So I’m at the LSE Library right now, and I don’t really know why I ended up here at 7.00 pm the night before I take off for home. It could be partly due to the fact that I was intending to change my module options for next year, but I’ve left them be – I guess taking the two compulsory modules for exemption post-degree in the same year will probably the best strategy at this point in time. I don’t really need to check Facebook/Gmail/LiveJournal… I guess I needed a place to sit while having a quick dinner, and what better place to do it than where it all began this year.
So I sat on a bench on Houghton Street – actually really observed the sign hanging at street level, and for a moment there was hit by an intense feeling of surrealism. I can’t believe I’m actually here in London, that I’ve completed a year of university already… No matter the number of times my mum calls a week to check up on me, I’ve actually grown more independent than I have ever been in my life over the course of the year. Not even boarding school teaches you that. However, in some ways I think I’ve also grown more dependent on people, and with that comes the realisation that I really need to start burdening people less with my problems.
My first year at LSE has undoubtedly been a life experience – and it’s only just beginning. It hasn’t been smooth sailing all the way. There were moments of intense bliss and happiness, interspersed with feelings of loneliness, of sadness – in fact, of just about every single emotion available to man on this rollercoaster called life, both good and bad. And all this has served to change me to some degree. I think I’m still the same person I was before I came, essentially. However, I feel like I’m a bit more of a realist now, and in some ways I think I’ve matured, although for that matter I also believe I’ve regressed in certain aspects of character.
Leaving Bankside this morning was tough. It was horrifying, and really sad, to see my empty shell of a room once everything had been packed and moved out. Room 357 was left this morning in the exact same way I found it when I first moved in all those months ago: the bare mattress, together with duvet and pillow; empty drawers and waldrobe; a naked desk I haven’t seen for a while… And somehow, it was bigger than I felt it was while living in it. I guess I filled it up too quickly in the space of nine months, so much so that it took six boxes, one suitcase, one piece of hand luggage and stray clothes being draped over the arm to completely empty my room. I took pictures, because I’m sentimental in that sense… but it won’t be the same as living there again. I cried bucketloads in the process of packing, and continued to feel really hollow when I moved out. Then again, memories linger on – that’s their power:
“Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space . . . if you knew enough and could move faster than light you could travel backward in time and exist in two places at once. Nothing goes away.”
Margaret Atwood – Cat’s Eye
I know I quote this passage too often, but it’s really true, isn’t it?
Bankside, for all the good, the bad and the ugly that I – along with my closest friends – experienced while living in you, thank you for everything in the most positive sense. And I really mean it.
