Photos, etc.

I was looking through old photos to see what I might put on my iPod for nostalgia, etcetera. The thing about that is - it gives me nostalgia, etcetera.

So I look at these photos. And obviously iPhoto organizes them in chronological order, so looking at the "last 12 months" section is quite literally like seeing the past year scroll before me.

I'm not really that sad about it, for a change. Well, I am. But I'm also not.

I look at them and the way things were, how wonderfully carefree and simply unlike real life they were. In a way I'm glad my friends were here and I was there, because that gave me a reason to document my life, and thus to now look back.

It feels strange, but it's helpful. I think I should do this more often - look at that year. Yeah, it was hard and horrible sometimes, but at least I can look and remember and probably sugarcoat it to a certain extent. And yeah, I miss it. But how could I not?

One of the things I learned last year was to use what you have. I could have moped for the entire six months. I could have disregarded everything good around me. But I didn't, and it got better, because as it turns out, life is pretty nice when you use it. I think sometimes I need a reminder.

Nostalgia and some realizations

I'm in one of those moods when you really want to cry but you can't so you can't get it out and you're stuck in this sort of pool of sadness, some of it pointless. Often it's nostalgia. It is now.

See, today I thought about Israel. I miss it a lot. Sometimes it just doesn't feel like that was life at all, just a story that I can tell, one that most people are really interested in.

I miss it, I miss my family, I miss my friends, I miss our tiny apartment and my strip of blue wall and the  public transportation and school. Six months can be so long but so short.

And my girlfriend is at another school now and suddenly I can see how it might have been for my friends back here. Oh, it must have been hard. I miss her so much at school and every so often she'll come up in conversation and we'll ask why she isn't here, and we'll remember that she went to a different high school and none of us can really talk to her because she's so busy.

I just hope that we won't stop at least attempting to see each other. I want to have fun at school and I want her to have fun at her school but I wish we could talk.

I wish a lot of things.

Choreography

I was thinking of not going to ballet today because I've got a blister between my toes from walking too long in my flip-flops after not wearing any ever. But the blister ain't that bad and it was the last day. So.

I came, expecting to have to explain to the teacher how I couldn't do pointe today because I had a blister, etcetera etcetera, when she asked the pianist to give us a few waltzes so we could do choreographies to them - though she called them "improvisations." I got myself a group of four and we did a short dance to the slower of the waltzes.

I think it was good. We finished first, so while the other groups were still practicing, I went and did some actual improvisation, which was immense fun.

We showed the dances, then the class finished early. I said goodbye to the teacher and pianist, as well as most of the girls. It's weird, this is like a softer, subtler version of the nostalgia I felt before coming here. Which is okay, because I guess that's what you're supposed to feel.