The Last Letter

7

Chapter VII

[2 years ago]

[January 10, 1993]

It was my first day at the university as a freshman. We are inside a small gymnasium where the first meeting for the freshmen will be held. I can see some highschool and neighborhood friends not that far behind me.

Since the gymnasium is relatively small, it was only like the size of a full basketball court, only architecture and engineering students, all the freshmen and a few of the higher years are gathered here. Since this university primarily focuses on engineering and architecture courses, it’s obvious that the majority of the population belongs to our department. The rest of the other departments will hold their meetings tomorrow based on what I’ve heard my friend Ben told me.

I wasn’t really paying attention to what the dean or president or whoever is speaking at the podium at the stage. I’ll spend 4+ years studying here so I’m not taking their words seriously since I’ll hear those words exactly every single year when there’ll be freshmen gathering.

Actually, I am not the only one who’s not listening, instead, almost everyone. There are maybe 500 students gathered here so it was quite noisy and I can see some are already making friends. It may seem like we were disrespecting our professors for the succeeding years but they themselves just let us do what we want. Maybe because they’ve had enough of this kind of first meeting scenario and they just want to finish it all immediately.

After just an hour that seemed like forever, it’s finally time to meet my regular classmates. We all headed to our designated classrooms.

The rooms have two doors at both ends, like a normal classroom set up, with individual desks and lockers at the back. In the front is a big white board and a small podium on the left and a table on the left side corner of the room. There are 4 strong rotating fans on the ceiling and the windows are open so it was cool inside. The walls are painted white, with displays of raw sketches and paintings from old students. Since we are architecture students, our tables are convertible to drawing tables and our seats are also adjustable.

I sat at the left side, by the window at the second to the last row. Our room is on the highest floor of the 3rd building at the back so I chose this spot because I heard our school has the best scenery.

And it is.

It really has the best scenery, it was as if our school came straight out of a book or movie. It might be cheesy but I really admire this kind of landscape. I probably drew over hundreds of sketches of places that look like this.

I was startled when I heard one of the doors slam open. A person who looks like some kind of a professor, holding nothing but a T-square, walked inside the room. He’s wearing black slacks tucked with gray polo and black leather shoes. He seems to be in a bad mood as his forehead is wrinkled and his eyes look like it can slice vegetables because of its sharpness. He looks like he’s only in his 40s to 50s but he looks terror upon seeing him.

All the loud chats and laughs that filled this room earlier were gone in a moment. All of my classmates straightened their backs, including the guys earlier who seemed like they won’t budge when you yell at them.

To my surprise, most of my classmates are unfamiliar to me. In fact, only two of them are known to me since they were my schoolmates from highschool and I also greeted them earlier. There were almost 30 students in my class so it was not crowded. Our school does not give the student list beforehand so we wouldn’t know who among us will be in the same class.

“Okay class, good morning.” he said half-heartedly but in a stern, loud voice.

“Good morning, sir!” we said loudly but not in unison so his wrinkled forehead became even more wrinkled. He then scribbled some words on the white board. It was the lessons we will take in the first semester.

“First things first, I am Architect Iñigo Cortez, you class adviser s***h professor in Mathematics of Architects. I’m 47 years old. I’ll probably be one of your professors from your 1st to 4th year, that’s... if you can pass my subjects.”

What an introduction. After that, he sat on the table at the left, front corner of the room and crossed his arms.

“Just like any other first time meeting, of course we will be doing a self introduction,” he added.

The looks on my classmates’ and my face are horrendous. It’s only the first subject and the first professor we met but I think I’m exhausted already. I hated self introduction more than anyone. Although I’m not socially awkward, I think I have a slight fear of spotlights or when everyone focuses on me, it makes me so anxious.

***

The self introduction went by smoothly until when it was my turn. We need to state our name, age, expectation to the subject and why we chose the architecture course.

Most of my classmates’ reasons are impressive. Some of them are sons and daughters of architects and engineers and that they want to follow their parents’ footsteps. Some said they dreamt of building and designing infrastructures that they hope will be known globally. Some said it was their dream job ever since they were young. Nevertheless, it’s nice to hear their reasons, I even felt proud of some of them for dreaming such.

As for me, I myself don't even know why I chose this course. I didn’t dream of it, nor did any of my relatives are architects. I just grew up loving nature and building stuff with my father and I spent so much time sketching and drawing when I was a kid up until now. Then when it was finally the time to think about my desired future profession, I just connected my interests to the nearest possible course I could take, that was architecture. And that’s just how I decided.

I slowly walked to the front and I could feel the eyes of my classmates directly looking at me. I honestly had goosebumps all over my body.

I inhaled and exhaled first then closed my eyes for a second before turning around to see my classmates.

“I’m August Montilla, 19 years old. I expect this subject to be hard but rewarding at the end. To be honest, I’m still in the process of discovering myself and what I really want to do since I haven’t thought enough of my future yet. But all I know is that I am passionate when it comes to arts and I wish to use my love for sketching and drawing in this course. And lastly, I hope that this is the profession I’ll be happy with.”

I see my classmates nodding and on my peripheral view, I see Ar. Cortez with his head looking down and I could see him slightly smiling.

“You remind me so much of myself Mr. Montilla, when I was entering college, I also did not know what course to take but as you can see, I’m in the professional field now. It is courageous of you to take a harder course, such as this.” he told me as he signalled me to go back to my seat, and so I did.

The introduction continued and it went by fast. I could say for the first time, I had a great time in self introduction portion. Normally, this part bores the hell out of me but then gives me so much anxiety when it is my turn. But now, since almost all of my classmates are strangers to me, it is nice to get to know them since I’ll possibly spend so much time with them in the future.

“That’s it for today, nice to meet you all. If you can, you could study ahead of time so our next discussions will be easier for you to understand.” Mr. Cortez said as he finished briefly discussing the lessons he wrote on the board a while ago. As time went, his facial expressions became softer and softer. He just wanted to intimidate us earlier, that’s what we think.

The rest of the day in the university isn’t bad. It was a never ending self introduction in 4 more subjects and the information we said in the first class is just repeated over and over. I almost memorized everybody’s name because of that. But on the positive side, I gained many friends already and the two schoolmates I mentioned earlier were who I am with most of the time.

When it was finally the time to go home, by 3 pm, I saw Ben at the front gate of the university with his bike. I also ride a bike to school because it helps me save some money as well as it is my form of exercise everyday. When he saw me, he waved his hands in the air and of course, I waved back too so that he wouldn't look embarrassing.

To be continued…