La Gran Casa Azul💙🏛️

For as long as I can remember I have heard about "la vocacional". My mom studied there in the nineties, and she always talked to me about that time at the school. Her 15th birthday was celebrated there, with a kake, a group of friends, the clothes and fatigue of a TSU, and many dreams to fulfill.

The few photos that are at home about the time reflect a totally renovated school, I am told that everything was very strict, all students were on scholarship, food from the dining room and at ten o'clock at night to go to sleep. A big difference from what the Vocational School is nowadays, the famous quotation that people have been accustomed to say for some years: "Vocational School is not what it used to be"....

I remember when I was in high school, passing in front of that huge building and doubting if I would be able to study in such a prestigious school. It was a challenge, a challenge that I met and that today I celebrate as the best decision I have made as a student, and despite the fact that my pre-university years were interrupted by COVID, the best school years are the ones I lived in that pile of blue walls.

I know of a huge hallway on the first day of school, of blue crowds in an amphitheater with keys... of teachers, friends, classmates, teenage loves. I know of an eight-track, a juicer where there hasn't been juice for a long time, a radio base, nightly galas, impromptu weddings and costume parties. I know about studying a day before and reading the Iliad in parts, I know about Achilles, Pythagoras, atoms, molecules, tangents?
I know of unexpected pandemics and interrupted dreams, of flooded corridors and long TSU, of swimming pools that only see water in rainy weather and of little boards full of messages, of photos of thousands of generations in the Federico at the entrance... the typical photo of every ipvciano...

In the great Blue House I not only learned to study, it is not only the preparation, the IPVCE prepares you for life, it is the antecedent to an upcoming youth ... You arrive feeling like an immature adolescent and you leave being a young man... A time that flies by, you don't realize everything you have lived until you are aware that this cycle of your life is about to end...

There are so many beautiful moments at IPVCE, there is no generation that has passed through this institution and keeps bad memories. How many beautiful people you meet, not that you wouldn't meet them elsewhere, but in the IPVCE it is different, the IPVCE has a very special something, and those of us who know it know what we are talking about.

Unique bonds of love and friendship are created, that last for years, I say it because I have proof, I know it because I live it day by day. When we ipvcianos get together it is as if time has not passed, and all the laughs we share and the battles we fight come in a herd.

It's been two years since I left the vocational, but the vocational has never left me, we graduates look forward to every January 27th to come back, to come back again and again. You can never get enough of the Engels. One misses our Smurf Village, our big blue house.

Yes, it is true. IPVCE is not what it used to be. IPVCE is what it is, period.

The images used in the post are my own, taken from my personal gallery.