And so on embark on what will be my second attempt at blogging. Tried it once before only to find it had as many visitors as........ . Oh well I guess you get the idea. This time around though my puropose is different. Maybe its better that few people see it. All my life I have opened up to only inanimate objects. Maybe it should stay that way. Either way, I guess I have to get it out of me somehow right?........


It feels like yesterday when I first entered that partially lit classroom in the corner of a cramped building on the corner of a road (which, it should be noted, was smack down in the middle of town.) Funny thing is though somewhere between my brain and my heart time seems to have taken a hike. It feels like yesterday but I hardly recall the day. All I remember are glimpses of what I saw. No sound. No smell. Like a silent movie....... fast forwarded. A sea of faces more unknown than known flashed past me. Now when I look back, it seems a little comforting: they were as clueless as I was.

Classes were uneventful, as all first classes go. The usual "Hello everone I am Whatsisname. Could you please introduce yourselves?". Or so I would like to believe. I don't actually recall all this. But it feels about right. Come break and all order established just exploded into perfect pandemonium. Two periods down, I was beginning to feel intimidated. (Why? The roots of that lay in my dinner experience the previous night -- my first dinner in a hostel. It was animated with discussion which was nice to note since hardly anyone actually knew each other. Until it became clear what all the talk was about. In a hushed excitement fingers were pointing in all directions as vivid details of the extraordinary academic achievements of an alarmingly large number of students was laid out before one another. It was like the congregation of the greatest knights of the land -- "D'you know Sir Lancelot over there vanquished the great dragon in the caves of Hellsmouth?!" ...... and I had nothing like that to my name. To everyone I was just another guy. )

Then she came over...... She was a good friend from high school. And I had a crush on her. Part of me believed she knew, part of me believed she didn't. They fought a lot but I didn't care. As long as we were on talking terms....... A crush and friendship was as far as I was willing to go on the whole love thing. And she had a boyfriend. He was also a good friend of mine. So I let things stay. We talked for a while that day. When you're 200kms away from home and without many faces to look and smile at, you tend to get closer to the faces you can smile at. Thinking about that day I guess that was the best part of it all. Not the new faces, not the new surroundings, not the new challenges we were made aware of that day but the smile on a face I had known for five years in a place far away from home.......

(to be continued....)