Nostalgia

Yes, I know, it's been ages since I last wrote (blogged?). It's been a trifle hectic, what with my long-awaited graduation from grad school, and my parents and my sister paying me a visit here in Austin, and sheer laziness following that, I somehow never sat down to write. But a few days ago I discovered that the writing juices in me were intact, and so here I am.
Yes, I've graduated from the hallowed halls of the University of Texas at Austin. And it's still taking time to sink in. I haven't left UT cold turkey -- I enrolled for French classes over the summer, so I could keep myself busy, and also get smaller doses of UT, like a smoker winds down from a million cigarettes a day to maybe ten. The classes are only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, for 90 minutes, but I thought, hey! As long as I get to see UT, it'll be all right. Right?
Wrong. I hate UT the way it is now. It wasn't just UT that made it so precious to me -- it was my friends inhabiting it alongside me that made it what it was. I used to love sitting in TAY 5.142, technically Ruchica's office, but pretty much well-claimed by me. I think toward the end I spent more time there than she did. I used to love walking into the GRACS lounge, and checking my mail in the mailbox, and watching boys play foosball at the table, and people taking printouts, people checking mail, and people sleeping even through the din. I used to love sitting my myself in the reading room in TAY 5.110.
No more. I come now to GRACS lounge, and it looks like a ghost town. It's silent and deserted. the computer terminals are cool, the printers are in the sleep mode. The foosball table is still, with one ball lying forlornly on the table. I can almost see ghosts from the past -- people laughing, joking, playing, talking....and then the image is gone, and I'm all alone in the large room. I went to Ruchica's office today, and it seemed to be just a shell. I could almost see her and me, sitting opposite each other, watching videos on YouTube, or playing around on Facebook, and telling each other what we were doing. I could almost see the tension in the last few days as we both scrambled to complete our pending assignments, and get done with the Network Security project which we worked on together along with Vaibhav. And then I looked again, and there was nothing in the room, except for tables and chairs, and some loose papers lying around, and the chalkboard filled with Japanese, where I had practiced it after each class.
I don't like returning to these rooms when they are so empty. It feels desolate. I know it's just an illusion, and they'll be filled with life once the Fall semester starts again in August; but right now, it just feels like a ghost town, and I'm more than eager to leave. Right now, I'm sitting in the reading room, and only it feels the same, because I would often sit here alone. I've left this institution. I guess it's still taking time to sink in. And soon, there will be no trace of me having ever been here. For some reason, that disturbs me. I mean, what could I expect to do, right? But still, it hurts me that the next batch won't even have an idea that I was here. The last remaining sign of my presence is the Japanese written on the whiteboard in the reading room, and soon, at the start of the new term, that will be gone as well.
Maybe I should just say goodbye.