Letters to a Friend

Understanding

Today is a good day I'm thinking.. even if it doesn't seem that way sometimes. 

The Callah, our holiday from school and work, is coming to an end now. I spent most of the day wandering the school grounds... Doing nothing lol.

It's not nothing.

Hm, alright then. Either way, it was nice.. just wondering. The school is made up of many organic buildings made out of something similar to the cob buildings you have in your world. But despite the seemingly simple building materials, the structures are incredible. Large, yet rounded, and many are multiple stories high. The civilization and its buildings blend like one into the surrounding nature, which I suppose is best described as tropical. 

The animals are different also.. six-legged mammals are not an unusual thing here and yet, it doesn't seem relevant. The fruit is incredible though. sigh. Sorry.. listen to me rambling.

The school is secluded from the rest of the population. There are two um ...cities, I guess you might call them. They are harmonious for the most part, but our styles and cultures are different... and yet there's space enough between us, and abundance and they can make some things easier than us, and visa versa, so it's in both civilizations' best interest to remain harmonious. 

I'd never really thought there was any other way to be before school here when we learned about other worlds and races. 

I feel like there's something more to be said here.. and yet I'm not sure what it is. Maybe just that I don't fully understand, so I can't know what to be saying other than.. this is how it is here, and ..it's nice.

I think it works because .. though everything is one, there are two parts. Like, take happiness. How would you know what happiness is if you'd never felt sadness? What is 'truth' if there isn't also 'false', or white if there isn't also black?

So I guess in this way... they are just the other part of the whole. The balance to the universal equation. It's an asset to have them. They live in a much colder and land-based climate, and if something is scarce here.. like some kind of food for example the other civilization serves as a kind of safety net. Same as we are for them.

It was different walking today. Passing outdoor study areas and remembering times before evaluations. Evaluations are. well, they're not really like the tests you might take. Instead, they're not at a set time, but when we want to take them. When we feel ready. This way we can advance at our own speed, and there is more self-study motivation.

But instructors are there when we need them. My friends and I all chose to sit our evaluations together. It's not uncommon. Better to go through it together for some. To have a group to study with. I tend to learn better that way.

But it was different today walking past those locations alone. And remembering about how, despite our stress, we would laugh and take breaks to play Jhalla. It's a game with 50 cards, with 5 sets of different colors numbered 1 to 10. For the game, all the cards are dealt between those playing, and we take turns trying to get rid of our cards first. The first person playing one's, and the second person two's.. etc. But if your turn is three and you don't have any, you must lay down at least one card anyway and hope the others won't call you on it.

If they do, and you didn't put down what you said you did, then you must take the whole discard pile. And if they call you on it when you're being honest, then they must take it instead.

Sigh... sorry, that was random. lol. But it was fun. That's all. fun is important. 

Walking and remembering. And thinking about how I've been feeling like my friends and I are more separated now as compared to how we were... And how as time passes... will that trend continue?