New Zealand is where I want to go, at least today. I don’t know which way I’ll sway in the coming month, but I’ve had enough of this system. The routine of lectures, quizzes, intoxication, games… it’s the most fun anyone can expect in any college, but too much of it saturates my taste buds… I’ve had enough. I don’t want to go thru another year, living a restricted, albeit fun life here… it’s a closed world, where our world ends at the campus gate. There are only 300 people in this world; everyone can potentially know everything about everyone else. Perfect knowledge? Elections are entertaining… we’re voting to elect the kings of our own little world. Our senses of perception and understanding are limited by the restrictive walls fortifying our minds here. This is our world, and that’s all there is to our lives for 2 years. News trickles in thru my laptop, the newspaper, some post on the newsgroups, some talk in the mess and some lectures… I don’t see the real world. I can’t feel the change. In some ways, it feels like I’m under a plastic surgeon’s knife. The operation lasts for 2 years, with a handful of minor, week-long breaks, and I’m completely transformed at the end of it all. The outside world views me differently, and, maybe as a consequence, I view the outside world differently. When I went back home during my first term break, everything seemed strange. I was getting to know Madras all over again. A lot of my friends are gone. There are some, who I cant speak to the same way that I used to. I wish I could tell them everything that I’ve gone thru here, and how I’ve changed, but that would be too long a story, even by my standards. It’s hard to relate to some things and some people. People move on at different speeds. I felt it at some point of time when I was stuck with the factory job. Now I’m on the other side of the divide. Strange feeling. I want to get back home, to meet my old friends. Goodnight.