I've always said, "I love MY seniors" and it was really great how they decided to make that video for us even though everyone wasn't together. Technology is wonderful!!! Being able to see those who couldn't make it to banquet really made my heart smile. They were the ones who welcomed me to Liwanag and I think it's truly a gift to still be able to talk with most of them up until now. I was happy to see all of the alumni there, especially the 2010'ers. I'm glad my Co was there to roast me even though I cried the most out of everyone in my class. I was seriously trying to hold back my tears, but once she started talking about how I left UCI it was already impossible to stop. I was pretty much hoping she wouldn't bring that up because that's something that ALWAYS and WILL ALWAYS be a tear-jerker. But emotions are emotions and like she said, 'I'm real' and I never hold back what I'm feeling. Being able to give my Co her stole during her banquet and then her giving my stole on my banquet made me realize how things have finally come full circle. 2012 has had such an amazing journey in Liwanag.
Coming together to film our senior presentation, re-creating what we did four years ago was surreal for me. It was so much fun though and I think we could have gotten a 'loud party notice' from all the laughing we were doing and we weren't even drunk! Haha...but that's us. We roll deep and we like to have fun when #itsnotevenourbirthday. When we were practicing singing "Officially Missing You" in the parking lot in a big circle right before we all walked together to banquet, I got a little teary-eyed because I felt like we were all singing to eachother instead of practicing to sing it to everyone else. Banquet was the most perfect way to close this chapter in our lives and I know that we were all so very,very thankful for everyone who came, helped out, or made a video appearance. It shows that distance should NEVER be an excuse. Love transcends the miles and can still reach the heart. It just takes a little more work, but it's worth it.
I was reading Marina Keegan's article and I think it's such a heart-breaking story to see such an intelligent and gifted student lose her life during what should have been the start of a great career. But I'm glad she left these words for the class of 2012. It gave me the goosebumps while reading it and I know I could definitely relate to it as well, especially my memories with Liwanag. Her words are beautiful and so real to me.
It's not quite love and it's not quite community; it's just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it's four a.m. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can't remember. That time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt. The hats.
Yale is full of tiny circles we pull around ourselves. A cappella groups, sports teams, houses, societies, clubs. These tiny groups that make us feel loved and safe and part of something even on our loneliest nights when we stumble home to our computers -- partner-less, tired, awake. We won't have those next year. We won't live on the same block as all our friends. We won't have a bunch of group-texts.
This scares me. More than finding the right job or city or spouse -- I'm scared of losing this web we're in. This elusive, indefinable, opposite of loneliness. This feeling I feel right now.
But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They're part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn't live in New York. I plan on having parties when I'm 30. I plan on having fun when I'm old. Any notion of THE BEST years comes from clichéd "should haves..." "if I'd..." "wish I'd..."
Of course, there are things we wished we did: our readings, that boy across the hall. We're our own hardest critics and it's easy to let ourselves down. Sleeping too late. Procrastinating. Cutting corners. More than once I've looked back on my High School self and thought: how did I do that? How did I work so hard? Our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us.
But the thing is, we're all like that. Nobody wakes up when they want to. Nobody did all of their reading (except maybe the crazy people who win the prizes…) We have these impossibly high standards and we'll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that's okay.
We're so young. We're so young. We're twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There's this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lay alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out – that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it's too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement.
When we came to Yale, there was this sense of possibility. This immense and indefinable potential energy – and it's easy to feel like that's slipped away. We never had to choose and suddenly we've had to. Some of us have focused ourselves. Some of us know exactly what we want and are on the path to get it; already going to med school, working at the perfect NGO, doing research. To you I say both congratulations and you suck.
For most of us, however, we're somewhat lost in this sea of liberal arts. Not quite sure what road we're on and whether we should have taken it. If only I had majored in biology…if only I'd gotten involved in journalism as a freshman…if only I'd thought to apply for this or for that…
What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it's too late to do anything is comical. It's hilarious. We're graduating college. We're so young. We can't, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it's all we have.
In the heart of a winter Friday night my freshman year, I was dazed and confused when I got a call from my friends to meet them at EST EST EST. Dazedly and confusedly, I began trudging to SSS, probably the point on campus farthest away. Remarkably, it wasn't until I arrived at the door that I questioned how and why exactly my friends were partying in Yale's administrative building. Of course, they weren't. But it was cold and my ID somehow worked so I went inside SSS to pull out my phone. It was quiet, the old wood creaking and the snow barely visible outside the stained glass. And I sat down. And I looked up. At this giant room I was in. At this place where thousands of people had sat before me. And alone, at night, in the middle of a New Haven storm, I felt so remarkably, unbelievably safe.
We don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I'd say that's how I feel at Yale. How I feel right now. Here. With all of you. In love, impressed, humbled, scared. And we don't have to lose that.
We're in this together, 2012. Let's make something happen to this world."
When we came to Yale, there was this sense of possibility. This immense and indefinable potential energy – and it's easy to feel like that's slipped away. We never had to choose and suddenly we've had to. Some of us have focused ourselves. Some of us know exactly what we want and are on the path to get it; already going to med school, working at the perfect NGO, doing research. To you I say both congratulations and you suck.
For most of us, however, we're somewhat lost in this sea of liberal arts. Not quite sure what road we're on and whether we should have taken it. If only I had majored in biology…if only I'd gotten involved in journalism as a freshman…if only I'd thought to apply for this or for that…
What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it's too late to do anything is comical. It's hilarious. We're graduating college. We're so young. We can't, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it's all we have.
In the heart of a winter Friday night my freshman year, I was dazed and confused when I got a call from my friends to meet them at EST EST EST. Dazedly and confusedly, I began trudging to SSS, probably the point on campus farthest away. Remarkably, it wasn't until I arrived at the door that I questioned how and why exactly my friends were partying in Yale's administrative building. Of course, they weren't. But it was cold and my ID somehow worked so I went inside SSS to pull out my phone. It was quiet, the old wood creaking and the snow barely visible outside the stained glass. And I sat down. And I looked up. At this giant room I was in. At this place where thousands of people had sat before me. And alone, at night, in the middle of a New Haven storm, I felt so remarkably, unbelievably safe.
We don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I'd say that's how I feel at Yale. How I feel right now. Here. With all of you. In love, impressed, humbled, scared. And we don't have to lose that.
We're in this together, 2012. Let's make something happen to this world."
The fear for what's ahead is real & alive, but I know that Liwanag gave me the backbone to face it all with an open heart and open mind. Keegan's words speak for me and many others. I love you, Liwanag C/O 2012, current Liwanag members, and Liwanag Alumni. Thank you for enriching my life over these past four years and for never leaving me to drown in my own pity. You were there for me, at any time of the day or night. And I trust, believe, and know that this love will never die because I was blessed to be part of this family. 97 til' infinity, LIWANAG FOR LIFE. <3
