The Road to 40 Day 234/365: UST Get-Together

My UST family has been a fixture in my life since college, and I’m happy that we could all still find the time to get together somehow.

When I first set foot in UST, the first thing that I went for was to build a community for myself. I wanted to make meaningful connections with people in my classroom and beyond.

I thought joining student politics would be a good way to do it. I saw how my cousin, Rica, was having fun with her batchmates, and I wanted the same thing. I learned that student politics was very competitive in the Faculty of Arts and Letters, and I decided to join a different political party from her.

My end goal was to show that having different ideologies doesn’t mean we couldn’t all be friends. While I ultimately joined the Students’ Democratic Party, where my cousin was.

Eventually, I’d have good friends from all the other parties – but considerably a lot less than when I was in college. Thankfully, time weeded out the people who couldn’t separate student politics from things that matter in life. Which is why I appreciate those who remain true friends to this day.

I see some friends from other parties who remain close via their posts on social media. I believe I’d have a different “family” if I went on a different path, but I’m happy to be with this bunch that I eneded up with.

As a freshman, I partied with my seniors. Over the years, more juniors joined these parties. Later, partners who were even outside of the party joined the fun. Then came the kids. Now, the kids are a bit older, as are we.

We decided to pivot from Famous Country Waffles to Dave & Busters so that the kids could have some space to play. We were offered the VIP room that featured a karaoke machine and a private space.

Perk even joked that we’ve come a long way from parties at Classic Savory in Sampaloc to a VIP room at Opus Mall.

While eating, I would play some popular songs the kids might like and got some of them to sing. Good thing K-Pop Demon Hunters songs were available for the girls to sing, while we got the boys to sing some OneRepublic and Imagine Dragons.

Ate Piolle showed off some amazing K-Pop dance moves like an idol. I think I have to learn how to sing Katseye songs for the next time we meet.

Of course, the adults had their share of requests as well. We got Sof out of retirement to sing a couple of our favorite songs from her. She had a band era phase of her life, and she even joined countless singing competitions for media agencies when it was a thing. We’ve always admired her voice, and it was nice to hear it again live.

We had the VIP room for two hours, and before we left, we sang At The Beginning. It was a song that was used when I first became a staffer for the Student Council led by Kuya Jeff. Most of the organizers of that orientation night were batchmates of my cousin, who I’ve grown close with since those days.

Back then, gatherings were always dominated by their batch, because they were mostly from Communication Arts and there were really a lot of them. On this night, though, my batch had three representatives in me, Tring, and Steh. Then there was Kuya Jeff, Ate Puch, and Ate Joy to represent our seniors, while Perk, Sof, and Chip were represented ‘06 batch. Che was the lone representative of the ‘08 batch, and Kuya Ags represented his batch.

We continued the fun outside the VIP room. Honestly, Che, Tring, and Steph all agreed to some extent the night before that we would stay for only a while because we were all tired from everything that went on during this holiday season. We didn’t even know the complete confirmed list until people started showing up.

But as always with this crew, the fun only ends when the establishment needs to close for the day. Sof and I were still joking around that we should go for a second round, but we were set to fly out tomorrow, so we shouldn’t stay out too late.

We went home to do some last-minute preps, and when I say “we” I am saying Che, because she’s our master packer. We watched a couple of episodes of Dynamite Kiss as we asked Vino to sleep already.

She booked a Grab ride in advance, so that we won’t have to wait too long tomorrow.