D' Frendz of Decades

Some people still find it amazing whenever I tell them that my friends from my freshman year of college are the same people I hang out with today. 

Within the Block I-1 circle, I still see about half of my batch mates regularly. There's the "academic circle" composed of Prichy, Wowie and Dyra. There's the "barkada circle" which is also composed of Prichy, Wowie, with the addition of Kitel and Lhorie. There's the "Hong Kong/China circle" composed of Shash, Ovvian and Darryl. Then, of course, there's "circle of D' Frendz," composed of Grace, Mona, Rona, Tintin - all of whom were the first people I met in UP.

There are times when our lives feel like a slow-mo montage that you often see in Hollywood movies. 

It would start during our first day in UP and our first group pictorial in front of Quezon Hall. Then, it would transition to our days as classmates in Journ 101 all the way to Journ 199. Fade in to our Journ club days when we'd have a cake raffle to raise funds to buy - of all things - linoleum! This would then lead to our graduation day, then our first jobs, birthdays, weddings, baptisms, and so many fun and memorable moments.

A wonderful reminder of those days came in the form of a box full of old photos that Grace brought yesterday. And one particular photo that caught my eye was a photo of myself with Grace and Lezyl which was taken during one of the D' Frendz celebrations after college.

We looked at the photos and saw how much we've changed, and how much we've stayed the same. To prove that point, we decided to do this:

While some of us have less cheeks and more facial hair (me), more hair and more face powder (Grace), less curls and more decibels (Lezyl), it's nice to know that at the core of it all, we're the same people we were decades ago.