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WHAT’S  YOUR STORY?

There comes a time in one’s life when things that one values before no longer matter.  Big house, nice car, signature bags and shoes no longer become one’s preoccupation.  At the end of the day, it is relation that matters.  Relationships with family, friends and yes! classmates and schoolmates.

Why do we as adults after 20 or 40 years out of college make an effort to reconnect with our old college friends? Is it because we want to recapture our youth? Or are we curious how the rest of us made it in this world? Or perhaps it is because our own mortality has set into our consciousness and we want to be surrounded by people who made us important and loved in the past?  We hope time again and again to find our classmates and schoolmates who gave us so much joy in our youth.

Last May 23 2009, PWUAASC sponsored a Dinner-Dance to celebrate its 25^th year and gather alumni all over the North American continent and as far as the Philippines.  Over 400 alumni attended.  The highlight of the celebrations was a speech from Lyca Benitez Brown and a message from her grandmother Hon. Helena Z. Benitez. A live video broadcast was also shown of President Amelou B. Reyes congratulating PWUAASC as the oldest alumni association outside the Philippines.  To recapture the glorious past, the Current Officers/Board Members and Past Presidents wore the PWU Gala Terno and danced the Rigodon de Honor.

There were a number of groups who took the opportunity to schedule their own class reunions to coincide with the May 23^rd event.  No wonder during the formal presentations, classmates were busy catching up with each other’s lives.  There were outbursts of delightful screams each time a classmate they have not seen for years enters the ballroom at the Marriott Hotel in Long Beach.  What moments to remember!  It just made everyone happy to see their classmates doing well, happy with the path they’ve chosen, thriving and living life to the fullest.

It is so tempting to collect their stories-not to pry into their private, personal lives, but to learn from each other’s stories in the United States of America or Canada, thousands of miles away from the land of their birth, the Philippines.

During the Nursing Seminar presentation of “Transcultural Nursing” on May 22, 2009, PWU alumni Priscilla Limbo Sagar and Daisy Bandin Marcelino shared their experiences with patients from different cultures.  Most of the discussion went to experiences of Filipino Nurses in America.  One recollection goes like this:  A Filipina clerk was asked by a visitor where the patient in Room 2 was. The Filipina clerk continued writing her notes and without looking up answered PACU (pronounced Pak Yu) which means Perioperative Admission Care Unit.  The Filipina clerk was reported to the Nurse Manager by the angry visitor.  The Nurse Manager advised the staff to refrain from using the word PACU when directing visitors.  Another instance was in an elevator.  Two Filipina nurses were talking, one nurse asked the other, “Bababa ka ba?” which was answered by “OO. Bababa ako kung bababa ka”, Ok, bababa ako ”.  The only other person in the elevator, a Caucasian, commented: “WOW! You both communicated with each other just using monosyllable”.

I love to tell stories and it is so tempting to collect stories like those.  Not to make fun of us but to share with our PWU students and graduates who are planning to come to America to work.

Together with our classmates and schoolmates experiences, it will be interesting to know what they have become.  What memories they hold on to that they consider important.  Do they even remember me the same way that I remember each one of them?  How have they changed?  What is their passion in life?  Are they happy?  Are they interested in my life as I am in theirs?

So tell me my former classmates and schoolmates, what is your story?  I really want to know! We shall mutually enrich each other’s lives by sharing what we have experience after school, what we are today, and what we want to be in the years ahead.  Let us share our worlds together.  I’m looking forward to hearing from you.  Each one has a story to tell. Each one of us is unique.  And remember this message: IT IS RELATIONSHIPS THAT MATTER.

Who would have thought the  unassuming Nursing student that she was then at PWU, would turn into the effervescent , bubbly Teresita Sanchez Cauterucci of today?

I met her again, two years ago, after many years, since she graduated from her BS Nursing degree from PWU.  At PWU, she was a quiet but active student leader, an officer of the Student Cabinet and was 1st Vice President when I was then President.  She was also the President of her College of Nursing class.

Now based in Virginia, United States, Tess runs a very successful home care service.  She makes regular trips home to scout around for young professional nursing practitioners for employment in the United States.

The years have certainly been good to her, as she has spent them well.

Teresita Sanchez Cauterucci, finished her Nursing degree at PWU in 1965 and went to complete her Masters degree at the Catholic University of America, Majoring in Administration.

She continued her learning and studying and proceeded to other institutions and took courses in child development from Georgetown University, a course as clinical specialist on AIDS/HIV from the  University of Southern California, and is presently working on her Doctorate at the Catholic University of America.

On top of all that, she served in the US Army, in the Army Nurse Corps, an retired recently with the rank of Major.

Presently, she is Administrator of the Care Givers Home Health Services and a consultant of the Philippine Nurses Association of Metropolitan DC, of which she is the founding president.

In one of her visits home, she conducted a one-day workshop/forum on the health care industry in the US and career opportunities for health workers. She was presented with a special award from the PWU Alumni Association.

By: Olivia Celeste Montecillo Villafuerte