The Loneliness of Somewhere New

When you first move to a new country, especially to start grad school, there's such a whirlwind when you arrive that you forget that it's not a vacation. You're meeting new people, seeing new places, trying to figure out how life works somewhere else, and it's manic and crazy and stressful but fun. You're too busy to breathe, too busy to properly stop, so any misgivings or worries get pushed under and passed over.

It's when you have a moment to stop, when you're actually kind of acclimated, that you start to think: this is my life. Where's my family? Back home, with a five hour time difference. My friends? Like the ones that truly know me, who I can tell anything to, not the ones who I like having a beer with but barely know? Shit, they're on the other side of the world too. Not everyone's into S. I'm not coming back once I've seen all the sights. The weather's getting colder and the work's getting harder, and I'm still here. Worse? My friends are moving on without me. Friends have parties, they get married, they go on vacation. Maybe they think, "Oh, I wish Alex was here." Maybe not.

EMO MUCH? I know. You alright? (That's what they would say around here. It's also a greeting- weird.) I haven't been blogging because I don't want to put peoples' names or pictures, I feel like that's what Facebook is for, and I don't want to make this my sometimes-happy sometimes- emo diary because Livejournal isn't cool any more. Not that it ever was.

Anyways, I drafted that yesterday and didn't put it up but whoop there it is. Because I haven't blogged in two weeks so whatevs. On the bright side things are significantly better today. It's Halloween this weekend and I'm going to be a carrier pigeon, which may just be me kinda slutty with a feathered cape. My friends are printing out peoples' faces and taping them on their faces. It's pretty meta and kind of freaky. I'll stick to slutty because I love it. I've gotten a bit lame because our work has gotten intense, however in my slutty pigeon outfit I'm going to a crazy hipster party where the theme is a veterinarian's office (because why not?). Other big plans for the weekend include going to a strictly 18+ bakery where I'm hoping for an aborted fetus cupcake, then I'm going to maybe watch the World Series with Americans. In between I shall work like I never really did in college. So I guess I'm trying to remember how junior year of high school was. We'll see..