Nangila mallila, mameh yanava!

I was up at the ungodly hour of 6am to visit a school for a presentation about bus pervs and how everyone should kick them in the balls (that’s a story for another day), and came home to pass out in a heap of exhaustion at around noon.

Had one of those awfully long naps you wake up from like you have a hangover and everything’s heavy and you feel real grumpy, and found a yellow envelope on my table.

Must be one of the magazines I work for sending me a copy this month, whatever, I think. I rip it open and see the words India and University and Admission Granted and it doesn’t quite sink in at all till 20 seconds after putting the letter down. I honestly didn’t see it coming, I guess a huge part of me was in denial about the whole thing and was assuming India wouldn’t work and I was going to try getting into open university in January over here instead of moving.

But yeah. I’ll be in New Delhi by the first of July, folks.
For those of you who haven’t been following, I applied to India to study english literature because I love writing and the subject. Why India? Because it’s ridiculously affordable and close to home.

I have mixed feelings.
On one side, I am excited as hell, because:

1. It’s a new place with new people and I’ll have a million new things to entertain my brain with for a while
2. New place and new people, especially if I’m placed in a college in Old Delhi with those beautiful buildings, means epic photograph opportunities
3. Living with other students but with zero adult supervision
4. I have a lot of responsibilities right now, and I’ll have none when I start over there
5. The main focus of my life will be writing again

But I’m scared as fuck. Because:

1. I’m leaving too many people I love
2. I’m going to miss the beach
3. I’m going to miss the people on the street
4. I’m going to miss the smallness of Colombo, the easyness of getting from one end to the other, as opposed to huge scary Delhi
5. I’m leaving too many people I love
6. I’m leaving too many people I love

I don’t know. It feels like an ending somehow. A sudden one. What am I going to miss in the next three years? I’m glad that this is happening three years after my A/Ls as opposed to soon after, because I’ve been to most of my friends’ weddings and seen many of them have babies, I’ve seen my cousins grow into almost-adults, I’ve made the best of friendships. So I don’t think I’ll miss anything too epic in the next couple of years. I hope. I’ll be 24 when I get back! And some of my friends will be 30! There’s always Skype but you know it won’t be the same.

Sigh. My friends. The ones I meet up with to watch movies and eat Zinger burgers and Carnival ice cream with, the ones who wear hats and come because I say ‘it’s a hat party, wear one or die,’ the ones who patiently listen to me whine for an hour on a rooftop about my trivial problems, the ones who text me to ask if I’m OK after some ambiguous emo facebook status update, the ones who make me laugh so hard it hurts, the ones I’ve known since I was 7, the ones I spend hours chatting to and still have more to talk about the next day.

I’m going to take this moment to be an incorrigible carebear (speaking of bears, did you see the people in GIANT PANDA SUITS at Liberty?! I wanted to hug them to death), and say that I love you guys. You literally have no idea.

*runs away to India to evade repercussions for public display of affection*