Return of Forever

Posted on September 18th, 2012

Filed under: General — Karl Olson @ 9:44 pm

So, earlier in the month I was down in Seattle for a fall festival. More specifically, the Aki Matsuri that was held on the Bellevue Community College Campus. It was weird being back on that campus. Their are a lot of little things I’d forgotten about. The campus isn’t actually all that big for starters, and the places where I hung out and loitered on campus were actually pretty small relative to the environment I have now at SFU. I mean, I barely believe I ever thought that getting around campus between classes was problematic, and after the 500 person lectures I’ve had for a few classes at SFU, the classrooms seem more like study spaces.

Little things have changed – the old, dying piano has been replaced with one of the electric pianos that were used as MIDI controllers in the music production program (easiest As ever for me.) I’d recalled it being a Pepsi campus (Mt. Dew Amp being a staple for getting me through classes in those days,) and it’s all Coke products now. Funny enough, the reverse brand switch just happened on the SFU campus.

Still, the places where I made some of my longest lasting friends are all still there. The student center building, aptly nick named “the fishbowl” for it’s semi-circular floor-to-ceiling windowed front. The classrooms where I’d watch anime that are now going out of print. The bus stop where I’d disembark half awake with a venti mocha in my hand and a chocolate croissant or slice of lemon pound cake in the other. Just like the those pastries, I can’t even really get at some of those friends any more.

It was weird being back there. Brought up a lot of weird memories for me. It was a great time, and to be ungrateful in anyway would be denying the privilege inherent in being able to take 4 years to get a 2 year degree, in taking summers off (though it benefited the family to have a “free” babysitter,) in being able to going to the anime store every Friday and have 50 different manga and anime series on pre-order. I worked a mediocre retail job a couple of those years too, but on the whole, I was lucky to get the chance to work out what I wanted to do in what was probably a much lower pressure environment that if I’d been paying triple the amount per semester for classes, and living on campus in another city. As this blog entry itself is a slight testament too, I am a bit of a neurotic guy, and I think in a more intense situation, something would’ve been left by the wayside. What that would be besides the friendships made by being in that place and time, I’m not sure.

Like I said, it was weird being back there. It feels good to say that here somehow.

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