4C5

One by one, we trickled at the gates of the Palace after coming from our first subject at school. We had to attend our second and last subject for the day, which because of a special case of a professor, must be held outside of the university and in one of the big offices of the press undersecretary. Sometimes, when we were lucky, classes are held at the very press conference room where the press secretary announces the presidential happenings for the day. Although, we were not allowed to join the press corps in hurling questions to the secretary, at least we had a first hand look at how news were being made at the halls of Malacanang.

Summer was fast approaching. It was our final second semester in college and ironically in our major, the closer you get to graduation day, the lesser workload you have in school. Since writing thesis was almost like having a Cosplay with the thesis advisers and panelists and doing feature articles and video reports that were inspired ala Probe Team were done in a fashion almost parallel to having an out-of-town field trips, those days were the best of our lives.

Who would have thought that Journalism was all about writing, writing and writing? Back then, I felt more alive and aware of the world compared to these days where all I do everyday is sit on the computer and work eight hours a day just to make money.

You see, when you leave the dream-state back in college, what would greet you after is a sense of longing for those days when everything is just fun to you.

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It took us five years to organize a class reunion - which compared to other majors in our college, only comprised of forty-two students. The preparation was done in just a matter of two weeks and the venue was the same place where we held our christmas parties when we were still Journ students.

Out of the forty two from our batch, less than half came - despite the endless reminders and invitations for everyone to come. It seems like some are not that interested to show up, while others are just too busy to take a break in their careers and for once, become a pseudo-journ student again. Nevertheless, it was fun and memorable: Exes are talking again after years of ignoring one another; open forum that revealed the secret lives of the people who came to the party; and personal disputes that were left unresolved back in college appears to have been resolved in just one night.

There were countless attempts to organize a reunion before, but nothing had prospered out of the yahoogroups. Some say that this one was only successful because the former class-president personally called for such reunion and he immediately delegated all the task of inviting people to former classmates who have stronger ties and PR skills to get everyone interested in this once-in-a-lifetime event.

In short, not only was he involved in this project but also his Vice President, his secretary, and everyone else who has the networking ability to encourage their circle of friends to join.

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The reunion could be considered a success in many ways. In fact, others who showed up thought that the party laid the foundation for future reunions. Pizzas, tacos, roasted chickens, spongecakes filled the dining table. What's nice about the food that were served was that everything were just a contributions from those who came. Even the San Mig Light and the two bottles of Jose Cuervo who took away all our inhibitions that night came from the president and his all-male barkada.

If there is something I'm really happy about how the reunion turned out - especially during the open forum/inuman session that lasted till morning, it is that I would always be thankful to my classmates who already knew my preference yet understood its sensitivity in front of my straight tropa. They could have grilled me at the open forum but instead, they decided to open up some things about my past heterosexual lovelife instead.

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I don't know if a reunion would happen again, but everyone seems optimistic about it. The former class president said that as long as the place - that holds so many memories of our journ lives remain available, then calling such event won't be as difficult as other organizers have encountered.

Looking back, five years isn't really a long time - unless you meet a former quiet girl classmate who used to be as big as a whale then suddenly showed up very slim and remarkably unrecognizable at the reunion. What's ironic about her is that we used to call her the "Miss Universe" of our class because of her finesse and elegance in doing things, even her way of eating fishballs before was classy. The boys who came to the reunion remembered her monicker and began calling her again "Miss Universe" all throughout the night.

In the future, there would be more revelations and more success stories to tell. We never talked so much about careers. Next time we meet each other again, such department in our lives would surely be revealed as well.

For the past two days, I used to sulk about how it turned out, maybe because I was expecting more people to come - especially the ones I have personally invited and promised that they would show up. But after having second thoughts as to how things went - despite its minor shortcomings, I think I should still consider the reunion a success.

The mere fact the all-boys faction came to the reunion is a good sign. Another good sign is that the conya/conyo faction and the Varsitarian group were willing to show up and they did. Perhaps there remains a possibility that one day, on the second week of December, everyone in the batch would recieve this certain familiar text message they recieved whenever there were important changes and reminders back when we were journ students:

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4C5 News Advisory: In the spirit of our long-standing friendship and camaraderie to one another as journalists and former classmates, Please be informed that there will be a Class Reunion this Saturday, December 7, 2007 at Cai's Place. Please check out the yahoo groups for more details.

See you.

Signed.

The President.