Have you ever deliberately taken time to just sit and look? It’s like smelling the roses, except there don’t have to be any roses and you’re not focusing on olfactory stimulation…

Uni started back this week for me (as if I’m a 3rd-year Uni student already), so there have been a number of times when there really was nothing going on. I sat myself down in The Circle on campus a couple of times this week, just watching the worlds of so many people go by, taking in a tiny snippet of everybody else’s life. A random fixation on random encounters with people who don’t even know I’m randomly encountering them!

The Circle is a large, paved … circle, which is bang in the middle of the central outdoor flight of stairs at my Uni. Heaps of people go through there every day. Students dashing through on their own at 13 minutes past the hour, late for lectures/tutes/yoga. Old ladies from the bowls club with Pookie or Esmerelda in tow. Larger mobs of people of whatever affiliation you can dream up: ethnicity, fashion, faculty, faith, hobby, boredom.

Having been on campus for 2 full years already has its advantages. You know where most things are, have a better-than-vague idea where to head for quick shelter or warmth when it rains/hails/snows, and have worked out where the best places to eat or sleep are. It’s about now that I realise, just sitting, watching, that I’ve made a large number of contacts while at Uni – more than I had imagined.

First impressions count, despite the cliché, and particularly so with people. There are those you meet who could slip away into the crowd and be obliterated instantly by banality. There are, on the other hand, those people you meet who you can tell instantly will be great value and valued greatly. I’ve experienced both of these extremes recently, and while I strive to remember all the names for faces I know, the “high value” people are simply exciting. They’re the kind of people you anticipate meeting again, looking forward to an undefined occasion sometime in the future which is certain to add something purely wonderful to life’s memories.

And “in closing”, something I found quite profound. If you knew you’d never see someone ever again, how would that change the way you say goodbye?

Why should a normal goodbye be any different?