You know that feeling you get when you see someone for the first time after many years? That unrivalled height of awkward which follows an exchange of obligatory ‘hello’s and ‘how are you’’s ? You know the feeling. The one right before the give-take continuum of conversation crashes and burns and you end up talking about the weather? Everyone knows the feeling.
After reading all that, you probably assumed that I have something insightful to say about that feeling or at least, some story to tell.
Well, I don’t.
I just wanted to describe the total mindblank I have right now since I’ve been staring at a blinking cursor for the last 5 minutes haha. This is a short post to recount our adventure home from last night’s open-air screening of Up and also, to get back into the swing of things before I hit you all with my Schoolies Chronicle of events. It seems, an era of ceebz ends here.
This story begins at approximately 10:30 pm, January 9th, as the credits for Up start to roll. As usual, we wait a few minutes until most of the families exit with their fold-up chairs and tents before packing up and heading toward Olympic Park station. After noticing that there’s only 3 minutes ’til the next train, we buy tickets in a mad rush and run downstairs only to see Bosco’s ass disappear as the train takes off, doors sliding shut in our face. Actually, it was really only in Simon’s face since the rest of us were still half-way down the stairs. Now’s when things start to get weird, I don’t know if it was the lighting or I was sleepy or it was just that time of day, but everything just felt.. weird, surreal even. Everything gets kind of blurry but I think Deva and Simon were talking about how they do jack-shit exercise wise and still lose weight, boo hoo, yada yada. Out of nowhere, Marcus chimes in with ‘Why can’t we just trade lives?’ For a second, all three of them just look at each other, then things take a turn for the worst. Deva becomes Marcus and Marcus becomes Deva, suddenly Marcus is calling me “Lean” and Deva is cracking funnies and being elusive and god knows what else. I don’t know how long that lasts but then Aryan arrives with orange juice and skittles, telling us to ‘taste the rainbow.’ Next thing I know, Ben, Michaeli and Drew rock up and conversation turns to what we would do if we got bashed, who would run first, who would get bashed first, all that normal stuff. Somewhere along the way, Deva sits on the edge of the platform with his legs hanging over the tracks, being badass. When he finally gets up, Marcus mutters something about him finally being goodass and I start thinking things are back to normal. Damn that false sense of security.
Our train arrives and we realise it’s already been twenty minutes. More straight talk about bashing ensues and then we pull up at Lidcombe just in time to see our train arrive on the next platform. We all start legging it and as we hit the stairs, Deva yells out not to give up or something else from his archives of ‘how to live life 101.’ So we keep running, taking stairs two at a time, watching the train doors slide open. Out of nowhere this random lady standing on the stairs starts screeching after us ‘Don’t give up the fight! Don’t give up the fight!’ I think I paused purely to turn around and wtf, but she just kept going and we had a train to catch. We make it through the doors, reveling in victory for a few short seconds until we realise the lady also got on the train, without running and that she also had a cast on her leg. A true facepalm moment. I then proceeded to curse life for a while and then awhile longer when we had to leave the airconditioned train to wait at Strathfield. 15 uneventful minutes fly by and then we board a crappy train to head back to Epping/Eastwood, staying in that little area between carriages. While the train’s still waiting at the platform, some guy, nice enough but definitely off his face, approaches us to ask for a cigarette. Unsuccessful, naturally, he yells out to someone on the platform and then asks for money for a ‘bus’. After collecting some change from Simon, he then proceeds to tell us about his mother dying and disappears back into the carriage. Through the window, we notice him asking more people for money, including this asian guy who also coughs up change. Awhile later, a girl around our age walks past us and when she comes back, four train guards are following her. It was like one of those russian dolls since each guard was older and fatter than the last one but anyway, they all follow her into the carriage she came from. We, being nosy, speculate about what’s going on until Deva, Simon and Drew get off at Eastwood station. About a minute later, two guards and a white teenager come out of the carriage and stand in our area. Apparently, this kid is the source of the commotion.
Train Guard: “Why did you do it? Why did you ask that elderly couple if you could pick their nose?”
Kid: “I didn’t think they’d take it offensively?”
Naturally, we just stared at each other and tried not to wtf too obviously.
Train Guard: “Would you say that to a big guy? A big Tongan bloke? No..” He then said something about respect and proceeded to order him to sit in another carriage.
The train guard’s leave and the kid turns to us and says, sheepish, “I wasn’t trying to be offensive, I just wanted to pick that old guy’s nose.” Attempting to justify the unjustifiable. He exits. Cue awkward silence.
Apart from how unbelievably weird the whole ordeal was, there’s another thing about how people will never admit the stupidity of their actions, even when they’re caught redhanded doing something stupid and they know it. Most of the time, they just amplify the situation by saying something infinitely more stupid. That kid’s a prime example, are we supposed to understand him or think he was less retarded just because he told us he wanted to pick somebody’s nose? Somehow, the whole psychology of it doesn’t really work. Later, the other asian guy joined us because I think he got too weirded out and wanted to seek refuge among his own kind. Funny how that always happens.
Anyway, we’re nearing the end of another stupid story. What I really wanted to talk about was how strange it is when you experience moments that feel surreal and make you think you’re dreaming. What I find even weirder is that I have the most pointless dreams that feel real, I’m even doing completely redundant things like talking to people about homework or whatever. I always get those dreams that feel so real that you end up checking that you still have both legs or don’t really have 20 hours of exams the next day, something like that. This brings me to something else we talked about in philosophy, can you tell that you’re dreaming when you’re dreaming? Predictably, the general consensus is no but I think that for some dreams, they’re so weird that you know something isn’t right or you don’t really believe what is happening or whatever. Actually, that might just be because I’m half-awake or sleeping really lightly so I’m still slightly concious of my surroundings, I have no idea. Some idiot wrote a whole thesis debating that we could tell the difference between dreams and real life because of the existence of the phrase ‘dream-like’. After reading half a booklet, I came to the conclusion that he was just an idiot finding an excuse not to have a proper job. Harsh? I’m not sure haha.
That’s all for today, I think you can tell from my ramblings that I’m bored and in a weird headspace right now. Hope you guys are having a great holiday, two months until the start of the rest of our lives. 
After lending Doug my camera , I also learnt that he really sucks at taking photos. Flicking through them now, all I got was a shot of Marcus’ ass and many of his blazer.
