My friends hear me say, "It's like I have several thousand children from around the world"...especially when I get to know the students well. I am lucky to get to know a few very well each year...just by luck, I guess, whatever "luck" may be....
They say in this business that students come and go, every year, so don't get too emotional or attached. After all, many will never return.
The real truth is, most will never return. Yet, we cannot think that way on Graduation morning as we look out at them....all so bright, excited, proud, and with proud parents in many cases just across the aisle.
So we put up our best act, just like in Hollywood, and go forth as if we will all be here again, assembled, in this place, again sharing these magic moments and memories.
Truth is, we take pictures, and preserve it all on the website....but we may never touch again...hugs and handshakes, once and then they live on in our memory...
These are the days! These are the times! We will all be together bonded as friends on the great sailing ship of our dreams and memories...the "Ship of Friends"....you know, it sails forever...
"Ship Ahoy, now!"....get ready to board...you will be with your friends and family on this voyage for this day on into forever...on the high seas of your life....this will keep you and all of us together....
Oh, by the way, please come back and visit us here again...some of you will, and San Diego, and California and America will be a better place for your return to these shores....
This was the time and place of your life....keep the dream alive!
Students come and they go, but they don't leave us mentally. There is always one that we will always remember. We never really say goodbye. We first meet them at orientation, we see them again at enrollment, and some we see throughout the quarter for reasons known only to them and us. We see them last at graduation. We watch them walk down the aisle, we wave, we smile, we wink, and then we sigh. Memories never fade, they are just replaced with new ones. This is how it is in CIBU life as seen through the eyes of a staff member.
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