By Jose Hoferson Ejercito, Batch 2000
That distinct smell of freshly cut grass and the mildly sweet scent of the acacia flowers amidst a sky exploding with all the colors of sunset were all that I could remember. Of course, there was the palpable contained excitement in the air as our class valedictorian was giving her speech. But all I thought about was how beautiful the late March sunset was and how I would miss this view and the lingering smell that’s distinctly Santo Tomas.
We entered CST-R on that one fateful day in June 1996. We were a hundred or so dreamy-eyed freshmen, eager to experience high school and teenage life. We did not know then that Santo Tomas would introduce us to people who would change our lives completely.
In the four years that we have spent at CST-R, we learned valuable lessons: that if you wrote the notes on the board for Miss Tacsan’s Health Class your notebook would not be checked; that if you made the tuna sandwiches to be sold at afternoon recess during Miss Sojoco’s T.H.E class, you could make one for yourself with a thick filling; or how to make sure you avoid the campus sheep in the football field during Miss Auman’s PE class. These and all those classes on verb tense agreements and quadratic equations molded us into who we are today. Santo Tomas fulfilled its promise and taught us love and knowledge. We all strived hard for grades while slowly cementing life-long friendships with one another.
We spent hours on those Circle Ks working on assigned projects or just listening to Eraserheads on Discmans and Walkmans. We scrubbed those hardwood floorboards on the second floor to slipping point and true enough some teachers did slip. Of course, we apologized. We also had endless arguments with Mr. Dumdum, non-uniformed guard, about how inconsequential one minute was during mornings when we would arrive late. And then, there were the days when we would all experience the itchy til-as at the canteen kiosk under the mango tree. We had to endure a wet CAT training in the football field under the watchful eye of Mr. Maribojoc one rainy afternoon. And there’s no forgetting those late afternoons after dismissal spent at the bleachers under the acacia trees, watching our football varsity team wrapping up their practice while the sound of the CST-R band played yet another marching tune. We talked endlessly about what we would be when we grow up.
We were a pretty diverse class but deep down we were all dreamers. We believed that after we graduated from CST-R, we would be pushed towards the trajectory of our dreams. And indeed, we were. A lot of us ended up where we wanted to be: engineers, businessmen and women, nurses, market research analysts, public servants, teachers, mothers and fathers but when all of us would come together, we all are still the same dreamers from all those years ago.
On that humid late afternoon in March twenty years ago, as Miss Ricilli Saldua was finishing her speech, I took one last look at the early evening sky and a deep breath. I inhaled that faint sweet smell of the acacia flowers and the freshly cut grass. I stood up together with my classmates, now friends for life, and sang “CST-R, lead us to your goal…”
