There are many things on my wall. An Optus calendar, at the month of August, with a mother polar bear and her cub as the picture of the month, with birthdays written down (and there are many this month). The number for an international calling card. Postcards of scenery from home (A glorious day over Taiaroa Head, a sunrise or sunset at Key Summit, a bright winter's day at Lake Pukaki, with Mt Cook overlooking it). A card from a friend. Notes. A newspaper cutting (I'm in one of the photos, just peripherally, but vanity dictates that it should be up on my wall, because I am there). One of those Chinese texts you get over Chinese New Year, saying "Improvement in Studies". A bus timetable. Some Chinese poems to look at. A tag from a chocolate with a lovely blue ribbon. 

However, of all that, there's only 2 photos.

There are 6 people in the photo on the right. It was taken around the end of 2006, maybe? It was a Christmas greeting of sorts, because there's "Season's Greetings" on it. It's a photoshop-ed photo, as the people are in neat little boxes of their own. They're all friends from high school. We've all come so far since then. 2 are doing medicine, 1 is doing graphics. 2 are doing engineering, and the last is doing economics. 1 is in the UK, 4 of them have remained in the land of their birth. One will join me in the land down under in about a week. I remember them well, but as they were. Who are they now? For the most part, we have kept in touch over the internet: emails, msn, LJ, Facebook. And yet, over the years, I seem to have drifted from some of them. These are people who I used to hang out with at break time in high school. We'd sit together in class, some of us attended the same extra-curricular activities, we might get to sit together during assembly on Monday mornings. We wore uniforms, we'd sat in rows, we'd lined up outside our classrooms before and after class, we'd lived a life strictly regulated by rules together. We were all in the same school, and at some stages we'd shared classes. In that, we had a lot in common. We'd only been really good friends towards the last 2 years of high school but these are the friends I was closest to in high school. 7 of us, including me, but I am not in the photo. I wasn't there when the photo was taken; I got it in the post, a highly anticipated parcel. It is the one thing on my wall that is a memento of high school. I miss them, and sometimes I wonder if we will meet again.

There are 6 people in the photo on the left. It is a small photo, in a little Christmas themed frame of cardboard. It was taken at the end of 2007, after all of us had finished our Health Science First Year (HSFY) Exams. We are standing in front of St. Davids, where the monument is. It is a sunny day, and we are all smiles. I'd met a friend walking past, and he had happily obliged us by taking a group photo of us, using most of our cameras. That day was the last day all 6 of us would meet in person as a group. It's a mixed group, but all of us are in the health sciences. 4 boys, 2 girls. 2 of us left the university, to study in other places and follow our dreams. 2 of the groups are doing medicine, 2 are doing physiotherapy, 1 is doing pharmacy, and 1 is doing dentistry. 2 of us are in Australia, the rest are in New Zealand. Not all of us will graduate at the same time. The Pharmacist and the Physiotherapists will, with the usual amount of luck, graduate next year. The Dentist will graduate the year after that, and the Doctors, in 3 years. Not all of us were accepted into the courses we'd wanted, and not all of us are studying at our first choice university. Yet, I like to think we're happy with the way things have turned out. Although we've gone our separate ways, it hasn't meant the end of our friendships (and yet, there has been an end to other things). We didn't meet until the second semester of HSFY, and even then, it was a slow accumulation of friends. A chance meeting in front of the Science Library. An overheard comment, and a reaction. Being in the same Lab. Sitting in the same place for lunch. Finding out we had things in common (badminton, music, books, the course). We've kept in touch too, text messages when we're in the same country, msn, email, gtalk, skype.  This photo I received in the mail, just a little while after I arrived, as a memento of days past, and friends not forgotten. I miss them, and hope that we will meet again.

12 people, 2 photographs, 2 separate times. Photos that mean a lot to me. Things that have been, things that may be and things that may never be. These are the photos that make me smile, when all seems dark and gloomy in my small little rural town, where sometimes the world seems too small.