This might be saying too much but when I finished writing my last exam of the sem at around 1pm today, I felt like something big was ending. It was an inexplicable kind of sadness which I cannot easily translate into words. All I know is when I went inside the backseat of my parents’ car for the long drive back to the South, I was searching for the saddest songs in my ipod. It was weird how badly I wanted to prolong the sadness, and I believe that the best way to make anything last is to listen to songs that perfectly underscore your uncalled-for nostalgia.
Things definitely ended today. The semester is over, meaning I don’t have to wake up extra-early on weekdays, I don’t have to ride four kinds of PUVs just to get myself to the University, I don’t have to bug my dad for allowance, and best of all, I don’t have to study Soc Sci 2 ever again. I’ve often complained about this subject because it demanded an unreasonable amount of effort from me. But when I read my prof’s footnote on our exam, I felt really really sad. You may think I’m being over-emotional but I know you’d feel sad too when your prof wished that you at least learned a little something during all those months when you crammed for her tests and recitations and when you hated going up the fourth freaking floor just to sit there and sound like you know what you’re talking about.
The way it was written, that note, barely readable and unnoticeable at the end of a three-page exam, was so simple yet so sincere. Our prof must have been sad when she wrote it, you know? Every sem, you’d meet people you hate and people you like and people you’re not so sure about. You see them two days a week until you remember their names, their faces, and their t-shirts maybe. You learn their voices and the way they explain their answers in their essays. Next thing you know, the sem’s over and the next time you see each other, they’d probably look the other way or pretend to be texting somebody on their cellphone.
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When things are ending and you know you can’t do anything about it. A feeling bordering on sad, but not exactly. Two years from the moment I’m writing this, I know I would feel it again.
portraits, etc. 