The glass doors swung open and in stepped a petite teener, one of the winners of the St. Thomas Aquinas Award, the highest and most coveted decoration a Thomasian student can aspire for. With an engaging smile, five-foot-two Rosario "Cherie" Bautista bade us join her at the reading room where the atmosphere was a little more congenial and the surroundings more conducive for a cozy chat. "Friends call me Cherie", she said, "but I have many other nicknames. Not that I don't like these names, I just tolerate them." And she gracefully slid into her chair, the perfect picture of youthful charm and undefinable precocity. "I'm a non-conformist and I like people who are non-comformists." Cherie went on matter-of-factly. And as if to prove her point our brilliant lassie disputed Aristotle's declaration that the plot is the most important element in a tragedy. "If there were no characters, there would be no plot. The plot arises from the characters. Therefore the characters are more important than the plot." With her convincing manner and captivating charm, we found it hard not to agree wholeheartedly. Neither was it easy to disbelieve that Cherie has acquitted herself admirably in the field of campus politics. She is no less than the President of the High School Girls' Student Council, Assistant Secretary of the Central Board of Students as well as a staffer of the Aquinian. Third from the eldest in a family of twelve children, Rosario has her hands full after classes; people think she is competition to elder Sis Tish Bautista (of the summa and 'V' fame) but Cherie would rather say that her Mom and Dad are still tops in academic performance. She had been first in her class as far as she can remember and at present her fiercely burning adolescent lucky star shows no sign of waning. But Cherie is no square, definitely not. When it's party time she doesn't mind cutting capers all through the night. Cherie is living 'breathin' hundred percent proof that you can whirl away at parties on Saturday night and still have get-up-and-go come Monday morning. Dancing appeals to her. "I go for the latest. That is why I'm not a non-conformist when it comes to modern dances -- Mick Jagger, the Soul -- the dances really have no steps to follow, you only have to keep in time with the music." her practical advice for partygoers is to "Just stand in the middle of the dance floor and wiggle and shake a little." Sometimes, because Dad has some ideas that she considers conservative, Cherie is content to stay home and watch TV Saturday nights, when she's grounded. "I'm a TV addict. the better programs are Jericho, Bewitched and I Dream of Genie." And when she tires of the TV Cherie takes guitar in hand and strums her cares away to the tune of popular songs and the current fad -- "folk-rock". She likes Bob Dylan's songs for their melody alone. "He doesn't care what people think about him. Apparently he's entirely unconscious of the audience." Of Joan Baez: "I like her voice; her melodies are so simple, so basic." But Matt Monro-- "I don't like him. He's mushy." Cherie has not confined her energies to the campus, no sir! Her myriad activities in interscholastic affairs have won her the Benavides Award, given to students who have brought prestige to the University. She brought home the trophy in the CMLI-sponsored Spelling Contest in 1965 and The Philippine Librarian Association Letter-writing tilt in 1966. Rosario garnered second honors in the 1966 CMLI Extemporaneous Speech Contest, the 1967 Junior Red Cross Extemporaneous Speech joust and the 1967 Philippine Philatelists Association Essay-writing contest. After these, what next-- the world? Cherie nurtures a secret wish: that of seeing Europe. She'd like to roam about in the Old World's less known localities. She doesn't care for the cities at all. "There are still some places there which have managed to retain their identity." Given the chance, Cherie prefers to travel with her gangmates the RETHLOOS, a group which has been in existence since her grade school days. Come next schoolyear, Cherie will be entering the portals of the College of Science for a course in B.S. Psychology. Her heart's desire is to sport an M.D. nameplate with her name on it, which is why she is dead set on crashing the gates of the Faculty of Medicine, not too hard a task for someone like her. Her future line will be somewhere along anesthesiology, a concession she granted to her Dad when faced with a choice between a course in education and a medical career. In the meantime the College of Science had better lay out the red carpet. We're almost too sure that Fr. Carreno will be welcoming her with open arms. High School's loss will undoubtedly be Science's gain.