Whoever gave the notion that if you're old, you're weak, eat your words. Though this may always be the case for a couple of folks who are lucky enough to reach a hundred, this definitely does not apply with SLU. Despite a hundred years of wear and tear, the old girl's still standing tall and proud as she has her centennial celebration.

Where did SLU all start in the first place? To give a brief outlook on how the ball got rolling, let's go back to 1907 when it all began. Don't get your pants in a bunch, I'm not going to give a long and boring lecture on the beginnings of SLU (we get enough of that from school), just a short flashback to when a fine institution started off as simply a ten-student classroom.

CICM missionaries decided that it was a good idea to evangelize the northern part of the Philippines (AKA Baguio City) when they figured that the Spanish colonizers were not able to colonize that part of the country. Apparently, they were too scared of the head hunters to even consider trekking there.

By 1911, Father Seraphin Devesse established a small elementary class comprising of ten local boys. It was from this meager lot that a great and vast university sprouted and shone.

A decade later, CICM decided that if they were going to be teaching elementary students, might as well high school ones too. At 1952, Father Gerard Decaestecker allowed college students to be part of the curriculum, offering college courses for those who wanted careers in Liberal Arts and Commerce. From that course, many came to be as well. From the ever-enticing nursing to engineering, SLU offers it all.

As for the high school department, the boys and the girls were separated into two schools; SLU Girl's High and SLU Boy's High (obviously). Both schools remained mutually inclusive and exclusive until 2004 when they decided that it would be a good idea to join the boys and the girls in one co-ed curriculum known today as SLU-LHS.

This year, as the SLU centennial celebration commences, we celebrate right along with the college department and the younger kids at elementary school as one united family. Let's face it, turning 100's a big deal especially when you still look this beautiful and this good.

When people turn 70, we call them healthy. When they turn 80, we call them strong. When they hit 90, we call them lucky. But when they turn 100, we call them rare.

SLU is definitely rare with the big triple digits as it celebrates it centennial.

Okay, so maybe a school isn't exactly a person, but getting to 100 is a big deal. That means it has served for a century; a century of good education; a century of growing and nurturing friendships; a century of building a family.

I owe SLU a lot. Why? Well, for one thing, it has been my literal home away from home for years. I mean, let's face it. When you spend about ten hours everyday in a place, you tend to get attached. Also, it has been my stable educational ground; the rock which would basically be the very framework of my future. For sure, without SLU, I honestly wouldn't know what I would do with my life.

The old girl also deserves some commending. Sustaining more than ten thousand children for a hundred years couldn't have been easy. SLU definitely deserves some cred for offering quality education. The curriculum it has is also well rounded. From looking for the line of symmetry of a parabola to trying to serve a volleyball over the net, SLU offers it all.

So what can I give to show my geniuine appreciation for all those years of teaching me life's lessons? Loyalty. Like I said, I want to and I plan to continue my college education in SLU. I trust it enough to give me the same quality of education that it has been giving me for the past years. I'm pretty confident that with a diploma from SLU, the world will be my oyster.

My second gift would definitely be honor. Since I was in elementary school, I have already been competing in numerous interschool competitions that take me to places like Ifugao and Laguna. I always try and do my best in all these endeavors and in great feats, I bring home the bacon, giving glory and pride to not just LHS, but to SLU as well.

As the SLU centennial celebration draws near, here's hoping that this fine institution would continue to serve the community for another hundred years to come.

High School.

According to the dictionary, it's a secondary school that prepares students for college. Very true.

According to the student vocabulary, however, it's an insanity-inducing ride of assignments, quizzes, projects, sleepless nights and TV-less weekends. Also true.

According to me, it's the the time of my life.

Sure, it could be, no wait, it IS, hard and sometimes unforgiving to be a high school student, but as the years pass by, I start to see it as a fun, exciting and new way of learning especially when I decided to start it in SLU - LHS.

Okay, so maybe I didn't decide to go there, my parents did. Originally, my sister and I were to go to some other high school, but after a little thought, mother and papa dearest decided to send us to LHS where my cousin at the time was a senior. Carry the family torch, they said.

My sister went in first (obviously) and as a freshman, she was doing a heck of a good job. She kept going until she reached fourth year and graduated as valedictorian in the science section. However, she did go a little nuts in the process of getting there. I was expected to turn crazy as well.

With me in the science section by first year, my sister started warning, no wait, scaring me about high school, especially as a freshman. How the upper class men can bully (not that she'd tried) and how sadistic the quizzes can be. By the end of my 6th grade summer, I was braced for the absolute worst.

As it turns out, LHS wasn't so bad after all. Sure, it was a heck of a lot harder than elementary, but that's how life is. Pamela, Errol, and Marc T., some of my elementary classmates, were still in the same section as me. After tearing through it (and going a little insane in the process)with them, I made it out alive and still a contender in the science section.

By second year, the three original science sections thinned to one. It was somewhat of a loss for our part, but being thirty students in one classroom does have its perks. Aside from getting a lot of space, we also got closer. Bridges burned in the past years were rebuilt and new ones rose.

In the middle of that same year, we were reduced to twenty nine. Our classmate and one of my close friends, Patricia, moved away to Italy due to her father's job. While we would all miss her, we still tore through the rest of the year trying to salvage what's left of our Filipino and Statistics grades. When it all comes down to it, I still came out alive and with a sure place in 3-Mapagpakumbaba.

That wasn't the case for some of us, though. Ten weren't as lucky as the other nineteen. Still, that never stopped them from remaining friends with us. Everyday, they would come and hang out with us; they still belong in our home and it's like they never left it the first place.

Our home. Sigh.

We have been at home with each other, our section and our school for three years now and when you spend THAT much time with something or someone, you always get attached and feel comfortable with it, so that's how I see LHS: my comfort zone, my home.

Of course, things aren't always so peachy and rainbows, unicorns and ice cream happy. LHS is still a school and it definitely serves its purpose as one. I can't remember a day that passed by that we had nothing to do (except of course for the orientation week and probably intrams week). Challenges are always served to us in either huge chunks or cute little bite sized pieces. Naturally, our first reaction would be to complain about the complexity or the length, but deep down inside, we love the challenges (you know I do :)).

It serves well as a preparatory school, too. From three-minute music videos to ten-page long essays, you name it, we've tried it. This is good prep for the real world because let's face it, life isn't easy and all the projects and assignments we're required to submit is a good practice and foresight to what's coming for us in the future. When we're thirty and required to do fifty page scrapbooks, you can bet your life that we know what to do.

With school being the number one place on the list of top ten places we go to, it's kinda like our second home. So that's basically what LHS has been to me for the past years until present: my home.

Now that LHS and the entire university are having their centennial celebration, I'm happy to be partying on with them for I really do celebrate it. The SLU centennial just proves that it has been around for a hundred years and its still standing today. Since I was in kindergarten, I have been a loyal student to SLU and I plan to continue that until my last year of college.

Here's to SLU and its one hundred years of great education.