All good things come to an end. That is a phrase that is brought out as a way of trying to deal with (and explain) the sadness/disappointment that we feel when a good thing actually does come to an end. The thing is that is brought out far too often, to the extent that I'm not sure that a lot of people know what a 'good thing' is anymore. Thankfully I think I found out over the last couple of weeks.
The summer school that I attended was the good thing that recently came to an end - something that I am bound to lament for some time to come. Not only was it an enlightening and rigorous academic experience, it was also a great experience socially as well. For those that know me reasonably well you might be shocked about the latter so I should explain.
It was only a few days into the summer school and I had superficially met loads of people but not really found myself chatting with anyone - sounds familiar for this particular author. Then I started to spend more time with a handful of people from other countries around Europe and suddenly found myself chatting to them - suffice to say I was as surprised as my friends undoubtedly were.
I should probably explain for those who have not yet realised what I'm getting at. I'm not a particularly outgoing character: quiet bordering on shy I would say sums it up well. This was even picked up on by people who had only known me for ten minutes. Such a conclusion would have bothered me a couple of years ago but now I'm not all that fussed about that assessment, especially since it's right on the mark. I almost had to laugh when somebody said it to me.
The best thing about this chatting that I did, aside from the fact that's it's something of a new experience for me with regards to complete strangers, was that I realised that if you have something in common with someone then it just comes naturally. For ages I thought that I had to learn how to talk to people and that if I could find the right words to say then everything would be great. However, as with a lot of things in my life, I was over-thinking. I'll give you an example to illustrate.
We were out with people from the summer school in the Irish bar that we adopted as our local for the time that we were in Salzburg. I was chatting away with my fellow Scots and exchanged a few introductory remarks with some of the other students. Then a German girl, who wasn't from the summer school, came and sat next to us after realising we were from Scotland - I gather she met the Scottish girls in the toilet after hearing their accent. Anyway, the two of us got talking and it turned our she had stayed in Scotland for a while. BOOM! A shared experience and the chat flowed from there. More importantly, I didn't feel uncomfortable at all which gave me a real shot in the arm.
Thankfully this was not an isolated experience over the course of the two weeks and I got to know a few more people quite well, hopefully to the extent that we may be friends after the dust has settled when we all get home. To return to how I started this post, all good things (such as summer schools) come to an end but hopefully new friendships won't.
Thanks for reading. I'll probably be writing about my time away for a while to come but that's just evidence of what a great experience it has been for me.
Martin.
