And it felt like my life was fastforwarded to that very day. The 28th of March.
I was uncomfortable during my sleep and woke up at 1 AM. I logged on to Facebook to kill time. It was pretty surprising that almost everyone from my batch was online. At 1 AM. Though the awaited event would still be in the afternoon, we just couldn't erase the fact that we would be graduating on that day.
And then, 2 PM came so quickly. It was about time to prepare myself. We left for school at 3 and arrived 30 minutes later. Though our assembly time was at 4:30, I insisted on coming early. Probably to cherish the high school atmosphere.
My parents dropped me since they'd be eating in Jollibee to kill time. And when I arrived, I was welcomed with a warm hug by Louise, my soon-to-be-Senior friend, who was begging me to come to school earlier since 9 AM that day (she was one of those color guards to bring forth the flags during the Grade 6 culminating activity and our commencement exercises). She was accompanied by another soon-to-be-Senior gal I think. Then I saw three seniors. One of them is my close friend.
We had a "photoshoot", a conversation, a tour, and a reminiscing moment by visiting our previous classrooms. Yes, I know it's sounds pretty dramatic and cheesy and whatever you call it, but we totally love our high school years, despite the countless works.
At 4:30, we assembled ourselves by the hallway.
At 5, the event organizer/directress said a few words to the guests and then there came the line
"Ladies and gentlemen, the processional."
And daaaaaaaang, that drum roll filled our ears and the processional music came into hearing. We were all excited/afraid/nervous/happy and the like. And marching on the aisle during that event was very different than that when we rehearsed it. And I was more nervous since, aside from the fact I was the fourth to march alongside a batchmate, I was standing in the front row, facing the audience and my walking co-graduates.
We had our Holy Mass, then the Commencement Exercise proper which began with the entrance of colors (by the soon-to-be-Seniors), then the distribution of Diplomas, of Academic Awards, Words of Gratitude (or Valedictorian Speech), our Song of Tribute, and our Graduation Song.
Tears began to fill our eyes but we didn't cry. We weren't able to cry like we expected. We had a few
Awwwww's and
Haaaaaaaay's and all those one-word sidecomments.
But most of us, including myself, started crying while singing the College Hymn, our school song. In my part, singing that song suddenly brought back a lot of memories. Not only high school, but also kindergarten to the day I graduated elementary.
It's a bit painful for my part (and I guess same goes to some others) to leave the school because it's because of that school that I learned a lot, not only in the academic aspect, but also about life. My 12 years in that very school were so memorable that all I could think at that time were those good times. The tears, the joy, everything. It just happened so sudden.
Then, we all bursted crying when the even organizer/directress said the line
"Ladies and gentlemen, the recessional."
We were mumbling and murmuring and I knew that we could be heard. "Ohhhh my gosh! We graduated already? Oh noooooo omg!" And all those phrases.
When we reached our stop point, the covered parking area just outside the auditorium, we all hugged and cried and
waaaaaaaaaah-ed and
Iwillmissyou-ed and all those stuff. We even shouted our Seniors Chant during our Intramurals and yeah, we were video-recorded. We all couldn't stop the tears and the tears didn't stop us from posing for pictures.
My classmates and I ran back to the auditorium stage to have a class picture. We all opened our diplomas (with a huge version of our yearbook picture) and posed for a lot of shots. Afterwards, I was accompanied by Louise to find for some of my teachers to have a picture with them. And yes, I was successful with that :) (Thanks to my Filipino 10, Physics, Chemistry, Math 10, and Biology teachers! Love you all :*) And also had picture-taking with Louise.
I received a lot of graduation gifts from my classmates and on the way home, I one-by-one opened and read their letters. That brought out more tears. But I really cried the most when I opened the gift from Hilda (she's a new student last year and we are really really close).
I'm so going to miss high school. Everything in high school. My classmates, my schoolmates, my friends from the lower years, my teachers, all the hardships, the events, everything.
Thank you to my Alma Mater :*
See you in four years, I guess. Hopefully :> After graduating my Education course :)
(Will post the photos in a separate entry. Still next week. Sorry xD)
