Comments on: separate ends

By: Vlad

Vlad — Fri, 08 Nov 2002 11:33:49 +0000

You’re still pretty fortunate. You have roots you can come back to. You have roots, period. Swearing mickle and heartfelt oaths to stay in touch was in no way a part of my week before graduation; I sometimes wonder how Masterman pretty much managed to pass me by.

As for the trees I played on in my childhood, they are things I will quite likely never see again. Everytime someone talks about a friend they’ve had since childhood, I’m reminded of this fact and of many others.

By: jacky

jacky — Thu, 07 Nov 2002 12:13:30 +0000

of course we will, bokane..
=)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Nov 2002 10:06:52 +0000

What do you expect us to say to that?

I’m sorry, Brendan, I haven’t come across any ficus trees recently. We’ve continued to plod on with our drab, quotidian lives, unaware that we were supposed to interact differently with you in Harbin than with those merely hundreds, rather than thousands, of miles away.

I’m assuming that you can look at the IP address, so I’m leaving this unsigned–but for just one fraction of a second, consider the fact that there may be people whom you’ve hurt with this post.

By: Nico

Nico — Tue, 05 Nov 2002 14:42:31 +0000

Half the people I knew, they all hated each other by the time we all graduated from Select. Half of them I couldn’t stand. And we could all admit that we’d most likely drop off of each other’s respective social radar.

But for all my cynical “realism,” man, I’m really homesick. There was a life here that I thought I wanted to live, and then, when I wasn’t living it, I started feeling sorry for myself. Then I realized that stories fueled by shitty keg beer and in-jokes really aren’t that interesting to anyone who wasn’t there and drunk along with you. So, yeah. I miss home, and damn near everyone I was still talking to by the time I had to leave.

Anyhoo, it’s time to stop talking about myself and come up with something useful to say–so I’ll say this. You’re changing, and with ten months to go, you aren’t done, not by a damn sight. But you don’t need to lose yourself halfway across the planet for a year to grow up. So you’re going to have to do more than readjust–you might end up havingto start over again.

And if you don’t like what you see–hey, you can start the whole thing over again. You’ve got a whole planet.

By: Wilson Tai

Wilson Tai — Tue, 05 Nov 2002 13:37:38 +0000

Hi, I think your friends will be doing the same thing in the same place when you return home. They most likely will be the same but you’ll be a lot different because of your experience in a different culture and society. You’ll still “love” them, too. It’s only one year, which seems a lot at your age – but you’ll find out sooner or later, one year is nothing or everything.

By: donny

donny — Tue, 05 Nov 2002 13:34:30 +0000

hope china isn’t twisting you too much. miss the states yet?

btw, what’s the sentiment over there about this whole north korea business, both the nukes and the special economic zone on the border with china?

By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 05 Nov 2002 09:17:19 +0000

Longfellow is only partly right, or only right part of the time. I left home over 20 years ago, and when I go back and meet old friends, it’s as if we’re picking up a conversation that was briefly interrupted. We exist in 4 dimensions, not 3, and we are in continuity with our former selves–the trees I climbed in the back garden have grown some in 40 years, but I still know how the branches go, and where the handholds are. In some ways, my old friends are closer to me than the friends and neighbors I have here–nearer the roots, I guess, and nearer the heart. Your experiences make you more, not different. You will always have your family and your friends.

How does that saying go: “Before I practised the Way, A cloud was just a cloud and a mountain was just a mountain. After I’d studied the Way, a cloud was no longer a cloud, a mountain was no longer a mountain. Now that I understand the Way, A cloud is again just a cloud, a mountain is just a mountain. “