Repost: The Happiest Years of My Life

I saw this article while having lunch. Lei was flipping through the newspaper when the phrase, "It's the School I Choose" caught my eye.

I browsed through the U.P. article as well, but I enjoyed reading this one more, probably because it was closer to home.

Loved this line: "Damn my school’s emphasis on introspection." Made me laugh.
It's true, I spent the happiest years of my life in Ateneo.

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It's the School I Choose

By JAMES SORIANO

January 26, 2010, 11:20am

For two years, I’ve been waking up at five every morning to wade through Katipunan traffic, in the hopes that I can get parking in a space that’s not the cornfields.

For two years, I’ve been eating my meals in a cafeteria that gets too noisy when it’s filled with overeager freshmen.

For two years, I’ve been doing my homework in a study hall with a Figaro stall near the entrance, but I still get my coffee from a vendo that’s five minutes and a floor away.

For two years now, I’ve been studying in “the” Ateneo, and looking back, I can’t fathom why I picked it in the first place.

It wasn’t the pedagogy. While an Ateneo education is something to be proud of, I felt like I needed something different to broaden my perspective.

It wasn’t the company, either; the people are great, but I wanted to experience being in a different sort of crowd.

Neither was it the environment, which is so comfortable and easy, except that I wanted a little more independence, even adventure.

In retrospect, maybe I just fell for all the marketing. There were grand talks and grand presentations in imposingly large halls, and a lot of free food. And it didn’t hurt that I had an allowance each semester.

During my first year, I had no doubt that I made the right decision. Most things were easy to come by: branded coffee, free internet, an airconditioned place to study when the sun gets too hot. Sofas made for sleeping, a bookstore with a PowerMac branch (now an Acer store), and trikes for when I didn’t feel like walking. All these little extras that make a difference, I guess.

Now I’m in my second year, and nearing the halfway point of my undergraduate life, I find myself asking questions
about the bigger things, like if I picked the right course, if the environment is helping me grow, if I’m becoming the person that I want to be — things that I should have based my college decision on.

Sometimes it makes me feel queasy, uneasy and tired. Sometimes I find that the answer is no. But sometimes I feel like I’m overthinking it. Damn my school’s emphasis on introspection.

I’m at a point in my college life where it doesn’t make sense to think about whether I should be here. The fact is that I am here, and I should deal with it because to do otherwise would be a waste of time, effort, and money. Like most people, I had only one shot at making this choice, and I used it up two years ago.

Thankfully, there are reasons to stay. I can walk around campus at night and have nothing to fear but old men running in short shorts.

If I want milk tea, there’s a 7-Eleven in the cafeteria. Not to mention I get a discount on meals whenever I bring a baunan.

The bathrooms have tabos and bidets.

And whenever I’m feeling down or discouraged, I can always sit on one of the bleachers, or the granite steps leading to the Church of the Gesu, and take consolation in the fact that my campus is beautiful and made of red brick.

There are others, both big and small, but there’s one reason in particular worth mentioning because it sums up why I stay.

There’s this clip near the end of the film “Jose Rizal” which shows him being escorted to his death in Luneta. Along the way, he passes the old Ateneo in Manila, upon which he pauses and says, with subtitles, “I spent the happiest years of my life there.” It’s one of Ateneo’s favorite marketing tools.

Now I don’t know how much of this is Ateneo’s fault, but Rizal’s turning out to be right.
(The author is a second year BS Management major at the Ateneo de Manila University.)