Marigold

I caught up to Campbell today as everyone was leaving the exam centre.

*taps shoulder*
hey, are you Campbell?

uh, yeah

do you remember me? I'm daniel li

oh, yeah, haha. it's been like, years
*walks away*

[2013 edit: On Friday Jan 3 I had a dream; "I think I was like "hey, I haven't seen you in ages" and then everyone walked away."]



I was watching a lot of tropfest on some day in the holidays. I watched one that was called "shock" or something

I actually think I was dropped off at school by car on the first day but we can pretend that the second day was the first day
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[2013 edit: On 24 Jan I wrote: " its just that 2011 is extra significant for me because this is when i was in year 7 and my brother in year 11. this is when i am where he was.

and on the first day back at school i will be walking home from denistone the same way and the same day as 4 years ago. except this time i'll be in year 11 and i won't have a little brother who just happened to get off at the same stop.

and i plan to make a post juxtaposing the two days on that day but i probably won't be bothered so i'm just telling you about that idea now if it doesn't take flight"]

*****

I remember my mum was walking me to the 629 (739) bus stop, which, we had no idea where it was. "oh, those boys are from your school"

She was referring to andrew tsui and matthew wong, who were standing near where the elevators are now. There were no elevators back then. She asks them stuff about where the bus is, and I think that the bus is late or something so they go across to the other side of the train station to catch the 2014, in front of the post office.


I walk there today to see a crowd of baulko students blocking the path. 2047 is filling up and leaving. I see a lot of people who I recognise. 4 years ago I was a few yards that way, planning to catch the 629.



I don't remember much about peer support except that matthew kan was in my group and we were kind of friends, until peer support became less frequent. I remember one of them knew my brother, and when someone asked him something about a deck of cards he was like "i decked ya mum's cards!". role model. There was one peer support leader who actually remembered me, and rememeberd my name, and waved and said hi to me and ask how's school and all of that, whenever she saw me in the playground. I would always say hi back and answer the questions. I didn't know her name. She was dark-skinned and I wonder how she's doing now.


I was crying inside about ten times today. Madelyn is in my chemistry class. Crystal is in 3 of my classes and I feel a bit sorry for her because she always has to say "here; I prefer to be called Crystal". No one talks in classes.



I don't remember if it was this hot in the afternoon, but I remember they were going through the buses in peer support and told me to catch the 2577. They probably didn't notice the 2677. We caught the 2577. It was pretty much empty except for us (and I can't remember who us is) but there was one senior girl who sat there calmly. Everyone else we knew caught the 2677.



we caught the 2577 when it eventually came. it was packed and i was standing up.




we get off the 2577 and there's the old train station. There's a corner shop there where I never bought anything, and there aren't any ticket checking machines, which I think were retracted under the floor or something, and there's a staircase either left or right and we go right. I think it's only Jason and I. Everyone else who had caught the 26 had caught the train missed, and we wait 20 minutes for the train. I think it's delayed by 5. I eat some grapes which were meant to be lunch.

Catch train. I get off at denistone.


We almost miss it. We're in this carriage. They're in the carriage next to us, but they don't know that. Everyone gets off at eastwood. Some strangers get on at eastwood. One of them, a young woman is on the phone sitting directly opposite of me, and she's talking about something. I think it's something about one of her friends who doesn't have a nice boyfriend and the only quote I can remember is "and he said "get the **** out of the room""

I can see davy there in the carriage which everyone else took. I get off at denistone.



I'm there at denistone. I see my brother get off which is a surprise to me. He's with one of his friends who happens to be white. I don't remember much about what happens. The stairs at denistone are hollow, and they wobble and make a metallic thud when you walk up. It scared me a bit. My brother's friend turns left and left to go home. We turn left and then right. We go through the forest which is called "washington lane" or "washington walkway" or something like that. To me it's known as "zhizhu park" or "spider park". I don't know what happens when we walk through but once we cross chatham road and start walking uphill my brother asks me something like "did you enjoy your first day of school?"

"yeah"

he seemed a bit surprised.



I get off at denistone. There's this kid who also gets off from my carriage and I think he's wearing the eastwood public school sport uniform. I'm not sure. It was a white top. Well anyway he's walking in front of me because I don't walk that fast while eating. He turns left. I turn left. He turns right. I turn right. Every ten seconds or so he's glancing behind himself at me. As we near the forest he starts running for about 20 seconds, to get a safe distance away from me.

I don't like walking through the forest that much, at all. If you look left or right, there's going to be a huge spider web half of the time. I never look up. The scariest thing is when the spider is above you. It isn't that long, only 100 metres or so. Near the end it starts becoming tall fences which you can't see through, because people's houses are on the other side. There used to be a dog there which would always growl really loudly and startle me, a lot. Every time I walked past I would brace myself and get ready for the sudden growling and barking. It usually didn't work. It still scared the hell out of me when the dog barked, even though I knew it was there.

I've walked past there a few times recently and the dog has never been there. Maybe he/she died, or was put down, or was forced to live somewhere else because he/she was always barking. It made me really sad to think about that.

I cross chatham road. The other kid doesn't cross chatham road. At least I won't be creeping him out anymore. This part of the road which was perfectly fine before has been newly paved with pitch-black-coloured ashphelt. not only does it look terrible, it also absorbs all of the heat. There's a lot of heat.

There isn't much shade walking up the hill, and I'm using my hand, my arm to cover my face. It doesn't always work. When there's a fence there, I walk right next to it and half-crouch walk to stay in the shade.

My cat is waiting, stretched out in the shade when I get home. I open the door. She's still lying there. Okay. I walk through the door