I can finally say this -- I did it! I got out of school!
Well technically, I finished school last July, as I spent my last semester in the internship programme.
The convocation was supposed to be just a ceremony -- I left school half a year ago, I already bid my goodbye before I left for my hometown, it was just a ceremony, I shouldn't be able to feel a thing... But it is not just a ceremony.
It is a turning point, it is an official farewell, it is everything.
The fact that I won't be seeing all those familiar faces everyday anymore still saddens me, especially people that know me better than I know myself, as well as friends that I've grown close to.
We've been though so much together, sometimes we see each other more than 12 hours a day. They've become my second family, and a staple of my life.
Of course we're still friends, and I know they will always be there for me as I will for them. But deep down we know something yet we refuse to say it out loud: Everything's changed, and it will never be the same anymore.
That devastated me.
None of us wanted to acknowledge that. But in the end, on the night we gathered after the ceremony, we hugged and we cried before saying goodbye to each other.
Someday in the future, when I thought of this day, I'd remember me standing on the stage, marching toward the chancellor; my classmate/partner/friend, presenting her valedictorian speech and how proud I was of her; flowers, cameras...... And most importantly, all those familiar faces that I grew very fond of, and how much our friendships meant to me.
