Strangers Turned Family

Friday, March 03, 2006

Gonzaga 3rd Floor

2:30-3:30 PM

                 March 18, 2006—the day I was afraid would come so soon… This is the day I’ve dreaded for almost a month since I learned the class would go their separate ways by the end of the year. No one knows where. Not even one of us hoped we all would meet again—someplace, somewhere.

                This day was the last day of our final exams for the second semester and  the last day I would be with all my classmates. I’ve learned to love them for almost a year of hardship, friendship and togetherness. I’ve been with them through the good times and the bad. We all went through tough times trying to keep our grades high and having a good, pleasant attitude at the same time. We’ve been stressed, pressured and yet we stayed together.

                Eyes swollen, heads aching, body fatigued, we still never gave up hope of being one of the top 500 performers in the College of Nursing Department of the school we are attending. This is most famously called the “quota”.

                Going to school without eating breakfast just so as not to be late for our 7:30 class; being at the library (I prefer the pond) during lunch to review for quizzes in Anatomy-Physiology; going straight home after class in the afternoon to review for other subjects (microbiology most especially); staying up till the wee hours of the morning to study, finish projects and other schoolwork; all these we’ve been through. Depressions, stress, sleeplessness—all these we’ve encountered, experienced but never have we given up. Grades fail, tardiness accumulated, class cards dropped— we still strived to make it up and cope up with our classes.

                Despite the fact that the bond between each of us was broken apart by our cultures and the provinces that we came from, we stood united, strong… our friendship grew as time went by. Until one day, the bond between us was strengthened. We learned to trust, love and fight for one another— we became one.

                The camaraderie blossomed to a new found friendship to the extent that we treated each other as family. A family we knew could help each other in times of need, friends we knew could give us everything we need, comrades we knew could offer a shoulder to cry on… the jokes, laughter, smiles, memories over time led to a more open-minded, open-hearted, enjoyable class.

                The class was even admired by our instructors for being brilliant and creative (thanks for the geniuses in class). We enjoyed, joked, with our instructors about class, the lessons, sometimes about things out of the topic.

               That was how we were for months during the first semester and second semester of the school year.

                  Time came when we had to part for the summer vacation and the start of the first semester of our sophomore year in college. Now everyone hoped and wished we could still be classmates though the chances are too small. We had nothing to do but to accept the truth that we are to be disarranged next semester from our original block. Yet, hoping we still could maintain that bond between us, we got each others phone numbers, email addresses, social networking sites (we even made a CD, more of like a  small yearbook, with each of the class members' pictures and information) in order for us to be able to communicate despite the distance and time constraints we’ll be having.

                March 18 had been a memory of pictures being taken, tears being shed, lives being changed, friendships being renewed. The day BSN I-block 7 of Saint Louis University started to realize the real meaning of being a college student with friends to cherish, memories to treasure and principles in life to uphold.

                To the loving and caring BSN 1-7 of SLU: “We were strangers when we first met, but then we all found friends and our friendship will never ever end…..”

                                               - from the song, “we’ll still be friends”-