Found family
Dear Block E,
‘‘Oh, I’m an only child.” Since grade school, this has been my template answer to the inevitable first-day question: “How many siblings do you have?” A classmate would say three. Another in the back of the room would say five. Me? I’d give the short answer. It was the only life I had ever known: play alone, read alone, sneak glances at the TV alone.
That changed when you entered my life on Aug. 24, 2022. Being added to the block group chat, I felt as though I were a teenager stepping into Camp Half-Blood. I was in a foreign place. My nerves were shot. Not a familiar face was in sight. Little did I know that among those 20-odd strangers, I would become Percy—meeting Annabeth, Grover, and their fellow campers for the first time.
Four summers later, University Avenue’s sunflowers bloom for us, and the Sablay rests on our shoulders. Looking back, I realize that graduating feels like flying the coop because you made law school a home.
The general consensus is that our trial by fire was that very first recitation in first year: Constitutional Law 1. Our professor asked a question beyond the coverage that he’d assigned, then immediately cold-called… my surname. Yes, I cried. After that Zoom Meeting, several considered dropping out. But in the smoky rubble of that tragic recitation rose a Kuya in both age and wisdom. Franco called our first town hall meeting, and 18 students stayed.
Eighteen stayed through the digests debacle a year later. The first time we violently fought as siblings do was in second year, after a tricky recitation in Labor Law 2. The professor asked for one extremely specific detail. Despite scouring that lengthy case, we came up short of a sufficient answer. As an ate does, Danelle diagnosed the cause of our difficulty and crafted a solution for the entire class to adopt. Our digests have been of extremely high quality ever since.
Quality time with you was something I learned to appreciate quite late, in third year and its 14-hour shifts on campus. In the spring of 2025, our Thursdays stretched from dawn past sundown. We would drag ourselves to the farthest classroom on the second floor at 7 a.m. to prepare for Tax Law 2. By 7:30 a.m., we would take a grueling true-or-false quiz.
Immediately after dismissal, we would pile into the library’s different floors. The goal was to study for our 6 p.m. Corporation Law class. But instead of hitting the books, Block E would be found huddled together over long tables in a communal early siesta.
The effort to avoid sleepless nights wove our strongest bonds. Fourth year started with Public Officers and Election Law and its biweekly coverage of textbook chapters, journal articles, and cases that often required sacrificing an entire night’s sleep. That’s where my study group saved me: five people who comprised the Team Avatar that saved my grades. Our last class together was marked by a system of me opening Google Docs at 8 p.m. to see Shanin working on her fraction of the next morning’s coverage. That was my personal alarm clock, commanding me to start typing too.
Since 2022, I’ve found comfort in all 17 of you, and 18 students have found courage in one another.
The way parents care for children, we developed a system of parenting each other. Block E learned to suggest dinner out after a tough exam, which was basically every Final for our last eight semesters. We took turns ringing our night owls to wake them for the dreaded 8 a.m. classes.
Just as siblings seem to read each other’s minds, we deciphered each other’s needs. Where professors banned speaking in the classroom, we learned to converse in signals. We asked, “Can you charge my laptop?” by clutching an adapter, tapping a blockmate, then staring at an extension cord. We begged, “Recite slower!” by clasping our hands. Somehow, our single shared brain cell urged us all to wear blue or black to that one Civil Procedure class, without any planning whatsoever.
Most importantly, we grew thermometers for each other’s feelings, knowing from a glance when a blockmate was sad. After each wave of burnout, we also said thank you for simply knowing. So instead of saying goodbye (which I will never do; you’re stuck with me), that’s what I want to do now. I want to thank my own version of the Hogwarts Great Hall.
To Jako, who was walking beside me when I busted my ankle on the way to the jeepney stop after Labor Law 1. When I became the unwitting victim of a moss-laden sidewalk, you packed me into my first ambulance. Thank you for waiting at the University Health Service. Thank you for holding my lunchbox while the doctor bandaged my leg.
To Jan, my eternal seatmate who physically squeezed my hand to calm me during class—please know that you regulated my heart rate a thousand times. The first row of the classroom became a less daunting place because you were in it with me, my baby brother.
To Sheila and Al, whose positive peer pressure gave me the greatest org experience of my law school life. We agree that we should have joined Charivari much earlier, but perhaps senior year was our perfect time. Thank you for the music, for giving it to me.
To Czar, who patiently sat through my long and winding tirades about ethics and evidence. I will listen to your Instagram Story Novella forever. You hugged me when I received the email summoning me to a removal exam, in a summer where the primary antagonist of our life was one pleading for the Court of Appeals. Thank you for being my soul sister.
Dear Block E, I grew up an only child. But since I found you, I’ve never felt alone. As I sift through photos of us napping, eating, laughing, and reading together, I see how finding is the act we did best.
The verb “find” has roots in the Old English findan, meaning “come upon,” “discover,” or “obtain by search or study.” We did not obtain one another by any active search. An assortment of freshman law students was grouped into a block by the mysterious workings of technology. A randomizer decided to put our names on a list four summers ago, and the rest was history.
Neither is it adequate to say that we simply “came upon” each other. Yes, we met by chance, but chance feels uncannily like fate when 18 people meet and grow into exactly what each other needs: the comic relief kangaroos, the reliable notes writers, the pre-exam explainers, and the silent observers.
The most appropriate match among the etymological roots of the verb find is “discover.” Season by season, we learned each other’s strengths, weaknesses, quirks and tells until we gelled into the force that is Block E 2026. Semester by semester, we discovered ourselves in our time together. As that time ends, please know that I will be forever honored to call you family. So to Block E, my found family,
Thank you for finding me.
Karen
