Alumni Appreciation Essay for Michael MacIsaac
2006 Christmas Average: 87%
I’ll never forget the early morning drive from Inverness, Cape Breton, to St. FX.
I’ll never forget bidding my family farewell, and my father driving me up, with the
thought of leaving home having not really hit me yet. I went through the motions, did
whatever O-Crew asked of me partly because there were far more of them than there was
of me, and before I knew it, it was time to start my life at St. FX. My stomach started
churning, and for the first time in my life, I felt too nervous to walk straight. Yet, from
the instant I was left alone in front of the doors of Lane Hall, after leaving eighteen years
of what was comfortable and being thrust into a new life of what was nothing short of
intimidating, I knew St. FX was going to be something special. Within three days, a
scared little frosh had become a Xaverian beaming with spirit. I had embraced O-Crew
and my house leaders, I lived Frosh Week as if it were my last week on earth, and the
atmosphere at St. FX, one that has to be experienced to believed, had given hope to me
where just three days before, it had seemed that there was no hope at all in me surviving
so much as a day in the Xaverian family.
I am still alive now, a year later, and now I bleed blue, white, and gold. First and
foremost, St. FX is an institution of learning, and on paper, it is just another university on
a map riddled with them all across the world. However, if you look a little closer, and if
you look on many a graduate’s finger, this institution of learning stands out amongst the
rest. The world knows who we are. What I have taken from St. FX so far is a mosaic of
life experience -- it never stops in the classroom. St. FX does offer the greatest
undergraduate education in this great country, and of course I will take this with me, yet I
will also take with me a heart enriched with a spirit that prepares me for anything. I will
take compassion with me, from seeing this school unite as one both when we lose a
family member, and when we gain a thousand of them each year. I will take respect with
me, from the way it flows on a two-way street between student and teacher, and from the
little ways it is present on the St. FX campus, right down to someone waiting an extra ten
second to hold the door open for you. I will take compassion with me, compassion that is
deeply embedded in the people that become your pillars of strength in residence, and
compassion that flows into this school from our alumni during Homecoming week.
I will take a sense of appreciation for this world away from St. FX, as anyone
who’s ever been able to walk outside at night and see stars instead of smog or anyone
who has ever enjoyed the sense of community around Antigonish can attest to. I will
carry into the world a sense of pride that one harvests through winning and losing with
every one of our sports teams, and winning and losing in our own personal initiatives and
in the classroom. I will take God with me, as St. FX has a tradition deeply rooted in a life
of faith that has found its way into my soul that I had never known before I stepped foot
on this campus. Most importantly, and maybe the most overlooked, I will take every
single other St. FX graduate with me, no matter where I go. The St. FX family is not one
you ever have to leave behind; they are a brace of support when one falls on hard times,
and they are the first to toast you when lady luck turns your way. Collectively, we breathe
one breath, and that breath puts life into me that no other university on this planet could
ever give.
In a night sky riddled with stars of all different shapes, sizes, and colours, St. FX
burns a light that is impossible to miss, and impossible to mistake for any other. When a
person asks if the world is ready for St. FX graduates, I think we should reply by saying
we are the world. As a family, we Xaverians have already shown what we can offer the
entire globe: we’ve produced everything from premiers to priests, and from prime
ministers to musicians, and everything in between, and as a current student, I share this
campus with over four thousand other men and women, young and old, who are what the
world will become in the future. As a Xaverian, I know that life after graduation will
bring about a certain expectation, as no matter where I go, people will know where I
come from, and they will expect great things. St. FX has prepared me intellectually,
socially, and faithfully to meet these expectations, and to rise above them: when I become
part of this world, I’ll be able to put a stamp on it that only the luckiest of people have the
ability to engrave. I’ll be a Xaverian, for now and for ever.