There are just some things I can’t remember.

I can’t remember what I felt the first time I stepped into the Ateneo at 7:30 in the morning, with the early morning chill and the slight mist that enveloped the school. Was I apprehensive about stepping into my English class for the first time, or was I excited to be with people I had met only the day before? Did I truly enjoy my first Physics class that day, or I was just too stunned that things were so fast-paced to notice anything else? Who did I hang out with, where did we eat, and how did I spend the rest of that first day? These questions, strangely, have no answers.

But I do remember things that happened weeks and months later. I remember trekking through a construction site on campus just to hide from a blockmate I didn’t like, and ripping my favorite pair of khaki pants in the process. And whenever I wear those pants and see that little rip at the knee, I remember that day.

I remember being part of a raucous group in McDonalds, giving sexual connotations to every McDonalds product we could think of, and wondering why almost everyone around us was looking at us either in annoyance or amusement.

I remember daring a friend to ask for a gravy refill in KFC then pretend to gulp the gravy down. He did it, and we were all rewarded with the classic look of the waitress looking both confused and horrified at the same time.

But these are just select memories from that first year, finding their way into my thoughts from time to time. These memories don’t seem to have much of a history to them, as though they were just isolated memories without much of a past to connect to.

With the end of my college days in sight, I find myself taking trips down memory lane, thinking of people who have come in and out of my life, memories they have left me with, life lessons that I have learned. And I can already see myself cherishing my last few days, trying to commit to memory everything about the Ateneo that I possibly can.

But no matter how hard I try, I can seem to remember everything else except that first day at the Ateneo.