Oh, hey. What's up, General Discussion.

I haven't seen you in awhile. How's the family? That's great. Are you keeping up with your diet? It's important to exercise restraint and moderation on your life, you know. Have you been travelling at all?

Have you ever come back to a place - say high school, or a neighbourhood you lived in a few years ago, or whatever - to find out it hasn't changed? Did that ever bother you? It kinda bothers me, I mean... life moves on. On the other hand, too much change throws you. Who wants to go back to their childhood home to find out it's a fucking dump now? Or you see your best friend, haven't spoken to him in ages, now he's some crazy fundie or some shit. What do you even say when he starts proletyzing to you?

Tell me about times you have revisited your past and was displeased with the results. Or happy, whatever. I won't judge.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

There's only so many changes that has happened since I left my neighborhood for college, but the changes that did happen I didn't take kindly to. Most significant was the rampant commercial development that happened along the roads. The numerous stripmalls and traffic, including one area across from my high school was something I can't get adjusted to. Otherwise, things were the way I left it.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Last year I cycled down to my old school to see what was happening and to check if it had improved. It hadn't. It's still run by the total asshole headmaster and it's unnecessarily oppressive.

Oh, and a few days ago I talked to my father for the first time in god knows how long. He didn't apologise for any of the shit he'd caused me and asked me the usual banal questions he's plagued me with in the past (what are you reading? How's school? What are your grades?). Hell, for all I know a year couldn't have even passed.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I remember going back to my primary school about 4 years after I left, and it'd changed so much. That really annoyed me; they'd built on the field where me and my friends used to play, pulled down some old classrooms, got new teachers in and worst of all, the yard had a new play area with monkey bars and stuff like that. Those lucky bastards; we had to make do with a bunch of bushes and a big oak tree =(. Change has to happen but sometimes you just wish it wouldn't =/.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

What annoys me is how they go about trying to improve my old school. Yes, let's try to pass something to get funds for repairing the poor, crumbling elementary school AND build a NEW FOOT BALL FIELD! The general public will LOVE THAT!

Needless to say it didn't pass.

On the other hand, I got to visit my old elementary school this past year and found out that the cafeteria/gym/auditorium now has a ROCK CLIMBING WALL.

I felt cheated.

As for people I knew... eh, it's surreal to hear about them getting married and/or having kids now. Makes me feel old. But I'm fairly neutral to all that.

I was speaking idiomatically.

My hometown is pretty much the same except for varying degrees of housing construction going on inside city limits. Everytime I go back home, it freaks me out how everything manages to stay the same but changes at the same time.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

My elementary school(s) the last time i visited was just about the same really. Although they put in quite a few new buildings as well as a new paint job and the playgrounds looked a lot nicer. My other elementary didn't change the slighest from the last time I was there. It was just the same old same old. I was a tad bit disappointed that there was so little change, but I guess some changes in life just don't come.

FELIPE NO

Most everything about my hometown in California is the same as it was two years ago, except there are a lot more housing projects on the outskirsts and new shopping centers in town. What struck me the worst was my local coffeehouse's environs. It used to be a lone Starbucks with a Blockbusters attached to it and dirt lots everywhere else. Now it's all local businesses and crowded as fuck. My one spot for relaxation is now ruined completely.

The worst possible time I saw a terrible childhood spot ruined was my father's home he grew up in. It was a typical nuclear family neighborhood by all accounts back in the 60s and 70s, but he left after high school for the military and his parents retired in the late 80s to another city. Just before we moved away, he drove by to see how it was doing since he hadn't actually seen the house in several years. We drove down the street and stopped in front of it, and there were literally five or six thuggish mexicans hanging around the porch with the lawn and everything in shambles. The rest of the houses were in equally poor condition. He didn't say anything as we left, but I could tell he was torn up about it.

Yeah, pretty much all the places I used to hang out at are getting screwed by the day, so memories of them will just have to do.

How ya doing, buddy?

I visited my elementary school again when I was a senior in high school because of a tutoring program I was part of. The group of tutors that visited included a few classmates I knew from elementary school, so it was a bit odd to walk by the playground and visit the old classrooms with them again. At one point, one of my classmates and I visited our sixth grade teacher. She was located in a different room and I was surprised to see how small the desks looked. My old teacher greeted us, but I wasn't convinced that she completely remembered who we were.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I still check out my elementary school often, since I go there for mass just about every Sunday. The place is pretty much the same, with the exception of many changes to the staff and some classroom moves. My eighth (holy crap I had trouble spelling 8th, I don't even know if that's right) grade teacher is still there, and just recently my third grade teacher came back to the school.

And I've been back to my high school a few times when I was in college, either to visit past teachers, watch plays, other events my brother may be involved with (since he goes there now) like band concerts (plus I was in the band too). Good times. It's nice to go back there no because for more than half my time there, a lot of the school was under renovation. By the time my brother started going there, I think it was completed, for the most part. It's like a crazy rich-boy school now. It's nice. But they did get rid of a lot of places on the campus that I had memories in.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I go past my old elementary school whenever I visit one of my friends.

They added some outdoor classes and they got a new playground (we had to make due with a crappy, breaking down one). The kids don't play kickball (and apparently aren't allowed to play dodgeball), but just run around the playground all day.

Oh, and pretty much all the teachers I had are gone, which is really depressing to me, but life moves on.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.