Small World
I said I would publish this story about this friend - mutual friend of RayRay and mines. But before I do, I would like to say that I understand how Phoebe from 'Friends' feel; Rachel and Monica were High School friends, Chandler and Ross has been friends since college (or something like that), Chandler and Joey are roomates so where does that leave Phoebe? Want to know? Watch the episode where Ross was mugged. Anyhow, with my friends there hasn't really been any history and no mutual networks. Sometimes, it can feel like out of place...until...
It's been quite while so I've probably not a very accurate account of what actually happened.
Summer 2008, I enrolled with this organisation that matches students to SME. I was the second round of people, in my group I didn't know anyone - most of them were from Strathclyde University but studying Marketing, Business or Finance. Actually I don't remember if there was any Glasgow University students. We were stuck together for a whole day and that was fine - the actual day wasn't! (Full of boring stuff but I guess not all courses can fit in 2 group presentations per semester and one business or marketing plan per year).
4 weeks into my placement, there was a meeting for everyone - round 1 and 2 people. I walked into a conference room, there was a flip chart and then on my right hand side the tables were arranged in a horse shoe shape, there were a few people sitting at the top right hand corner and the entire row closest to the door was filled. Being me I sat the row with was empty. On my left hand side there was two from round two so we did the usual boring chit chat - how is your placement? God, that sounds hard. So, what is your project? Oh, right, ok. Blah, Blah, Blah. A couple of people came and I was hoping they wouldn't sit on my row (don't ask me why I was being unsociable), they ended up sitting at the row on my right hand side.
Later on, most of the seats were taken up but no one was sitting next to me (YEAH!! I actually remember why I was being unsociable, the tables are tiny and it's arranged in like horseshoe and I'm sitting at the corner - no space, I NEED MY PERSONAL SPACE). Just when I thought I was going to have an empty seat next to me, this dude came in, I'm thinking, 'Cool, he looks trendy - one of those postman cap or a beret with a flap type thing, white shirt and skinny, black jeans...he's definately not going to sit next to me. I bet you, he'll sit on one of the empty seats over in my right hand side.' Boy, was I wrong, he settled down right next to me. We did the usual introduction.
During break, we were talking...somehow, we ended up talking about HK, how he wants to go and visit it and I was talking about what it is like. He told me how he was jealous of his friend who was in a year exchange in HK and I told him that I, too, had a friend doing that. We kept talking about how cool it would be to study abroad - I couldn't do it because it would mean that I would need to study an extra year and he had either missed the opportunity or couldn't really do it. Then...wham, I mentioned the name of the person who was studying abroad - it ended up that after a 15 mins conversation about this friend, it was in fact the same bloody person!!!
So that's the story of how I met RayRay's friend.
I thought the pink was a little too much so I changed the skin to this, it's more relevant.
NOTE: to reply to the comment: everything can be applied to 'Friends' (especially according to R.W. it's actually quite funny because any difficult situation he would say, 'let's see if anything like this has happened in 'Friends'...ok well X did this.' It's actually quite right, I know how all situations are different but think about it 10 seasons of 24 episodes is more than enough to be applied to our daily life.
In the family, I feel like Phoebe mainly because I don't really have that long shared history, RayRay and MelMel know each other via school, RayRay's brother is friends with J.M. and DeeDee is RayRay's godson, I am RayRay's godsister so there isn't like this shared history or something - there's something missing. I suppose they say that going through an experience either causes people to drift away or become closer ('Stress is a magical force that can destroy, re-unite or create groups' - from me). So if I had to assign each person to a Friends character it would be as follows:
It's been quite while so I've probably not a very accurate account of what actually happened.
Summer 2008, I enrolled with this organisation that matches students to SME. I was the second round of people, in my group I didn't know anyone - most of them were from Strathclyde University but studying Marketing, Business or Finance. Actually I don't remember if there was any Glasgow University students. We were stuck together for a whole day and that was fine - the actual day wasn't! (Full of boring stuff but I guess not all courses can fit in 2 group presentations per semester and one business or marketing plan per year).
4 weeks into my placement, there was a meeting for everyone - round 1 and 2 people. I walked into a conference room, there was a flip chart and then on my right hand side the tables were arranged in a horse shoe shape, there were a few people sitting at the top right hand corner and the entire row closest to the door was filled. Being me I sat the row with was empty. On my left hand side there was two from round two so we did the usual boring chit chat - how is your placement? God, that sounds hard. So, what is your project? Oh, right, ok. Blah, Blah, Blah. A couple of people came and I was hoping they wouldn't sit on my row (don't ask me why I was being unsociable), they ended up sitting at the row on my right hand side.
Later on, most of the seats were taken up but no one was sitting next to me (YEAH!! I actually remember why I was being unsociable, the tables are tiny and it's arranged in like horseshoe and I'm sitting at the corner - no space, I NEED MY PERSONAL SPACE). Just when I thought I was going to have an empty seat next to me, this dude came in, I'm thinking, 'Cool, he looks trendy - one of those postman cap or a beret with a flap type thing, white shirt and skinny, black jeans...he's definately not going to sit next to me. I bet you, he'll sit on one of the empty seats over in my right hand side.' Boy, was I wrong, he settled down right next to me. We did the usual introduction.
During break, we were talking...somehow, we ended up talking about HK, how he wants to go and visit it and I was talking about what it is like. He told me how he was jealous of his friend who was in a year exchange in HK and I told him that I, too, had a friend doing that. We kept talking about how cool it would be to study abroad - I couldn't do it because it would mean that I would need to study an extra year and he had either missed the opportunity or couldn't really do it. Then...wham, I mentioned the name of the person who was studying abroad - it ended up that after a 15 mins conversation about this friend, it was in fact the same bloody person!!!
So that's the story of how I met RayRay's friend.
I thought the pink was a little too much so I changed the skin to this, it's more relevant.
NOTE: to reply to the comment: everything can be applied to 'Friends' (especially according to R.W. it's actually quite funny because any difficult situation he would say, 'let's see if anything like this has happened in 'Friends'...ok well X did this.' It's actually quite right, I know how all situations are different but think about it 10 seasons of 24 episodes is more than enough to be applied to our daily life.
In the family, I feel like Phoebe mainly because I don't really have that long shared history, RayRay and MelMel know each other via school, RayRay's brother is friends with J.M. and DeeDee is RayRay's godson, I am RayRay's godsister so there isn't like this shared history or something - there's something missing. I suppose they say that going through an experience either causes people to drift away or become closer ('Stress is a magical force that can destroy, re-unite or create groups' - from me). So if I had to assign each person to a Friends character it would be as follows:
- MelMel is Monica
- J.M. would be Ross based on his intelligence and not just a boring person.
- DeeDee...erm...Joey
- That leaves JJ being Chandler
- RayRay is Rachel
- I would be Pheobe