Chapter two: Voices (~jinghan)

Voices were everywhere, even my own voice seemed to be somewhat detached from my sense of self. I heard myself cheerfully asking for names, courses and subjects, pouring forth energetic conversation. It was orientation week and I was determined to be friendly and optimistic.

I find myself in the line at the Student Centre waiting for timetable help. The friend I had made – if one can term someone you have joined for the sake of a common need to seek timetable help in such a way… The acquaintance I had made in my host group was talking to a (real) friend who happened to walk by. I stood aside, energy and enthusiasm injected into my smile. But who was really looking?

“Hi, what’s your name?”

The boy who was standing by himself behind us in the line would save me from the solitude of smiling. And neither for the first time, nor for the last, I initiated conversation with an unknown stranger. He was an international student from Malaysia. I had lived in Melbourne all my life. He studied year 12 in Australia but was at a military school before that. Wow, really, did he really just jump straight into year 12? Yes, he didn’t want to waste time. I decide not to mention how stressful I found year 11. What was military school like? A lot of physical training. Wow, he must have been fit? He used to be captain of water-polo but now he was fat. I was no good at water polo and he was not fat. I had a timetable clash that I had been devastated by, and was hoping for some solution, but was prepared for the harsh truth that I might have to change my subjects. He was coming to see if he could change his 8am class so that he wouldn’t have to get up too early. I smiled. And smiled. And smiled…

Slowly the line inched forward until it was my turn.

I never remembered his name.

The weather was beautiful, slightly warm in the sun, a comfortable cool in the shade. The need for food brought me to the free-barbeque line. It was long. And as I waited I glanced around, smile on my face, hoping to catch sight of a friend, acquaintance, or even a primary school classmate that had probably thought me antisocial and too studious. I was whoever I wanted to be now. But there were just lots of faces and voices walking past. Instead I turned to the boy in front of me in the line and the man behind me.

“Hi! What’s your name? And yours?

This is how I found myself sitting on a bench with an American postgraduate student, a biomed student from Singapore, an commerce student from Malaysia and a commerce student from China via Perth. People came and went. Disappearing into phones and ipods and old friends that called them away. Voices came and went. Even when I met up with my friends from high school, they seemed to be only more voices in a day filled with detached voices.

As the week went on, I sometimes found myself wandering around by myself. It was not so easy to keep a smile at those times. Why bother? No one was watching. In retrospect, I had spent my energy too quickly – just like the money I had spent on joining so many clubs. I had made many friends-that-were-not-yet-friends, but none that I was sure I would keep. I had made many commitments to clubs but none that I knew I would keep. And in the mean time my own friends seemed to be drifting off somewhere, talking about unfamiliar experiences making new friends.

It wasn’t until the tiredness of the Thursday night that my façade of smiles failed me. With tiredness came tears, and with tears thoughts that had gone ignored all week. I missed my friends, having people around that knew me – if not, thought like me. The friendship balance was shifting. I could not hold onto all my old friends, nor could I avoid making new friends – it was inevitable. But for some reason I had thought it would all be solved in one week.

I could not have been more wrong.

The process of finding friends – no, it was more like finding myself – would be a slow painful one. I thought back to the trauma of changing schools back in year 5 and then year 7. I would survive, but until then I would have to just hang in there.

I had walked into O-week with the determination to be friendly, talkative and optimistic. The weather had been bright and comfortable, but as the week went on it had turned to drowsily warm, stifling hot and now, as I lay in bed on a lazy Sunday morning, the sky was a exhausted monotonous grey.

But at least the voices were finally silent.