Someone’s written a message on the board, a welcoming message to us-the outsiders who are now forced to be one with them, suppose it ought to make me feel better, it does not by a long shot. I think that may be I’m the only one who feels this way, but when I look around, I see no happiness. The smiles I see are bitter, some brave, most resigned. But even those are few. Most of the people look glum, some have resigned themselves to sleep, hoping it will be better them the stark reality.

But its hard to sleep in a strange place, a place hat was once familiar in another forgotten time.

Familiar strangeness. My poetry teacher would call it…

I don’t know, I have forgotten. Things I learnt in this very place are hidden from me, leaving me empty, empty…an emptiness that consumes me… and emptiness that will be filled sometime when the strange becomes familiar and the familiar strange.

A new journey has begun; am grateful for my companions

Wrote this in 2003, first day in a new class
oi, anyone reading this stuff?