures. We got to know ourselves bit by bit in the process as individuals, as part or our families and as part of society.
We were taught not only within the classrooms but by experiencing the life of our fellow Filipinos and delving into issues surrounding our society and the environment. We were taught a life of humble service to God and to our fellow brethren who make up the entire Church. We were taught to be a Josephine. One who lived through sharing and service to God and to others and respect to His entire creation.
We learned how to deal with, love and respect Life. We learned how to have Passion for it.
I digress. Back to my story.
So fate led us to meet Sr. Immaculee Pagalilaluan that day and preparations for our 25th Grand Alumni Homecoming rolled forth. She is an inspiration to us Josephine alumni and we are immensely grateful for her tenacity in helping the St. Joseph’s College Alumni Association be a worthy organization.
Really? Was it 25 years after we graduated from high school?
Getting together with 353 other high school classmates seemed like an exciting proposition. All joyful banter and laughter, reminiscing good old times with our classmates. Oh, we were going to have a ball, dance and bang our heads to all too familiar tunes during our heyday! ‘Always’ and ‘Howgee’ come to mind. Ooohh.. we could wear 90’s garb like plaid shirts or dresses with Doc Martens and listen to a band playing songs by the Eraserheads and True Faith maybe. We would see our teachers again and go back to our old stomping ground. Sounds like a lot of fun!
Soon afterwards, after a flurry of messages, a small group of us got together, eagerly planned and worked towards our 25th Alumni Homecoming. Wow, imagine that! 25 years after high school. The adage ‘many things change, while some things never will’ is a happily appropriate thought as we continued with our cheery and oftentime preposterous banter during meetings. We reached out to our classmates, some long-lost as we were high school students in an era where Facebook — or even the internet itself — was nonexistent. Mobile phones were not mainstream yet and we had to rely on old-fashioned pen, paper and the telephone to keep in touch. Slowly, it dawned on us that despite our good intentions and probably our best efforts, this was going to be a tremendous challenge. And it was.
Quite frankly, the group had its low moments when everybody else seemed to be preoccupied with the daily grind of life with little time to share for our cause. There were also times when plans don’t go exactly as they should have. As our 25th Grand Alumni Homecoming drew nearer, stress levels rose proportionally. Nevertheless, we persevered and to quote one of our members, we didn’t realize we were already making memories, we just knew we were having a good time catching up with each other while working for our homecoming.
Each Josephine brought to the group her part, and these parts made us entirely whole. During all those gatherings, one realizes that the embers of our camaraderie were slowly fanned to life, the passion to reconnect burned fervently and the love for our history, our togetherness and for our alma mater undoubtedly rekindled. We reconnected not only because of the past we share as Josephines but also because as we grew as individuals, there was so much more to come to know about each other. This alone has already made our 25th Alumni Homecoming a success.
We pray that this flame will forever burn and inflame others’ desires to reunite as Josephines. To remember the ideals we learned as young women walking the halls of St. Joseph’s College, to forever keep in our hearts all the fond memories we have shared through all those years and to look forward to renewing our friendship and forging new bonds. Moreso, this flame in our hearts should forever burn for the service to God, his people and for his entire creation.
As with my high school barkada, we all went through different paths to get to who we are now. But, lest we forget, as Josephines, we became part of each others lives and will always be connected. Let’s celebrate our life then and now, 25 years after!
Andami nang taong nagdaan at ang dami na rin nating pinagdaanan. Ngayong 2019, it’s time to reconnect.
Looking forward to being with my lovely Josephine batchmates on our 25th homecoming this March 16, 2019!!