Alone

I'd like to apologize in advance, this is not going to be a very happy post. I wish it were; I hate to have to let you guys down, but it's not been a happy day for me. I'd like to offer a rain check, and promise a post on flowers and butterflies, and swans and willow trees, and castles and mermaids, and Harry Potter and Merlin, and cute little bunny rabbits with big furry ears and comfy chairs tomorrow. In fact, I promise to include ALL those things at some point in my post tomorrow. But not today. Today was melancholy. So I'll try harder to make it funny than usually to balance it all out.

But I have to write this post, if only to say that if anyone reading this message ever feels like I did today, he or she should FB message me. Even if it's at three in the morning here. Just not four in the morning. That's when I dream about passion fruit. Mmmm.

If you don't like sad, if you read my blog because it's funny, then I sympathize with you. You won't hurt my feelings (that much) if you skip this. I might not even notice. Except for you, Abbey Middleton (yes, namecall, I know), because you make up the entirety of the Canadian demographic within my readership, so I'll know if you don't read this. I don't like writing when I'm sad, but I intend to write every night, no matter how bad a day I've had. I'll try to make it as funny as possible, though.

But before the sadness begins, I'd like to share with you this picture of a cat on the disco floor.

Hee hee!

There were no disco cats for me today. Okay, the fun ends here.

I woke up at 7:30 after five hours of sleep and showered and changed. Then I checked my schedule and found that the next thing I had to attend was at 1:30. Everyone else was spending the day working on the homework that they hadn't even started yet, so I spent the entire morning/early afternoon doing laundry, catching up with some TV shows, and finishing writing down the solution I derived from Tuesday. I'm just glad I didn't derive from California, because my car would have sunk in the Atlantic long before I arrived at Oxford.

Okay, now it's serious time. Seriously.

At 1:30, I went over for the Maths induction lecture about good study habits. Let's just say it was unpleasant. Cool building, though. New. Glass. Ooh, shiny. A'y'ays.

At 3:00 I went over with some Maths and CompSci people for the Computer Science lecture. Also unpleasant. Unfortunately, because of the weird way in which it was set up, I was separated from the other CompSci people from Oriel and I had to walk the half hour walk back to Oriel alone in total silence. I then spent the rest of the evening in silence, watching new episodes of the Crazy Ones, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Arrow (which were all admittedly fantastic). I had nothing else to do until the "family meeting" at 7:00. No one to talk to. But I was excited for the event, and content (which, obviously, is Spanish for "with tent", for those of you out of the know) to spend it watching the (again, fantastic) TV episodes, which I'd yet to see this week.

The family meeting. Ah, the family meeting. At Oxford, Freshers are assigned "college parents" who look after you and make sure you're all right, also answering any questions they can, as if they were your parents with you at college. They usually do that for more than one student, who is your "college sibling." I've got a college sister and two college dads. Apparently you're allowed to marry your sibling at Oxford. Just not in real life.

It should have been amazing, but for whatever reason, I left the reunion feeling more isolated than ever. It didn't help that I realized that my standard jokes from The Jokebook appear to be custom-tailored to a more specific demographic than I would have thought, and the people here have an illusive sense of humor (and by illusive, I mean there's not a single common denominator that I've discerned yet), meaning that there are precious few ways I can make people laugh. That's just sad.

I did make one guy laugh. I approached a friend of mine with whom I've spoken with many times, who lives near my room, and who shares a name with me and told him, "I've forgotten your name." He started to get really annoyed immediately, at which point I quickly added, "No, of course not really." He laughed so hard. He totally bought it. Unfortunately, though, I think that says a lot more about my infamous failure to remember names and faces than it does about my sense of humor.

On the plus side, though, I met someone who speaks Spanish as fluently as I, and we had a pretty deep conversation in Spanish for half an hour. Fun to practice after a week or two of lack of use.

I hate that I had to end the day in the college bar for a Freshers' pub quiz. I hate pubs. It's too loud, you have to shout to be heard, you can't hear others, and when you do hear them, you realize that they're drunk. That is, of course, unless you're drinking yourself.

The thing that really hit me, though, was when a friend of mine told me he just got an email saying that he'd been accepted into the audition choir. I was happy for him, but I checked, and I've received no emails at all. I was so disappointed, more than I thought I would be. I've figured out that it's because it reminds me of how I was rejected from Knightshine the first time those three years ago. Rejection is brutal, hombre.

It doesn't help that I don't know any of these people well enough to actually be able to talk to them about how I really am. Back in California, I would be talking to someone I trust absolutely and spilling my guts all over their ears, and they'd be vomiting up their entrails in reply. And that was beautiful. But now I'm at Oxford, and everything's all locked up inside and slowly choking people.

I decided to go to bed on time tonight (as in midnight). The one good thing for me about being alone (apart from building patience and love through suffering) is that it reminds me that I'm never truly alone. And, like with all suffering, even when it's a dark and stormy night (oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that it was raining all day), there's light in the distance. And if you look for it, you can find it. And it can be had.

Well, that's my day. I'd like to apologize for vomiting my feelings all over you. I hope you've still enjoyed this post somewhat. If you've got a minute, please leave me a message to tell me how you reacted to this, so I know whether or not to include anything deep or not happy in the future. Should I add more jokes? More lolzcats? Less details about me? I want to know what you guys want to know, because this blog is yours more than it is mine. I do this blog every night for the readers. Let me know what you want from me! :)

Thanks for reading, guys.

Yours pensively,

    John Khouri, That Guy Who Vomits All Over People