In Continuum.

Homecoming

To begin, I'd like to apologize for the recent absence from the world of blogging. However, this apology is not going to go without a reasonable and satisfactory explanation. I have been away for a while, giving time to myself and leaving the cyberspace behind for a while. The examinations took up the better part of the last week, proving itself as the indomitable force behind the lack of blogging inspirations and motivations. You know how it is in times of examinations, the way your brain is usually clouded with the words and notes in textbooks, and the fear of failing the examination coming swiftly after. Even after the papers were officially over, it was still hard for anybody to completely shed the thought from our heads. However, with the results being released in more than two weeks from today, I guess it is safe to say that I'd be stupid to worry about it now.

Other than that, the beginning of the holidays has been rather hectic for me - in a good way of course. Good movie, old friends and the new, late nights, small talks and the likes. Everything was packed right to the front of these couple of days till it is hard for me to breathe. I come home every night feeling strained, like the strings of a guitar pulled two or three keys higher. Like the way my thighs are feeling right now, after all the running and dashing during the paint ball games yesterday. Despite all those, there's still a sense of satisfaction in the air for me, at least I haven't wasted any minute of the holidays so far.

First thing first though, the movie monsters club. It has been a while since our last meeting in April, and we have all busied ourselves with our university lives, or living our lives doing nothing like Ahmad elected to do after his temporary job at the law firm ended. Whatever it was, we all went our separate ways after that night over at Corinna's, and I decided to hold another gathering right before their school starts in a couple of days. Samantha couldn't make it because of her bad flu, which prevented me from telling her face to face just how much I respect her these days. After all, she did sacrifice the better part of her holidays to become a temporary teacher at a local high school, and anybody who is willing to do that deserves a sort of medal, dead or alive at the very end. I told her before, that I can never imagine myself teaching children who are very much like myself, and I wasn't even the worst student there was in my high school days. So to have somebody as petite as Samantha stand before a horde of teenage boys and girls must have been a nerve-wrecking experience. To have survived that, deserves a round of applause and a great big hug from good old friends.

She didn't make it in the end, but everybody else did. After five attempts to watch The Shawshank Redemption, Ahmad finally had his dreams fulfilled that night. It's not like he never tried to watch the movie before, it's just that schedule always seems to go against him whenever he rents or borrows the movie. He rented the movie twice, but because of other commitments he was never able to watch it. I lent it to him once as well, but it ended up being unwatched because of the very same reason. We tried to watch the film twice during our past gatherings, but because of other movies we weren't able to watch it either. So for five times, Ahmad missed the movie and allowed it to slip in between his fingers like sand at a beach. It must be a record of some time, missing a movie like that for so many times in a row. But I guess, for a movie like that one, everything is forgiven as long as you catch it at least once in your life.

The thing about the movie monsters club, really isn't about the movies. It really is an excuse for us to sit around together and hang out, really. I mean, we don't live really close to watch other, and to call them down to my place for a drink or two would be inconvenient for the lot of them. It's not like Ahmad lives upstairs, Valerie lives five floors below, Samantha lives two floors up and Corinna is my next door neighbor or something. Though that'd be a nice reality to live in, that's not how things are in truth. So the movies really are just excuses for us to meet, and the fun really starts after the film and we sit around and talk - about anything really.

We sat around in the gloomy ambient of my room, the yellow lamp at the top of my bed being the only source of light once again. We talked the night away, just sitting on my bed and Ahmad on the chair, about school and other matters in our lives. Secrets were shared, and though it was not too surprising as we thought it would be - or as scandalous - it still felt great to talk about things with old friends, I guess. There is something about old friends - as I was thinking about it right after I sent Corinna off in a cab at 2am - that's different from the new ones. There is nothing wrong with my new friends, they are also admirable and fun people to hang out with. But there is that thing with old friends - especially with Corinna - that I fall so madly in love with all the time. The way I start a sentence about a story we know, or an incident that we share, and she'd be able to go," Oh yeah, that one". It's nice to know that somebody in this world has so much in common with you, and that he or she has come such a long way down your life, with everything being intersected one way or another.

After she left in a cab, the three of us watched Sicko by Michael Moore on the computer. I'm glad that neither of them dozed off despite the hour, because the film was just that good. Valerie was particularly awake by the time it was 5, and I was wondering where she got her new found determination to stay up. It must have been all the university trainings I suppose, all the times spent in the early hours of the morning, trying to complete projects before a particular deadline. I told Ahmad to wake up about a hundred times throughout the night, telling him that he'd need such a skill in the near future since his school just started a couple of days ago. For some reason, our conversation turned to politics, then to the politics that happened in our schools. NYJC isn't part of my greatest hits album, but at least I got to know these people - these friends.

I do agree that we should hold these sort of gatherings more often, or have more people join into our little club. But I guess, there is something about cuddling in a blanket with your friends at midnight that draws me in all the time. Big groups are fun, as you'd read about soon in my next entry. But small groups like these, when you guys are so closely connected with one another in terms of your memories, the feeling is just completely different. You no longer need a karaoke system, a pack of poker, or snacks to keep each other entertained throughout the night. The magic with the lot of us is that all we need is to have a mouth to speak our thoughts, and that's pretty much it. I told Corinna later in the morning after my near-comatose experience, that I haven't laughed so hard for a very long time. And that's probably something that only old friends can provide, even if we all have to act like twelve year olds instead of the reciprocal.

I don't know when the next meeting is going to be, or know if Samantha is going to fall sick once again. But I hope that this is going to be a tradition until we all become wrinkly and ugly in the future. Our wives are going to be jealous, and our husbands are going to be frustrated. After all, who likes their partners to spend the better part of the night away from home? Some boyfriends are already unhappy about things right now, but there are times when we should just back away from that life and go back to the old. Because the old life with the old friends - at least for me - almost always makes me feel like coming home.