Bouts of Nostalgia

[This post originally appeared on my xanga on November 12th, 2o06. It is here for reflection reasons. To view the original entry, click here.]

I guess I knew the day this entry would come, the day I feel nostalgic. The post that Karen has been has been probably waiting for since the day I left for Santa Clara.

Everyone else is more than a stone’s throw away from Almaden Valley, and even that, more than a plane ride away too with a good car ride in between. I know I have the chance to go home every weekend if I wanted, and hang out with old high school friends. But I didn’t – so I could live at college for awhile and reflect what has gone on in my life for awhile. This feels like a high school post already, but I think it’ll go somewhere else…

I guess facebook is a measure of what high school was like. Every so often, I’ll go back and glance at the old photos of mine, the old photos of my current high school friends and ask, how are they doing now? I wonder what goes on in the hallways of Leland High these days. I wonder what has become of speech and debate, the homecoming rally, the student body, among other things such as my house, my cats sometimes, even. Sure, I talk to these people online, but the online presence is never as great as truly being there. Strangely enough to say, my roommate doesn’t even talk about home as much as I do, nor has he ever mentioned that he misses high school — and he lives a good 6 hour flight out of San Jose.

College teaches you a couple things in your first couple months — it’s that the people who are your true friends in high school, they stay around. Even a facebook poke means something, as trivial as those may seem. I suppose even running the longest of poke wars, like the one with Scott, even means something after these many months. That he still bothers to click the “poke back” button after a long day of whatever class he just took. The occasional facebook wall post from an individual long seemingly lost at an institution of higher learning far far away means more than anything. If facebook and my email account mean anything, then of the many Leland High friends in the class of 2006 just never did care. I think I’m fine with that, and even looking at the wall-to-wall posts of other Lelanders between each other in college (Yes, I do this), I kind of miss the camaraderie heading into the last few days of high school. It really makes me wonder, when people asked how I was, or commented on who I was, did they really care? Or was I just another figure in someone’s life that happened to cross paths with them, and then go on because I was that idiosyncratic individual who cracked his fingers or screamed because he beat Mr. Miller in the stock game? Reading about how people got stoned in the last weekend is just a way to gauge how they are spending their college lives, as opposed to me. And I really wonder, what has become of many people?

I was really, really disappointed this last Friday when USC beat SCU in soccer, 1-0. I was there the whole way, and watched the women lie on the ground as the horn sounded, reflecting on the season that landed them at No. 3 in the nation. I watched that ball go into the goal, and I watched that missed penalty kick clang off the top crossbar in the 50-somethingith minute. I watched as the USC goalie blocked an SCU shot point blank, denying SCU one of the four potential goals it should have gotten. I was shocked and complacent for awhile, and then it hit me that I really shouldn’t care all that much. That my life until now has probably been a soccer game like that too. Tons of penalty kicks hitting off crossbars, tons of shots being blocked at point blank range, and tons of random shots going inside when people least expect it. I suppose life is just that — a soccer game where sometimes you get those random shots, and sometimes you just miss completely or hit the top crossbar.

Needless to say, I have grown and changed in my short 2-3 months here in college. I am in the process of getting killed in a couple classes. I try my hardest, and study, and still manage a decent C. I refuse to be average, but the battle goes on. I have watched my roommate stumble in on Halloween night, drunk like none other and barf into the trashcan. I have seen people in general get drunk, and just go absolutely crazy. But despite the losses, I have gains as well, doing things that I have never done before, such as join a committee on Associated Students and become Secretary of my school’s Chinese Students Association. And despite that, I have also seen that college produces great friends, as much as it is. Great friends who are sophomores, juniors and seniors.

I suppose at the end of all this, life and nostalgia are all something quite trivial. This entry is meant to be reflective, despite the fact that I am 20 minutes from home, but in the greater scheme of things, these are just thoughts compiled at the end of a long, laborious week. A week full of ups, downs and frustrations of the college life. It is fun here, don’t get me wrong, but I think I just need some time at home, or just to go back to old times again, as much as I complained how bad and boring those were.

I guess that’s what they mean when they say “home is where the heart is”, huh?

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