2004-03-15 at 10:42 a.m.

Warning - this entry contains an undisclosed portion of Angst*. Readers are advised that viewing this entry may induce a desire to write goth poetry and listen to Linkin Park.

"It's certainly different at the Con without you there" my piano teacher commented.

I was visiting Sydney this weekend for the second of my fortnightly piano lessons. The lesson had concluded, an occurence I was extremely grateful for, as my playing had been what could be aptly described as 'shite'. We had been discussing goings on at the Con in the moments when my teacher hadn't been fruitlessly attempting to coerce his children into going to bed.

"Different? How different?" I asked. "I guess that, without me around, it's whole lot quieter than it used to be. Though I have no doubt that certain people are compensating for my absence".

"No, not that" my teacher replied. "Just... different".

I've been missing university life a lot lately. I miss the buildings. I miss the classes. I definitely miss the caff, with their bountiful supplies of hot chips with gravy. I miss sitting in a bar and discussing the works of Mozart for several hours. God help me, I even miss practising for five or six hours a day.

But what I really, really miss is the people.

My life is kind of lonely at the moment. My friends here all have demanding jobs or university schedules, and on the occasions when I've been invited out on the town, I'm either exhausted or busy. Besides, as much as I'm fond of these people, they're not the people I've spent the last five years of my life getting drunk, debating theology, singing dirty songs and playing kazoo with.

I manage to talk to a few of my closer friends every now and then, but I miss the daily contact I used to get. I think it's just something that happens in creative arts institutions - the constant saturation of the subject matter and small course sizes mean that the students form a kind of weird surrogate family. An incredibly dysfunctional surrogate family, but a family nonetheless.

So, to any of my incredibly dysfunctional surrogate family at the Con who happen to be reading this - I'm missing you guys. For God's sake, email me or something.

Oh, and tell me why life at the Con is so different these days. I'm curious to find out what effects my absence has wrought. I'd like to think I've plunged the place into a state of full-scale anarchy, Lord of the Flies style.

But I'm not counting on it.

*Come on, guys, it's not like I do this often. Cut me some slack, okay?