People who know me know that I know a lot of people. I know that knowing people does not always imply that you are friends, so knowing who your friends are is important. I probably knew this before I got here but in the endless amounts of paperwork, I forgot to know what I already knew. Defining yourself is not only knowing yourself but knowing who knows you and acknowledge you.

But enough with the wordplays. What I mean is, that I had actually totally forgotten for a moment the importance of meeting people, interacting and… being a human being. Fortunately, others have somehow been able to communicate with me despite the thousands of weird issues going on in my head. I know them all, I remember their faces, I just can’t remember their names (in fact a huge problem for me. I have always had a very good visual memory but not a very good dictionary memory… yep, I just made up that word :-) ).

Still, some of the names seem to stick. But is it because of an easy sounding name (with +70% of the international students being Asian, an easy name is very nice), a good looking female, a charming personality or an actual upcoming friendship. I cannot say. But I find it very interesting.

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The usual socializing process for me is probably the same as with everyone else. You meet, introduce yourself and talk about very basic topics. With some people, that’s it. With others, you dig a little deeper but do one really get under the skin? Now, here comes the part of a relation that possibly begins forming a friendship. Because when people do get under my skin and find out who I really am, my bad sense of humor, my sometimes very direct way of saying things and my strange philosophical nature (I think a lot about everything. Too much… way too much) some run away and some stay.

Am I different from everyone else? In some ways yeah, but we are all different and (in my opinion) little freaks of our own. Some persons hide their freak, I do not. And if a person acknowledges that freak — knows how to know me — then that person is what I would call a friend.

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Wait… “For a minute there, I lost myself”. Sorry, my thoughts just flew away. The main point of this post was actually just to say that I am glad I met people. And I hope I continue to do so. Below, I have included some photos (the ones I have) of a few of the people I have met during my first week in Eugene. Click on picture for description.