I witness that I lived By Kamal Sanjakdar --- Four years at AUB have been of tremendous importance for all of us. It is where we acquired a lot more than professional knowledge. It is where we met, where we lived our passions and where we shared everything. It is where we dreamed and where we had our first victories and failures. It is in a word where we built our experiences, where we formed ourselves, where we are but where we shouldn't stop. Motivation, love, devotion and struggle are what one has to learn from his university years. The only way to do this is by relying on yourself and on your environment; neither student affairs nor your department can give you what you can acquire by yourself. Everything is out there; one has only to look for it and to find it. In our continuous search to improve ourselves, our University and our country, we accumulated a considerable amount of social experience. By love we tried to find an ultimate support, a will to share and most of all a driving force to lead us. By student groups we tried to organize our activities. By elections we tried to improve our student life. By meetings we tried to communicate and to exchange ideas. By writing we tried to interact. In AUB we fought for personal successes and aims. We tried to prove ourselves as members of this community. We also fought for freedom of speech and social justice, and against discrimination, fear and passiveness. By those individual and collective struggles we wanted to free ourselves from traditionalism and clustered mentalities. We wanted to change ourselves, change each other and revolutionize the world. AUB is where we materialized our dreams on all levels. Throughout those four years, we witnessed the decline of AUB as an institution and as a community. The number of the passive and "not interested" is ever increasing; those who are involved are the new displaced on campus. On the other hand no concrete steps are being taken by the administration to reform the institution as a whole, to limit faculty departure, to lower tuition fees, to stimulate students to become citizens and to build a reputation for the University. Students, alumni, faculty and even administrators themselves have voiced this discontent about the stage AUB has reached. Our concern is to preserve the institution that we started form by all means; this is why we have always criticized and supported several other initiatives with the same aims. This is why we got involved. Just as we were involved in AUB we have to be involved in building our country by investing all time and effort to stay in Lebanon and to fight for change. A lot has to be done and we are the only force of change capable of reform. We need to fight within our families, circles of friends and professional environment. We need to build trust in ourselves and believe in our country. Just as we struggled for freedom of speech on campus, just as we struggled for the right of political activity in AUB, and just as we protested against tuition increase over the years, we have to join similar battles on the national level. Just as we protested against the presence of the American ambassador on campus, we have to fight American policies in the region. Just as we rebelled against unjust decisions and random judgments in AUB, we have to demonstrate against similar coercive activities outside the campus borders. Just as we lobbied for our interests as a student body in AUB, we have to lobby for our interests as Lebanese. We shall not forget names such as Guevara, Nasser, Marcos, Kozo, Carlos, and hundreds of less known but equally respected Lebanese martyrs, former and present detainees and resistance fighters who paid for their nation to be victorious on May 25, 2000. Those are the "force tranquille"; those are the ones who gave for their nation and who are the freest of all people. When I put that black cap on my head, I will have already set my path. I will have already drawn a picture of my dream, my ideal. I will have already thought of the Lebanon I aspire for, and I will have already selected the companions that will go with me through that path. Although the University years are only a step, they are the basis for everything: motivation, pride, will, self-esteem and bravery are what we learned and what we will apply. I will try to live my country to the maximum even more than I lived my university. I will always believe; I will always dream; I will always fight; but most of all I will remember that in the real world 21 credits is not an overload.