It's in the rain

It's thundering and flashing outside. There's something magical about spending a cold, dark night at home, listening to soft music and the raindrops hit the window.

End of another week at uni. The last couple of days have been long and tiring, so much so I sometimes could hardly keep open during lectures. It's a common disease which plagues students on days just before deadline days. The symptoms are nausea, students with swollen and crusty eyes clutching dearly onto cups of coffee in the corridors, and an obvious decline in attendance. Some friends of mine scared themselves when the image in the mirror looked back.

The lecturer was obviously not pleased this morning when the lecture hall was half full (or half empty). He said he'll start 'cracking down' on people who don't show up and start taking the register every lecture. Our course guideline clearly said that I'm supposed to be doing a masters, but I felt like I was back in high school again.

One paper handed in, and another doled out. "Research never stops", the lecturer added. Due in less than three weeks, and one day before mid-term a mid-term test. We shivered and wondered how we're going to manage through this one. Some people joked that we head straight back into the library after class today.... but all we wanted was to sit in a cafe outside, celebrate by clinking our coffee cups and beer glasses together, and make-believe that the worst is now behind us...for the time being.

Maybe it's the tiredness talking, or halucinations from lack of sleep, but I could swear I received some very mixed signals today. Sitting next to the guy today I felt him brush against my shoulder and arm a couple of times. I brushed aside the brief contact between us as nothing more than unintended accidents. I mean it was pretty cramped being stuck in the middle of a row of seats in a lecture hall with not much space to move in, let alone take notes. He had this habit of leaning over toward me when jotting down notes. I would sometimes look up and admire the fine hairs on the back of his neck and sniff at his hair, then look down again pretending that I was busy writing. When in factfor a split second my mind would wander, and wonder what it all may mean... Accident, I'm sure. But then again, there was no contact between the girl sitting on my other side throughout the two hour lecture.

Then at one point, somewhere after we had just covered how a breach by a state of an international obligation leads to an ensuing responsibility, he tapped me on the arm. I turned to him and he pointed to his notes. He had doodled something between the lines. I raised my eyebrows and looked at him curiously when I realised what. It was a heart, with a cupid's arrow through it. My mind went wild, and scared at the same time, at the unlikely surrealness of it all.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.
Pointing to the two concepts of 'breach' and 'state responsibility' he smiled and said: "You know, just that these two love each other."

Maybe just coincidence, some twisted way of life and accidents trying to toy with, taunt and tease me and my hopes, but a boy could dream. And I often do.