As many of our third year students say goodbye to life on campus, Blanca Brew Ferrer reflects on the time they spent together (including in lockdown), the types of people she met, and the type of person she's grown into at Trinity.
Dear old college,
There are few things that united us – third years – more as a year level, than our first lockdown. Closed off from the world, we stayed at college when there were no glamorous parties, no organised sporting events, and no TCAC. Forced to work with what we got, lockdown was crucial in showing us that Trinity is not about the chapel steps, the JCR bar, nor is it about the Dean’s chair or even the tower – Trinity is about its people.
Sitting in rooms of 10 in max two-people capacity limits, running from the law into bathrooms, and forming life-long alliances as 'survivors' or 'assassins', we relied on each other, our sense of humour, and our creativity to make the ultimate college experience with no college at all.
In our second year, and especially in our third, we played a critical role in keeping college, its traditions as well as its values, alive for Trinitarians to come. Our overwhelming participation in all things Trinity, especially in my case, trials to sports I never got into, came not only from feeling that we had missed out, but from our shared ambition to live college life as it is meant to be lived.
Everyone here is ambitious, motivated, but most of all fun. I think, however, what has most impacted me is the way we just give things a go here, the way we keep each other in check by showing others ‘what’s on and what’s not on’ when testing out boundaries, as well as the way we use kindness to lead and to follow.
I think you won’t find these qualities anywhere but Trinity. In fact, I know you can’t. I know this is distinctly Trinity, that you are taught how to be a Trinitarian from the family and friends who have come before us and those that will follow. I know this because of the effect you have all had on my time here.
Growing up, I lived in Spain, Cambodia, New York, and Jordan in the Middle East. I am Catalan and Australian but sound American. I know what it means to adjust to a foreign environment and the effort it takes to fit in.
You may not relate to my childhood, but I know many will appreciate that after three years of college, I have never felt more embraced, more accepted, and less concerned with being anything but myself. I am proud to share and pass on this confidence and faith in myself, to my brother Alex – not that he needs too much more of that.
I, like many of you, will leave college not only more social, more mature, and more educated, but most importantly with a group who I hope will become my lifelong friends.
We are now leaving after three memorable years. Alas, it is the way with these institutions. Trinity must go on without us. I look forward to staying in touch with college and find comfort in knowing that so many have enjoyed it as my father did, as I have, and as Scotty continues to.
As Mummy and Papa say, home is where the family is. Home is not our events, not our buildings, and not even the Bulpadock. Wherever we go from now on, when we find ourselves doing what we love in a room full of Trinitarians, we will always be at home.
From the bottom of my heart,
Tiger woo!
Speech as delivered by Blanca Brew Ferrer
