Sudden Changes

Well, I'm here at Kiana's place. It took a long time to drive here,
she really is out of the way. But while I'm waiting around, and I
expect that there will be a lot of waiting around, I thought I'd
address some issues that I normally don't address here on QuasiBlog.
It might be untactful of me to say some of these things, but I guess
right now I'm in the mood to address certain issues that have plagued
me for a while. Usually when I do this, I get into heaps of trouble
and what not, and that usually means that I have hit upon something
relevant. I don't intend to cause any offence with anything I say, I
just want to get a few certain things said.

First of all, can I just state that the crop of new students that
joined the University last September was abysmal. It really was just a
terrible group. The JCS suffered its worst bout of dullness I've ever
seen at the hands of a group of new students who just weren't willing
to say or do anything. People might put this down to bad management,
but I don't think it's the case. Mizuki did a good job with what she
had, and I have no qualms about her retaining total control next year.
I'm going to put in more effort myself, hopefully I can help.

I criticise the first years, and some may say that's unfair, but I do
it purely at the comparison of the leaving third years from when I was
a first year. While not in total abundance, there was an amazing group
there. They had a genuinely fun group dynamic, and nobody was quiet
enough to be a downer to the rest (unless I was too quiet, but I doubt
it). What's more, they included me in the group. I didn't feel like an
outsider because I had known everyone for a quarter of the time
everyone else had. I think it's the only group of people who have ever
done that with me. There was a small divide in the groups in the JCS,
but not a serious one. There was the group where I was very close to
Emma and spent my time with them, and there was the group where I
spent my time with a combination of Jenny, Carlos, Yukina, Erin or
Shun. I felt occasionally there was a divide that may have come about
from incidents like Jenny and Kaori, but there was no lack of mixing
or friendliness.

I miss my third year friends. Last night I realised how lucky I was to
get into a group like that, and how depressing it is that the new
students haven't formed a group like that. I have lost a group, and I
spent a lot of last year feeling upset about that, not realising it. I
realise what I have been missing. This brings me onto my point; a
little over a year ago, Carlos approached me and told me about a party
that he'd had the night before to which I was not invited. He
explained it was a goodbye party for the friends he'd made in his
first year, and it was nothing against me, he just wanted to keep the
group and treat them as they were leaving. I felt nothing against not
being invited, I understood perfectly, and I felt kinda honoured that
he considered that and how I felt. This year, I only find out about
things Carlos has done with friends months after they happen, from
someone else, usually by accident.

This is my main issue, and it's not an issue totally exclusive to
Carlos, but he is the main focus. Last year I had an amazing time with
the whole group, and I was sad that everyone was leaving, I was
thankful that Carlos was staying another year. It didn't actually
matter, because I hardly saw him this year. There was a very sudden
change in the frequency that I saw Carlos, and that was a shame. I
won't attribute this to anything, but I will say that it happened
suddenly enough for Kiana to notice, and she'd only known him for a
month.

Having something that's really good suddenly taken away from you is
always a painful experience. It's hurtful and upsetting, and in the
case of losing my third year friends, I was sad and upset. But I knew
it was coming from the moment I knew which year they were in, and that
was pretty early on in the relationship. Because I knew, and because
it was inevitable, I could, and can deal with it. There's nothing to
be done, people have to go home. If I make friends with third years, I
will have to stop seeing them after one year. In two major cases this
year, it has happened before it was due. That is hurtful, that is
painful, and that is much harder to deal with.

Most people I have met at the University have travelled a distance to
get there, and have a seperate home they can visit. In almost every
case, they have a whole life back at home, with friends and family and
a world special enough to always be waiting. I am different in the
fact that I moved a few miles for University. I am also different as
University is my entire world. I do not have a group of friends
waiting back in Wimbledon, I do not have a life waiting back there. I
have my family, with whom I have a very strong bond, but aside from
them, my entire social existence occurs at University. And DWeb, but
I'm too separated from that now. Because of that, I am constantly
searching for long term friendships that I can keep and hold on to, as
I didn't start with any. That makes losing good friends one of the
most painful and depressing things that can happen to me. And it's
happened twice this year.

I have even been driven to such lengths as to try and forge a
relationship with someone I greatly dislike, just for the fact that I
know I got along with them. I had planned not to have contact with
them, but the loss of so much in just one year has pushed me to
strange ways, and I wasn't expecting something like it to happen at
all, let alone so soon.

Emma is extremely dependable, and I feel awful in the fact that I have
not been as dependable and as stable to her as she has been for me.
Not adding guilt to my worries, it's not a major issue, because for as
long as I can see myself upholding friend based duties with her, I can
see us being close. The last time I holidayed without her, she joined
me a couple of weeks later. Since I'm about two weeks into this
holiday, I guess I'm expecting to see her at the airport and party
with her, while everyone we meet thinks she's my girlfriend and we
have a good time.

In all of these depressing feelings I'm getting about the status of my
life, I attribute it partly to the homesickness I get when I'm away
for about this time. If you go to July 2005 in my blog and read the
post "To A Lesser Extent", I was feeling the same kind of feeling,
missing the same people, and generally feeling a bit foreign. I feel
foreign here for a different reason though. But if I gauge history as
the reliable thing it is, I expect something very positive to happen
and to make me feel a lot better about what is happening. Fingers
crossed.