VISIT TO THE SHRINK

about the people I call my friends (the tapat ng troika congregation)

part 1 in the series of posts about the people i call my friends

the tapat ng troika congregation story
i'm proud to tell the story of my high school barkada. i happily smile as i tell this story to the new friends i've made in college, or anyone who wants to know. the people i call my friends have a unique story which surpasses popularity, in most ways. i am proud to have friends like them, and i remember enjoying their company.
ours was a an exclusive girls school at the heart of manila. unlike co-ed schools, girls were easier to befriend. but without the boys around, having the most popular guy as a boyfriend was no basis for popularity. i'd like to think ,unlike most people, there were no popular people, i cared less weather anyone was well known or not. mine was if she was well respected. we didn’t exactly know each other during our first year, though some had been together since grade school.
food brings people together, and i guess that’s the principle behind this story - well almost. it was an issue of eating areas. you see, our school had assigned eating areas per year level. the freshmen stayed at the second floor of the canteen. the sophomores, you can say were scattered all over the place, some at the canteen, some at the college eating area, and some at the hall fronting troika debating hall. the juniors were at the lunch counters, this was a roofed eating area lined with tables and benches, about more than 12, where a batch of a8 sections could fit. and the seniors at the prestigious stone tables, that is an eating area near the field (to give you a better perspective of the size of this field say it how chipmunks would) which included 1) about 6 square cement tables, lined of course with tiles on top, and a set of benches to come with it surrounding a large acacia tree, 2) a long row of tables and benches stretching along the walls of the grade 4 classrooms and 3) which came in when renovations were being made at the canteen, a lot of blue tables and monoblock chairs under some tents.
since in second year, the sophomores were scattered, i, the people i spent breaks with - usually some of my classmates - along with and a few others made the corridor fronting troika debate hall our domain of choice. this we carried on to our junior year: basically, when my friends and i came to the lunch counters during the beginning of third year to find the eating area we would call ours for a year, we were disappointed not to find a vacant table. and that was that, troika became our home for another year to pass. during out senior year we were determined to get a proper eating area at the stones. we were able to feel that we would during the first days of the year, but since the policy was draw lots, we were either cheated or just plain unlucky. but still, happy enough to return to our beloved troika corridor.
now since we were all basically good friends at this time, we began to sit in one big circle - instead of the 2 to 4 little circles wed been sitting in since second year. however, i have to mention that not all of those little groups came together in this one. so, this is where it began. a few of us decided to give the group a name: tapat ng troika congregation. to get facts straight, it was the debate hall which had the name troika - not the corridor -, our tambayan was the corridor fronting it/across it so, in tagalog: tapat ng. the congregation, basically was the first word that came to mind that seemed big - and no we are not a religious organization. so, there: tapat ng troika congregation.
crissy began by creating the yahoo group, which we still have today. then came the TNTC IDs by bom/elise which we earned by doing crazy and unusual things - we were ahead of reality TV. (or was it the IDs before the yahoo group? my memory fails me, and i'm sure either one of them is ready to hit me with a mallet). during our integration with our little sisters, the fresh women, we introduced them to our little group and added a little fun with a little guessing game quiz. it really didn’t matter to me if my little sister though that i, along with my group of friends were just plain weirdoes who worshiped anime, though i had a gut feeling she did think of it that way. again bom had a fascinating idea of designing a botton pin for the group which we all had made care of her KKB(kanya kanyang bayad). one of the best i'd like to recall were the birthday celebrations we prepared for those who celebrated their birthdays. another is a script for our telenovela "cooking ng ina mo". and looking to the future, our dream business venture to "conquer the world".
the whole year was fun, even though we had to eventually transfer to the third component of what composed the eating area assignment of the seniors because of the implementation of a strict eating area policy. this we did with our request of the provision of a large enough table that would fit all the seniors at troika. ours was the longest table, nearest the new building, the closest to the end of the tent, and the lowest height above sea level in the stones area. in other words, though we had the remarkably longest table among the seniors, we were frequently flooded during the rainy season. but we enjoyed being together anyway.