Moving at a Standstill CHAYANGI KANNANGARA Migration is, in its key concept, an act of moving away— be it for better opportunities or to greener pastures. For someone who has never moved away from her tiny island paradise for the last 24 years and was in the same school for 13 and a half years, some would say I was a bit too comfortable. Not that I had the most peaceful life, but it was comfortable. I never really fit into one set of friends; I always felt like I belonged wherever or whoever I was with. I thought I could, hypothetically, do well with change because I had not experienced real change before.
came the romance part. I was not actively looking for love, but I was more than curious to experience a “proper relationship,” i.e., simply to experience having a boyfriend. I had started talking to a mutual friend of a close friend of mine, a boy who seemed nice enough at the onset. After about a month of talking, he confessed he liked me and he asked me out. I thought, Okay he makes me smile and I enjoy talking to him, so I must like him. So, I said yes. I had a boyfriend. This moment of migration was turning out to be splendid! Or so I thought.
In January of 2013, I changed schools. It was a new start, something different to look forward to. After being in an All Girls’ Convent School, moving to an international school was a major change. It was not the fact that it was a co-ed school or the curriculum that bothered me, but it was the culture change. Naïvely, I thought, Sure, it may be slightly different but essentially most of them would be Sri Lankans. I would have to adapt but it could not be that bad.
Come September 2013, I was in a new classroom with different classmates, but I had a consolation. One of my best friends decided to change schools and luckily, we were in the same class. Proudly I told her, “I made a set of friends, they are amazing people. They’re going to love you and it’s going to be a blast!” How terribly mistaken I was.
My sweet 16-year-old self was excited by the prospect of making new friends, meeting new people, and maybe even a cute boy. Out of a class of 20 students, I made friends with 18 of them. I got along well, I thought, YES! I have found my clique, the support system to help make this new change a pleasant one. So, friends were sorted. Next
Everything in life is a rat-race. Schools are probably where it’s the worst. The struggle of constantly being under parental pressure to do better and to be at the top of the class while navigating turbulent waters of teenage emotions is a situation we are all too familiar with. But this new school offered a heightened rat-race of its own and I was finishing last all the time. The new set of friends I made changed into
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