High School Reunion

Last January 30, I attended another small gathering of our high school Batch '87, which I also organized. This has been the fifth or so mini-reunion of our batch that I had organized since 2005 and I always feel excited every time because reuniting with old friends is always a welcome event. Although I usually see the same faces most of the time, a new face or two would be added each reunion and that gives me a sense of accomplishment. 

I was expecting to meet at least five new batchmates but only one showed up among them. The other five were the usual attendees of our reunions. So, we were seven in all, including me. What's new with our latest reunion was that we invited three of our high school teachers who all showed up.

You know what? The additional new face in our reunion happened to be my elementary classmate. Funny thing about it, I didn't know that we attended the same high school when in fact our alma mater was not that big, although our batch then had 21 sections. I only came to know that he also studied in Manila High School when we had the chance to exchange e-mail messages. I saw his name and photo in the friend list of a common friend (his classmate in first year who became my classmate in second year up to fourth year) and added him to my list and sent him an e-mail verifying if he was really my elementary classmate.

I learned that he was in section 5 in first year and went down to section 13 when we graduated because he had associated himself with bad influence group. But even during graduation day, I hardly recall that his name was called on stage. In fact, he was not able to attend our graduation rites because he was sick that time.

To make the long story short, he managed to finish his college degree and build his career in the hotel industry. He now has a family of his own and works in one of the most prestigious hotels in Makati.

We parted ways filled with good memories of our high school and elementary days. We look forward to seeing each other again this May as we plan to hold another reunion, this time with elementary classmates. Then after that, we plan to attend the MHS Foundation Day on June 11.