It’s been an interesting week. I met new people, and said a temporary goodbye to two of my favourite guys, who went back to their respective countries. I experienced the weird sensation of sadness mixed with peace, mixed with reserved happiness after saying goodbye, in a sense, to someone else too. I’ve learnt a lot, grown a lot, cared a lot and I think that I’ve developed amazing relationships with people through my time here thus far…and I hope that I have what it takes to maintain those friendships despite Distance’s premeditated plans to keep me away.
Life is an amusing, confusing mix of Joy and Sorrow, but you need them both: they’re the sunlight and water that allow people and friendships to grow.

Picture: Mushrooms at Pembroke College

Puck’s deviousness has managed to ruffle a bit more than the hair on my head. He’s gotten into my mind and has done quite a thorough job of messing things up there as well. It’s said that the only power something or someone has over your emotions is the power that you accord that thing or person; as it happens, I probably have allowed some of my mind’s power to slip, and consequently, my feet have slipped as well. 

When I’m in situations like these…situations where I feel like I’m at risk of losing, or have lost a bit of control over the world that I’ve built up in my mind, I begin to wonder whether I’m allowing myself to fall, or whether the ground beneath my feet is shaking. Maybe it’s a combination of both. When the world around you seems to be changing, how much of yourself changes with it, and how much of it is potentially being changed by you?

…it would be interesting to know the answers, but it’s likely that such things can’t be quantified. Familiarity is like a sharp photograph- beautiful, clear, comprehendible, definite, but possibly boring. Change is often like an abstruse blur: both repulsive and attractive because of the mystery it holds. 

Puck’s deviousness has managed to ruffle a bit more than the powder on my face. He’s gotten a hold of my smile as well, and has done quite a thorough job of shifting it both up and down….but I’m not mad. I’m standing at the beginning of a new year, in a decreasingly strange place with increasingly familiar people and a stable flow of challenges. Assignments that don’t kill you can make you stronger if you allow them to. 

“One of these days the sky’s gonna break,
And everything will escape and I’ll know.” –Civil Twilight