Pre-Stage is Ending?

On Saturday all of those who signed up to do home stays or managed to find an apartment will leave Triolet, and a bunch of other students will move in. As Judith put it, it's the end of our "cocoon stage."

It's actually making me pretty sad. The past few weeks we've basically owned Batimant C of Triolet. If I heard someone walking or talking, chances were they were part of our group. If I needed something I would just mosey on over to their room, if I was bored I would go see if there was a group on the "stoop" I could talk to or if there was anyone cooking in one of the kitchens. If people were going out I would somehow hear about it and go with them.

It's really frustrating, actually, I can't quite describe it and I wish I could. I suppose it's a little like going to summer camp. You're forced to interact with all these random students from different social groups and somehow you forma bond.

But it's not quite that. We're all sharing this one really special, weird experience, struggling with the same annoying pitfalls, seeing amazing things together. It takes no effort, like friendships usually do as we get older. You don't have to sift through your schedule to find an hour to "catch up over some coffee," or awkwardly try to text someone. Everyone is just here, and you just talk. Or you don't and you talk the next day.

And the one thing that I think I mentioned before but that continues to baffle me is the social dynamic here. There are people in this group I would have never thought twice to talk to had I met them in any other situation. Ever. I would have written them off right off the bat as "not my type" and moved on. Yet that doesn't happen here. You talk to people in their rooms for hours, you walk back with others from downtown late at night, you talk to people in the kitchens.

We've known each other for weeks yet I feel like I know their personalities better than those of people I've been talking to at the UW for years. (I'm sure it helps that almost everyone here has been pretty drunk at least a few times. Now I know one way to make friends: go to random bars and drink with people, people get very, very friendly).

It's like going back to grade school, where you spend all day with the same people, but people that have grown out of their jerk stages (elementary school and junior high) and their awkward stages (junior high and high school).

I have no idea if I'm being clear, but I tried.

Sadly, everyone leaves soon, so it'll go back to having to exert effort to stay in contact, new people will live next to me, the dorms will be loud and filled with people I don't know, no random going out. It's probably better, I won't be speaking English all the time anymore.

As a last "hoorah" today we had a sort of communal picnic near the statue of Louis XIV and got to watch the sun set.

There was bread and cheese and wine (there is always, always wine) and some weird but awesome chicken spread stuff and Nutella. There was tree climbing and talking and bubbles and overall it was great, but I couldn't help being a little sad knowing that in a couple of days this very unique time in all our lives will end. It's been an exhausting few weeks, but I sort of want it to just stay like this forever.