Been living so long with my pictures of you

I just got back from doing a piece of post-flood school activities. SMA 8 is one of those damaged schools, so we went to its temporary learning place, a Diklat building in Kuningan. I went into one of the classrooms with the cameraman, and while he was busy recording, I stood in the back of the class, observing.

The room was still full of students (well, it's SMA 8 after all--they solve math problems religiously), doing all kinds of stuff. It was during math, and the teacher was trying to explain something about deret geometri while some of the students played with their cell phones, talked quietly to each other, and threw banters at their friends frequently (as it is rare for them to find a TV crew in their class).

That situation reminds me of my high school days. The seats in SMA 8's classroom were divided into four-seats-a-row, and I saw most rows were occupied by girls. I started to imagine four different high school girls talking excitedly while taking notes during a lesson, and I was one of them. Then after class, we would sit together near the stairs where I interviewed a girl today, and we would gossip about anything.

After that, comes the high school graduation. Even though almost all the students are scattered all over the world to continue with their lives, we would still be in the same town, feeling lucky because we live just a few minutes away from each other. Regularly, we would go out to eat, watch a movie, sing our asses off in karaoke rooms, drink cups and cups of coffee, or even just to eat ice creams when the weather (or one of our heads) gets hot.

Over fried chickens, escargot, hot tea, cocktails and anything in between, we would talk for hours. We would ask, "Terus ada cerita apa niii..." as a cue for another person to start the next sentence with "masa ya katanya..." We would doodle in our book about our current states, our dreams from making the best parties to future business plan, our little matchmaking game, to our absurd drawings of this and that.

During all that, we would take pictures. We would use all our recording gadgets--digital cameras, cell phones, even a mini DV camera. I always thought, get as many pictures as we can, because that was the only way to memorize the days, years later. Those footages were even useful for my Multimedia class project.

These days, those pictures and movie clips are the only way I can see us together again.