College is of great misery and unfathomable challenges, from the first minute of freshman year to the last minute of graduation rites. That is how the story always goes and for most of history, the story ends the same way—we earn a degree. But that is just one of the final milestones, because every story has a story before it. And mine, I wrote it last week, in our Pinning Ceremony as fourth-year college students.
Pinning ceremony marks the whole grinding and work-loaded year of our On Job Training, where graduating students, including me, go through hundreds of hours to cover in order to finish their jobs in particular fields/areas. Last week, we had our ceremony held to start our journey as student teachers as soon as we complete all requirements, and for this blog, I will share how it went like one for the books. I have been quite busy lately after I posted my introduction, but I would do my best to remain active here as responsibilities go around my days.
Our pinning ceremony commenced by 1:00 o'clock in the afternoon, but since morning, I was not in the house because I was in my friends' dorm for the iconic, one-of-the-musts make-up session. We made sure ourselves were as beautiful as our pinning ceremony, hence, make-up is one great way to do so.
I am not an expert in putting make-up but I had to do it myself because my friends were busy doing theirs. We individually made our faces a canva and painted it with all glory we have for the ceremony. Squeezed in a little dormitory, bodies facing towards each other, and little mirrors grasped by our fingers as we paint little stars in our faces. Girls do this in every modest celebration and this is a code.
It took us an hour before we finished our make-up and preparation. One last thing to do is to wear our remarkable uniforms and march to the venue.
My friends' dorm is just a ten-minute walk to our campus so we arrived there quite fast. No talking on the road and eyes focused on one goal: to reach the venue before it started. We arrived at the venue 30 minutes before the program so we were obviously too early and paranoid of getting late.
By the time we entered the gymnasium, some seats were occupied and the guests and parents gradually arrived until the venue received a whole crowded present. We were told to bring our parents with us, for they are responsible to do the pinning but I told my mother not to attend. Not because I don’t want her to pin me but because the heat index that day was furious, I don’t want her to be exposed in a crowded place with heat all over the body. She has some problem in her heart and blood cells, therefore she is prone to heatstroke and heart attack, which the latter happened a couple of times. Better safe than sorry.
Teachers, family members, friends, and professional individuals in our university were already firmly sitting and the program started before I took a glimpse. It commenced with a Welcome Remarks of our president and two other significant personalities in our university. Programs start in this manner to formally welcome and honor the presence of everyone and create a comfortable atmosphere for all attendants.
The program was quite long but after invocation, welcome address, speeches, and some formal performances, we found ourselves standing in front of our chairs waiting for our names to be called and march the pride of honor to be a fourth-year college student. Both secondary and elementary education programs were present that day and got pinned. I am a BEED student which of course I teach and will teach little elementary students with big dreams.
Since my mother wasn’t present, our Dean pinned me when I ascended to the stage. Such a wonderful moment to walk across the stage and pause for a moment in the center, a remarkable movement and moment that validated my journey from year first to the very present moment. You know, we have this pride on the stage, the long hours of sacrifices to make lesson plans, nights of TQ revisions, weeks of demo preparations, and even the months I persevered, these are things I remembered on the stage and I realized how far I have come and I have become. Everything paused not in a way a movie does, but in introspection I didn’t know I need.
After that, we had some dramatic moment when we sang our internship song Long Live by Taylor Swift. During practices, I didn’t like the song enough and didn’t fully grasp the song. For me, the song is not appropriate for the pinning ceremony and less likely to be not overrated, that’s why I developed some disgust towards it. But when I sang it during the ceremony, the lyrics just made sense to me and even felt emotional because of the sound made by the students like we were singing heavenly with all our heart and dreams.
Thirty minutes later, we saw ourselves listening to closing remarks of one of the influential teachers in our school. He had it best closed and I was grateful to hear it once in my life. When he uttered his last words, the program closed humbly, and I realized I was then officially an intern student and got excited about the future duties to come.
We didn’t leave the venue after the event because we still have to do the iconic photo-taking as sections. I saw students grabbing our teachers and including them in our photo opportunity while some took photos with their favorite classmates. I had a photo of my section and our friend group also had a photo with me.
These are my friends since first year, complete and kicking, that made the college journey easier. Being with people who warm and help you in academic problems is vital to survive in college but I don’t mean you should have a friend group, although I want it to say that way, because life is easier with friends knowing you have supporters beside you when doing demonstrations to students. I am grateful to have these people in my college life and one of them is my very friend since high school. We are close friends for quite a long time and I hope to lengthen it.
We headed to the school ground to take again some photos because the lights there are good to take photographs. The grass was also a paid actor. Lol. We took as many photos as we can and laughed together—making the moment more memorable, more reasonable to exist.
We then headed back to the venue because my friends and I are one of those who volunteered to clean the area, leaving it as it is before we used it. As we have this line "clean as you go" or CLAYGO.
We were tired after everything so we decided to go home right away. I was happy to leave the school because of the remarkable event and headed myself to the house to show my family the dazzling pin I have. It is not only a pin but the start of my OJT that for sure would change and help me to achieve my growth as an educator soon.
That is how our pinning ceremony went and it was one for the diaries I want to remember. College must be tough at first but ceremonies like this would erase it by making you realize you have come far and turned out as a better person than you were. Thank you for reading this blog and I hope you enjoyed it.
This is Talay, an educator in heart and in passion.