LIFE is marked by endings and beginnings.

Recently, my only daughter officially joined the ranks of about 3,000 freshmen at Ateneo de Manila University (AdMU). Suddenly, I felt old. I thought of my own freshman year at AdMU in 1982.

We belonged to the class of 1986, a batch marked by two major events in Philippine history. We were sophomores when the shot that was heard throughout the world was fired?the assassination of Ninoy Aquino on August 21, 1983. We were a month shy of our college graduation when the Edsa Revolution in February 1986 took place. The end of a life, the beginning of a nation?s awakening. The end of a dictatorship, and the beginning of freedom.

In the interim of 27 years, my own life has been marked by many endings and beginnings. Now in my mid-40s, I safely look back without angst, bitterness or hatred at the events that transpired during my college years and the many years after. Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said: ?Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forward.? So as my daughter enters her college years in the same campus where I was once a freshman, I view Ateneo through the eyes of my child.

To begin with, college registration now has an entirely new meaning to it. Back in 1982, we woke up bright and early, lined up for classes at Berchmans and Kostka Hall and paid our fees at the Admini building, which is now known as Xavier Hall. Many of us braved the lines by our lonesome, some brought along friends from high school, while a few had their mothers or fathers. So when my daughter complains about the lag in the system while still dressed in her pajamas, I cannot help but tell her: ?You do not realize how blessed you are. This is as painless as painless can be.?

Ateneo is perhaps the only, or one of the very few universities that has a pretty much efficient online registration system. Yet, a part of me wished that my daughter had that experience of waking up very early, lining up, and sweating under the noonday sun, and standing for hours in line to pay. The experience in itself is preparation for college and life beyond its walls.

Adventure

Twenty-seven years ago, we entered college hardly knowing anyone else except our high school friends who were spread out in different blocks. It was a whole new world and that was part of the adventure.

None of my best friends in high school went to AdMU, they all chose to go to the University of the Philippines. Thus, I made many friends who came from various high schools, and some of these friendships last to this day.

Today, there is Facebook, and all the different chat and message boards and social networking sites where an incoming freshman can try to piece together who his or her block mates are. They do this by posting their painstakingly color-coded Excel charts which highlight their subjects. In doing so, one can get a sneak preview of sorts as to the kind of class one can expect on the first day.

Back in 1982, not knowing who you would end up with was part of the excitement and anticipation. To see who was going to be in the same English class or Science class as you was part of the thrill. College, I like to tell my daughter, is an exciting time, and a chance to forge friendships?beginning anew on a clean slate.

Early this year, when my daughter and I went to get her paperwork at Ateneo, she went to school garbed in that famous yellow Ninoy shirt emblazoned with ?Hindi ka nag-iisa.? It?s a replica of a shirt I had worn in the early ?80s as I marched through Quezon Boulevard on a sweltering August day with several classmates to pay homage to a fallen hero at Sto. Domingo church.

As the school year opens this week, my daughter and I, student and teacher, enter the gates of Ateneo: her mother, part of the Edsa Batch of 1986, she, as part of freshman sesquicentennial batch of the Ateneo.

I pray that this time around, her years at AdMU will be marked by more peaceful endings and beginnings. Or will her generation be struggling with the same issues ours did back then? We live in strangely similar times. Everything remains to be seen.

E-mail the author at cathybabao@gmail.com.