Metanoia

Chapter 1: I Feel My Spirit Lifted

You lift my heart up.

Sam Smith

CHAPTER 1

"Here we go," Gulf exhaled, feeling mostly excitement in a cocktail of emotions – giddiness, anxiety, fear - when one was about to start a new chapter in life.

Chulalongkorn University.

Even now he couldn't believe that he managed to get in! Chula was the top university in his country and how he was accepted was something entirely profound. Maybe in his previous life, he accumulated enough karma that the deities decided to reward him with his dream university. He was nervous and he knew no one. His mother decided to send him off and he waved bye to her from the steps of his faculty building.

Inhaling deeply as to calm his nerves, Gulf fixed his already straight tie and ran his clammy hands over his white shirt. His uniform was perfectly ironed, tailored to his body and his shoes shined. The time said 7.34 a.m. Perfect. Ample amount of time before the class was due to start. He fingered his bead bracelet, over his initials 'T. Kana', in which Kana was spelled in Thai. He bought it sometime ago and he had never left the house without it. His best friend suggested the name, since there wasn't a lot of space, and Gulf liked it - not minding at all that Kana sounded like a feminine version of his given name.

Today was his first class. As an official student in the Department of Language, Education and Technology, the Faculty of Humanities and Social Studies. That was a mouthful.

Amazed still with everything, Gulf took a seat closest to a wall but one that wouldn't hinder his view of the front of the class or of the projector screen. He was a bit amused with the seats, they reminded him of cinema seats. The long tables were nice too since that meant less chance of his things falling off. The 19-year-old took out his fresh notebook and a pen, one still usable, as were most of the things in his pencil case. It was his high school's stationery. He didn't get the idea of getting new 'everything' once you started a new level of education. If things worked just fine, why bother replacing them? That was just a waste of money. And where would people put those replaced things then?

People were entering the class in groups or alone. Scattered all over the classroom, some quietly in their seats just waiting for the class to start like him while others were chatting about in groups. Those must have had known each other for sometime, perhaps people who got into Chula from the same high school. That's nice. All of Gulf's friends were in different faculties – Business and Economics, Engineering, Professional Media etc.

As Gulf was more comfortable in being in his lonesome, he wasn't at all worried about making friends. He was told that despite his sharp features that most people would find unapproachable, he was rather polite and easy to talk to that people would just flock to him.

"It's your voice and smile, pheun. And you're very easy to hang out with," Lang, one of his close friends, said once. Which was true. And Gulf had a tendency to go along and blend in well with whatever it was in his social interactions. Another friend told him that he had an unassuming beauty to him that people were attracted to naturally. Whatever that meant, Gulf just shyly said his thanks.

A girl sat next to him, a folded seat separating them. They glanced at each other and exchanged a small greeting. Her hair was short, wavy light brown locks that were likely natural given how distinctly Eurasian her facial features were. She didn't seem to care much for cosmetics; her face free of any makeup showing some smattering freckles. The humid Thai weather must've been the cause of her naturally blushed cheeks. It was nice that their lecture hall was air-conditioned. Small mercies.