By Naomi Tamayo and Renee Tolentino

Science

What makes a house a home?

Could it be based on the time you’ve spent there? The familiar floors and decorated walls? Or is it something different entirely?

A lot contributes to making a house feel like a home. There is love, safety, comfort, growth, and all of the little things that are held unmeasurable by us. 

Perhaps, a home is never truly constructed by anything material—the presence of memories created is enough to make the difference. May it be memories that depict the perfect chemical bonds between all atoms encapsulated in a molecule or even the memories that alleviates all anxiety away, all of these link to the same definition: home is where memories are formed, emotions are shared, and it is the best beginning to wake up day by day.

As the ASHS STEM students go home to the Ateneo campus, they complete the essence of walls and warmth. They are the perfect element that completes the lasting formation of chemical compounds, they are the paragon of bonds that holds the corners of a home together. Transitioning from the online class to onsite setup is indeed an unyielding barrier to overcome, yet this track is the only way home—and this way home quells all storm away. Stepping into campus is a boost of serotonin, rush of dopamine, spark of oxytocin, and shot of endorphins—everything summing up to perfect chemistry beyond an abode. The chemicals are bubbling in excitement:

This feels so much like home.

Technology

After the years of bright screens and late nights, it is finally time to pick our heads up and walk towards the hallway lights. Hear tapping of IDs by the entrance, feel the air as you walk across the gardens. Take a turn and enter the cafeterias, surrounded by the buzz of electronics and people. Walk into your classrooms and watch in awe as the presentations play before you– as a sight you’ve been robbed of for the past two years. Listen as the speakers sing ever so softly, announcing to the world, “Here you are.”

The age of new technology and yet nothing could have ever compared. Even after all the online programs, events, and classes; after how desperately we’ve tried to feel it, nothing could have ever replicated this. It comes in bursts of energy and hits as sharp as static– the realization. Your surroundings and that feeling come together like puzzle pieces, closing in on each other until you finally see it.

This looks exactly like home.

Engineering

Home is a vessel and, right there holding it up, are its bones. It’s not easy– being an engineer. To have to plan, design, oversee, and calculate every single detail that comes along with forming a home. From the roof that shields us from powers greater than what we can control, to the walls that we cover head to toe in the fondest of memories. There are the floors that hold us in its arms openly all the way down to its foundations that have been lifting us up tirelessly and steadily. 

It is almost instantaneous, the feeling that bombards you the moment you step foot on campus. The grounds, the rooms, the statues, the sky. It’s a little different than what you imagined and a little less people than how you first thought but still. You’re here now. And you can’t help but feel and feel and feel. This place is warm, welcoming, and you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you belong.

This, right here, could be home. 

Mathematics

Counting the days where everything seems to be stuck in peril, who would’ve thought that everything would still fall into place—like the perfect combinations of each series of operations, with aura parallel to what home radiates. Memories of the perfect compounds and chemistry, reflections on energy and technology, and the foundation of vessel and warmth: adding it all up primes to the epitome of how home develops relationships—relationships that subtract all worries away. 

Complications may hinder all tranquility, requiring piles of nuisances. En dépit everything, going home is the best solution—the grasp, the catch, the rise, the fall, and above all, the destination. Take a deep breath and smile, you do not have to be a mathematician to know…

You’re home. We are home.

Welcome Home.