The shine
Everytime my sr class meets up for a gathering I marvel at how a ragtag bunch of teenagers can stay together for over one and a half years despite only spending three months formally together. I marvel at how 13 unique identities meld together to form a single one. I marvel at the dynamism within the group, the rich relationships each individual has with each other individual, I marvel at how the alpha-females interact with the alpha-males, how the different parties of the core body link up together, and how the weird shady characters who like to lurk away from the group get counteracted upon by other weird shady characters who like to lurk further away from the group.
The group is disintegrating. Quantity of time spent together has decreased: a dinner plus a drink, 1.5 hours. Quality? Nothing's changed much, and that's precisely the point. For there is absolutely no way a group, any group, of friends can stick together on memories and memories alone: you need present, common experiences , like being in the same class together, for relations to develop; the lack of it would just lead to the gradual evaporation of communal feelings. The crystals of memories will stay, but the only thing you can do with crystals is look at them.
It was nice still though, the dinner. Nice restaurant, nice catching up with each other (or rather, hearing them catch up with each other, since I am usually one of the shady characters). The thing with the group is its diversity. We've got people in poly in all sorts of courses, we've got jc students, we've got an undergrad and a sailor and heck, even a couple of shady characters. This supplies alot of conversation ammunition, and it was nice exchanging bits and pieces of the different realms everyone was or is in now.
I really miss those days. Sigh. Im such a sucker for the past. But the past was good, really good. I remember those days I laughed for an hour straight in chinese lessons, those days where we skipped lessons together to go play bowling or something, all the fun tutors we had and all the fun we had during class discussions and all. The group was a group in which I could really exert my personality, because it contrasted so sharply with the rest at the same time it reinforced the diversity and dynamism of interaction within the group. Given a choice, I'd pick disjointed diversity over enjoyable uniformity anytime.
To find someone you can click with is hard enough; to find a group of people which you can eventually blend in, casting your own colors in a tapestry of identities--that is something isnt it.
The group has exceeded my estimate of when it would cease to come together anymore, but we are going to break up eventually. Till that day happens, I'll enjoy those fine dining/chit-chat/lounge sessions, I'd enjoy my time as a shady character. I would, in fact, continue washing those crystals and keep them up for display.
The group is disintegrating. Quantity of time spent together has decreased: a dinner plus a drink, 1.5 hours. Quality? Nothing's changed much, and that's precisely the point. For there is absolutely no way a group, any group, of friends can stick together on memories and memories alone: you need present, common experiences , like being in the same class together, for relations to develop; the lack of it would just lead to the gradual evaporation of communal feelings. The crystals of memories will stay, but the only thing you can do with crystals is look at them.
It was nice still though, the dinner. Nice restaurant, nice catching up with each other (or rather, hearing them catch up with each other, since I am usually one of the shady characters). The thing with the group is its diversity. We've got people in poly in all sorts of courses, we've got jc students, we've got an undergrad and a sailor and heck, even a couple of shady characters. This supplies alot of conversation ammunition, and it was nice exchanging bits and pieces of the different realms everyone was or is in now.
I really miss those days. Sigh. Im such a sucker for the past. But the past was good, really good. I remember those days I laughed for an hour straight in chinese lessons, those days where we skipped lessons together to go play bowling or something, all the fun tutors we had and all the fun we had during class discussions and all. The group was a group in which I could really exert my personality, because it contrasted so sharply with the rest at the same time it reinforced the diversity and dynamism of interaction within the group. Given a choice, I'd pick disjointed diversity over enjoyable uniformity anytime.
To find someone you can click with is hard enough; to find a group of people which you can eventually blend in, casting your own colors in a tapestry of identities--that is something isnt it.
The group has exceeded my estimate of when it would cease to come together anymore, but we are going to break up eventually. Till that day happens, I'll enjoy those fine dining/chit-chat/lounge sessions, I'd enjoy my time as a shady character. I would, in fact, continue washing those crystals and keep them up for display.
2 Comments:
I'm not even close to my PAE class anymore.
:(
So envious of you.
But your current class good what.
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