I attended Stella Maris College from Prep to my Senior year of high school. A total of 11 years in an all girls school. But I heard that SMC is already accepting boys for its elementary department. Ugh! My alma mater is no longer the same when I left it. I graduated from an exclusive school for girls… sigh, it doesn’t feel right to say that anymore.
This is the Elementary building of my school. Located on the first floor are classrooms for Prep, Grades 1 and 2, Offices, the Faculty Room, Clinic, and the Elementary Library (yes, the high school students have a separate Libary which is sad because I loved the Elem Lib! Hehe!). The Auditorium, the “fancy” balcony turned Rec Room and classrooms for Grades 3 to 4 can be found on the second floor. The third floor is for Grades 5 to 6. There are also some mysterious rooms here. I think every school has those. Awooo mumu! Anyway, the fourth floor is access to the Auditorium’s balcony. Each Grade is divided into four sections with up to around 40 students. Classroom seat plans are usually on 7 columns, which we named confusingly as “Rows”. And those who sat at the back had to be the Row’s Book Officer. In elementary, we left our books at school and only bring them home if we had assignments and exams scheduled. When we have quizzes and we needed to check the papers ourselves, we had to do the clockwise-counterclockwise exchange of papers. This makes it harder for students to cheat. Sigh, I miss those days. I miss the pad papers. The good smelling erasers. The nice looking pencils. The multi-colored chubby pens. Hehe. I miss playing heaven and earth on the steps. I miss sliding down the stair’s handrail. Wheee that was oodles fun!!! I miss sitting in the auditorium and watching the performances. I miss being on stage. I miss performing with classmates and clubmates. I miss hearing the grand piano. I miss having our First Friday Mass. I miss singing Catholic songs. I miss wearing our sailor uniform. I miss jumping over the bushes and landing softly on the grassy garden. I miss doing the cartwheels. I miss the 4 peso Buko juice and Gulaman. I miss lunch and recess. I miss the higads on the Santans–well maybe not. LOL!!! I miss eating Flying Saucer. Gah! Only Stellans know this. =)
Oh fine wonderful memories of my first 7 years of being a Stellan. The younger one. The one who wore short sleeves and a cravat bow. The one who couldn’t wait to get into her HS uniform which had long sleeves and a necktie. =P
Yeah.
I run on a Mac and Camino.
Chuck, Heroes, Kath & Kim
Grey's Anatomy, Life on Mars
CSI
Seinfeld 
i miss all the things you mentioned! they can’t jump through the bushes because it’s all blocked with chicken fence. ;x
i miss sliding down the handrail from the chapel!!!
and you missed the choco banana! =p
i love the elem lib too because the hs lib is just soo far away.
Such wonderful memories. I envy you!
So beautiful written, it brings a lump into my throat.
What is “I miss playing heaven and earth on the steps”??? I never played that game.
Keep up the good writing…you are awesome!
It’s a game we play on the staircase just outside. It has enough steps to call Hell, Earth, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Heaven. You jump from one step to another depending on the call. I forgot how the calls were made, but this was fun. And DANGEROUS because you are jumping downward missing a couple of steps ( let’s say from Heaven to Thursday.) but anyway, never heard of anyone getting hurt so that’s good.