"MISSING SOMETHING IS LIKE FORGETTING HOW TO BREATHE."
I feel as though I've been passing my days underwater, like drowning in slow motion. It sounds morbid but that is how I've spent the past two days, wading my way through the hours and floating uselessly in any and no direction. I think I'm only this pessimistic because of my persistent flu symptoms, where I'm not deathly sick but enough to feel pretty miserable.
Life has been passing in a time-warp sort of way -- so quickly and slowly at the same time. APYLS came and flew by and I can barely believe that just last week I was in the company of so many different people from so many different backgrounds, counting participants off on bus rides, listening to talk after talk after talk and going for tour after tour after tour, and my personal favourite: lounging around in the Ops room. Like all organized events go AP wasn't always smooth and, in all honesty, half the time I didn't really know what was happening. But, the same way all organized events with a good team behind them go, it all worked out in the end. Over the course of the summit I've had stereotypes reinforced and then broken, my perspectives broadened, my views changed and my friendships deepened. People I assumed to be intimidating at first turned out to be utterly lovely, every single one of them, and the experience has no doubt been amazing.
Still, I guess a curse that I have is that I become detached -- when the summit drew to a close I was one of the very few still with dry eyes. I didn't feel particularly sad, perhaps just a twinge of regret that I hadn't spent more time with the delegates and an odd sense of calm. I was certain I'd become one of the facilitators that be forgotten, considering my general aloofness -- but as the days passed I've been proven wrong. It's as though parting has made us closer, with Facebook flooding with people saying hello and how are you, I miss you so much. Perhaps it's not the same as being in actual physical contact, perhaps the sentiments echo a little less sincerely over the Internet, but the memory and feeling and potential for so much more, they all remain. The facilitators themselves have been as warm and loving as they were over the course of the summit itself, and as Alicia mentioned in her post we are lucky to have made at least 21 friends within our own school, whom we can meet and share our experiences with over the months (and hopefully years) to come. I've been bombarded with hugs and hellos all over the school, even as all of us sniffle and hack and cough with the aftereffects of sleep deprivation, but I know for sure that I wouldn't have given up this experience for the world.
The next challenge for all of us is to get back into the swing of school -- after the dream of APYLS has passed, the reality of academia has begun to bore down on us with the same explosive anger of waking that Inception so vividly portrayed. There is so much more I want to say, to recollect and recall, but I don't know where to start. I think I'll save the memories for another day, another post, another time when I'm more lucid and less underwater.
Life has been passing in a time-warp sort of way -- so quickly and slowly at the same time. APYLS came and flew by and I can barely believe that just last week I was in the company of so many different people from so many different backgrounds, counting participants off on bus rides, listening to talk after talk after talk and going for tour after tour after tour, and my personal favourite: lounging around in the Ops room. Like all organized events go AP wasn't always smooth and, in all honesty, half the time I didn't really know what was happening. But, the same way all organized events with a good team behind them go, it all worked out in the end. Over the course of the summit I've had stereotypes reinforced and then broken, my perspectives broadened, my views changed and my friendships deepened. People I assumed to be intimidating at first turned out to be utterly lovely, every single one of them, and the experience has no doubt been amazing.
Still, I guess a curse that I have is that I become detached -- when the summit drew to a close I was one of the very few still with dry eyes. I didn't feel particularly sad, perhaps just a twinge of regret that I hadn't spent more time with the delegates and an odd sense of calm. I was certain I'd become one of the facilitators that be forgotten, considering my general aloofness -- but as the days passed I've been proven wrong. It's as though parting has made us closer, with Facebook flooding with people saying hello and how are you, I miss you so much. Perhaps it's not the same as being in actual physical contact, perhaps the sentiments echo a little less sincerely over the Internet, but the memory and feeling and potential for so much more, they all remain. The facilitators themselves have been as warm and loving as they were over the course of the summit itself, and as Alicia mentioned in her post we are lucky to have made at least 21 friends within our own school, whom we can meet and share our experiences with over the months (and hopefully years) to come. I've been bombarded with hugs and hellos all over the school, even as all of us sniffle and hack and cough with the aftereffects of sleep deprivation, but I know for sure that I wouldn't have given up this experience for the world.
The next challenge for all of us is to get back into the swing of school -- after the dream of APYLS has passed, the reality of academia has begun to bore down on us with the same explosive anger of waking that Inception so vividly portrayed. There is so much more I want to say, to recollect and recall, but I don't know where to start. I think I'll save the memories for another day, another post, another time when I'm more lucid and less underwater.