Seventeen Memories

It can start with a smile. Or a nod. Or agreeing that the Spice Girls is the greatest girl band of our time. Or that the Mean Girls movie is the best girl bonding-movie. Or liking the same shoes. Or a tweet. Or a comment in a blog-post. The thing is, you can meet friends anywhere.

It's only a matter of nurturing that friendship and making sure it lasts, of course.

As for me and my Seventeen Sigaw girls, it all started with an online message board. And, more than seven years on, our friendship is still going strong ♥

Sigaw means "shout" in Filipino

I've already told this story before but for the sake of new readers, let me tell it again. Back when I was still in college and the only social networking sites were Myspace and Friendster, I was an avid collector of teen magazines. I used to collect Candy magazines but it got to the point when I felt too old for Candy, yet too young for Cosmopolitan. That's where Seventeen Philippines came in. I loved the articles they featured, the fashion editorials, and how the magazine seemed to speak to me directly. Just like candymag.com and other online magazine counterparts, it had a website with sections like Fashion, Beauty, Lifestyle, and Real Life Reads. In a special tab in the site was Seventeen Sigaw. I clicked on it, registered, and my online life has never been the same since.

I was purple_skye there, and I spent hours clocking in a total of 5,447 messages and gaining a Senior status (members are classed as Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior and Dean's Lister depending on the number of posts) until the site was unfortunately closed down by Summit Media when they stopped the local franchise. It was sad that we never did find out what comes after Dean's Lister.

But I guess it's okay, because sad as it may be that we no longer have that board, the friends I met through the site still continued gabbing away via Multiply, Facebook and Twitter :)

I've already met some of them in person during the Candy Fair '08 and spontaneous meet-ups and random pow-wows, but the grand get-together we've been planning for years hasn't happened.

Until Thursday night, that is.

Tired of foregoing plans, we sat down, started a Facebook message thread, and organized a date for last Thursday night at Starbucks in TriNoma.

Unfortunately it is impossible for us to really be complete as some of us are either based abroad or in the province. There's also work of course, which understandably made it quite difficult for some to go.

In the end five of us managed to meet up. And it was great. It was fun. In the words of Penny Hartz, it was ah-ma-zing!

Meet my Sigaw sisters!
From left to right: Yannie, Joyce, Luci, and Camille

We stayed at the cafe for only about two hours, but it was more than enough. No pretensions; our online personas were also our real-life selves, so it felt like talking to people I've known personally for years! We reminisced about our Sigaw days and college years and talked about a lot of stuff, and it's amazing how we all know a lot about each one of us, that it was like we were just catching up after not seeing one another for so long ♥

Marianne Joyce :D
It was so cute and funny how the baristas kept on confusing them for each other, and now I get it after seeing this.
Look at their color combination! And look, they can easily pass as real-life sisters!

You know you've grown up when you see people you've been friends with for more than seven years and you talk about babies instead of boys ;) While kilig moments and studies filled our minds before, we actually have a different set of priorities now. Joyce showed us photos and videos of her baby Nat and she's just so adorable and pretty and charming. Oh my, we've all grown up!

And it's amazing how our friendship also grew with us.

I love you girls, and I'm thankful that our usernames and IP addresses came across one another in this world-wide interwebs ♥ I can't wait to meet our other sisters, and I'm so excited for our Christmas party!