I'm a girl. This journal is almost 10 years old, when I started it, I called it Almost 21. Before that, I had a journal called Soap on a domain that no longer exists. Some things have changed since then, some things haven't. I always wanted to be a writer. I live out that dream here.
"What did she, like miss the fashion train or something," Anna whispered to me the first time we noticed that Anne was in the class, "it's 2002 and she's still wearing scrunchies!"
Today, while Anna freaked out about the way the guy who had done his presentation on geographic mapping of IP addresses had spelt web sites (web "sights"), Anne stood in front of the class in her dirty green cargo pants and dark green t-shirt (which made me believe that she had indeed missed the fashion train - and yes, she was wearing a scrunchie) and gave her perfect little presentation, with a continuous smile and hands clasped together in front of her.
Her talk was perfectly timed, concluding promptly after ten minutes: ten freakish minutes for me, during which I felt like I was in highschool again. In the last four years, the former vice head girl (appropriately labelled "Miss Perfect") had not changed at all.
I don't remember what the extent of our friendship was at school, if in fact it was a friendship and not just mere acquaintance - in any case I felt obliged to have a chat with her after class where we talked very briefly about general nothings, after which she flew off to her music lesson, violin in hand. I watched, as the black scrunchie bobbed out of view, and stood there still even after it was gone.
"She's a born again Christian," Tongue Mike told me in class while I doodled on a pink pamphlet that tried to convince me to vote Susan for president. "She has a boyfriend of six months and thinks holding hands is romance. I wonder if she is going to wake up one day, when she is 40 and want to kill herself because she's realised she's wasted her youth..." he continued his musings while I buried my face into my turtleneck and tried to learn a thing or two about intelligent active agents.
Whiffs of Jim's cologne drifted out of the wool, keeping me awake. He had given me a big hug when he saw me earlier this morning, and told me that he'd missed me, and I had smiled as I always do. (He always tells me he misses me, with the hopes that one day I will say that I missed him too. Not long ago in a discussion about this I told him that I was big and independent, and didn't miss anyone1, and he had responded with "poo".)
Therese had come in shortly after, and asked me with a somewhat shocked expression what I was doing in so early.
"Not used to seeing her here so early aye?" Jim had said, and we had all laughed, except for Peder who sat unamused at the computer, making changes to our slides. Perhaps it was this that had led him to believe that I was not taking the project seriously, consequently making him feel that he had to remind me that it was important ("I take this very seriously you know, it's a part of my grade").
Who knows - half the time I wonder if he is even aware of what is going on around him. It is virtually impossible to have any kind of discussion with him: either he doesn't hear what I say (or pretends he doesn't), or doesn't listen to what I say, giving me an impatient upward nod then launching off on some spiel about how much work he has done, or how great the research paper he found is, or how we should do things his way.
Last week, two or three times, I told him we should collaborate work so we could get a better idea of what was going on, and got no response. Today he tells me in a high and mighty tone of voice that suggests that it is my fault that our project is so disorganised, that I should send him my section so he can get a better idea of where we are ("because I don't really know what's going on at the moment"). I suppose I should rejoice over the fact that he's realised that we are supposed to be working on the project together, but whatever, I am frustrated. I just need to get through the next week (by when the project will have been handed in), after which I have no intention of talking to him (if I can help it).
"He's weird." Therese agrees with me over lunch in the Jakarta lounge. We sit in a corner booth at the back eating greasy steak and cheese pies off an uncleaned silver topped table. I am feeling strangely possessive and grateful at this point as a result of weird moments over the last week where I have felt that I was losing my best girl friend to Anna. (Very primary school, I know - it was a bad phase which I am over now.)
As we are leaving, I quickly look around for Noor, who I ran into and exchanged hellos with while we were buying the pies, but he is gone. Two months ago, seeing him might have made my heart skip a beat or two, because he would have been the hot guy I had been checking out (and making eye contact with) over the past three years. He turned out to be Jim's friend - that I now know, and so there are no more skipping of heartbeats.
"I just feel like my time here has expired." I tell Vicki from school on my way home. It is the less detailed version of the same conversation I had with Therese over lunch. "I've done everything I want to do, met everyone I want to meet, it's time to move on, you know?"
She pretends that she understands, and gives me a flier for a student discout card that will give me $5 combos at Burger King. I don't even eat BK anymore.
I walk the same route I always walk to get to the bus stop: through the park, with my arms folded in front of me and staring at the path because I like to find patterns in the cracks, stop to purchase lenses from the same optometrist I have been seeing for the past seven years, and try not to judge a girl in front of me who has bleached what little hair she has, making her look like an eighty year old woman from behind.
The bus rolls in five minutes late, as per usual. I toss the student discounts flier into the bin, climb on and smile brightly at the unfamiliar face of the driver, taking consolation in the fact that there is at least one thing in my day that is almost unpredictable.
1. This is not entirely true, I miss Boy incredibly when he is not around.