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by Halley

Innocence that I will miss

I keep wondering what is so different from the people I hang out with here and the environment that I’ve been in for the last ten weeks and Duke and all its wonderful people. Aside from the material differences, the largest would be the difference in sophistication, innocence, and jadedness, all of which are more of less the same. Not once has our dinner conversations been about the stress of academics (not that others aren’t stressed here, they just don’t talk about it). Not once have I heard the incessant talk of summer internships and whatnot. 

All in all, my friends and I don’t really talk about school, or career (not in the way Dukies do, at least). Our conversations are usually quite random, ranging from philosophical to down right absurd and silly. But almost always, we manage to find something we can all laugh about. It’s a good humoured, relaxing experience. I will miss that. 

And you know, we don’t have to do this at Duke. We don’t have to talk about the tests we took earlier today, or the papers due tomorrow, or the countless meetings we must attend, or the internship prospects for this summer. Just because we live on campus and our lives are so inexorably intertwined with school, it doesn’t mean school and academics and the horrible stress must creep into every aspect of our lives, especially at meal times. 

And there’s no obsession with lable, with societal approval, with beating the curve, with names. This is the part that I’ve  never liked about Duke, or even while I was in Solon. I’m fully aware of being affected by all of this myself. I don’t deny that during my college-search process, name and prestige always mattered above everything else. Even today, I still cannot be absolutely nonchalant towards the labels and names that are suppose to mean something, suppose to elevate its bearers above the rest. 

I urge my friends to read the Financial Times, to apply to all the first-year financial programs, to enter the competitions offered by the top banks. In essense, I’ve been telling them to do all the things a typical Dukie does. Yes, they are necessary. Yes, it’s practical. But must these “practical” and “necessary” measures we take consume the rest of our lives? 

In the end, we come back to the familiar problem of balancing. There should be a separation of work and personal life. Maybe that is the largest benefit of living 30min away from school. maybe the actual distance helps us put a mental distance between the two?

I have no idea if any of this made much sense.

by Halley

I don’t think I will ever learn

 to say goodbye. no matter how many times I do it, I’m never very good at it. The amount of gravity and emotions involved is never quite right. It’s always either too nonchalant or too teary. How do I strike that perfect balance? How many times must I say goodbye to master this skill perfectly?

If I could choose, I’d choose to never say those words ever again. But that’s not gonna happen.

I have been very lucky to have been here, despite of everything. More than the buildings, the attractions, the so called ‘cultural experience’, the most memorable thing that I shall bring home with me is your friendship. 

by Halley

Nostalgic

I like catching up with old friends. I’m not terribly good at keeping in touch with friends; most of the times, I simply don’t feel the desire to talk to most people. Then there are moments when it suddenly hits me that I haven’t talked to so and so for a very long time. It’s always good when I do start a conversation with these friends and realize halfway through that even though much has changed, we still have the same chemistry as before. It reminds me that no matter how much we change, deep inside, we remain more or less the same people that we’ve always been. Of course, if you allow too much time to lapse without any form of contact, the gap might be too large to bridge. No one should expect anyone to still care about someone that they have no spoken to in a year or longer, but it’s always a pleasant surprise when they do and you pick up exactly where you left off (sorta).

That’s one thing about having been in a lot of places. I have all these different groups of friends, people I met at different times and places of my life. Friends from childhood, from China, from colorado, from Atlanta, from Solon, from Duke, from beijing, from Greece, from oxford, and now from London. Unfortunately I haven’t been able very good with keeping in contact with half of the friends I’ve made, either due to laziness or mere carelessness. But I don’t want that to be the case anymore. It’s not easy to make friends, and even if it is (which has surprisingly been the case for me in london), I still believe friendships are precious and should never be taken lightly or for granted. I’m someone who could never live alone, and I derive such a significant amount of happiness and meaning in life from my relationships with people. 

Hmm…i have no idea how I ended up talking about friends…. What I wanted to do was merely remarking on looking through pictures from the past two years and reminiscing. I like to look back on my life and pick out the brighter moments and savour the happy memories. There’s something very alluring to nostalgia, it’s almost like reliving the past, but in a very selective and indulgent way. The painful segments are no longer painful enough to make you cry, but the happy ones can still make you smile. Ultimately, it makes me much more optimistic about the future. Or maybe I’m just in an optimistc mood.