I will be leaving for Manchester today and somehow I am feeling a little sad and happy at the same time. I feel happy because I will be seeing some friends of mine really soon, friends I've met in Manchester and too because it is my final year of college. Sad because I am leaving so much familiarity behind, my loving parents, my lovely relatives especially my aunties and my cousins whom I am close to, my best friend and my chummy friends. So much I've accumulated over the years.

That being said, you must too wonder, what about the relationships I have built over at Manchester? Well of course, those are important too, in fact some of these friendships hold a very dear place in my heart because of all the trials and tribulations we went through together. I often wonder to myself, what is it about people that makes me want to remain great friends with them and what is it about me that people see in me that they like so much so that they want to save a place for me in their heart.

Is it the common interests we share? Is it the things you experience with someone? Is it the things you've done for people and vice versa? Or is it the storms you guys weathered together as friends? I think all of the above plays a part. I believe I am a very sincere person when it comes to friendships and I believe sincerity can be felt. Of course there are plenty of plastics around you and they can most certainly pretend to be your friend and do lots of things for you on a very superficial level but what comes from the heart, comes from the heart and time will always tell what kind of person you really are and hence the friendships you and I made with these plastics will not last at the end of the day.

When it comes to friendship in general, both men and women have different way of classification. To men, there's only two types of friends, the male ones and the female ones and from those two main branches you may derive a further subset of best friend for the former and girlfriend for the latter. For women, things are a lot more complicated, (by no means am I trying to say men are simple minded creatures, no they are not) we have a hierarchy system when it comes to friends, at least for some of my female friends and myself, we advocate that. Just take me for example, I have about 7 types of friends, best friend, great chummy friends, friends, 7-11 convenient friends, hi and bye friends and acquaintances.

I award each of the different individuals a different classification and of course different ratings as well, some friends can fall under the friends category and have ratings of about 4 stars out of 5 and as years go by, I either give them more stars or just take away the stars depending on the circumstances and what has happened between us. Yes, dynamics between people changes all the time, sometimes I feel sad that A couldn't be my great chummy friend no more and sometimes I feel happy that B has upgraded from my 7-11 friends category to the friends category.

I often wonder if there is such system in place for my friends and if there is, have I been gaining more stars as time goes by or have I been losing the stars which I once had. I guess there is no clear cut answer as to that, you can't possibly ask your friends if they actually like you as much as before or not because half the time people can never be honest when it comes to such stuff, especially for people who tries to be everyone's best friend. Perhaps a better gauge is your instincts. Whatever your heart tells you is probably right.

That leads me to the next question of, what do we do next when we feel that certain friends of ours are no longer treating us as their great friend like before? Do we try to fix the relationship? or do we move on to other bigger things and perhaps other people?

Over the years, I've gained and at the same time lost quite a fair bit of friends and the losing part is especially hard for me, especially when those friends of mine are particularly dear to me. I am not so much a believer of fixing friendships that has gone bad but I am a believer in moving on. Sometimes, miraculously, I manage to befriend those people I've once lost and that is truly to me, a blessing. Sometimes people stop being friends with one another because things have gone awfully awkward between them, or sometimes people are not whom they really were when they first befriended you, and of course there are also people who stopped befriending one another because of the rumours spread around about them and so many other reasons.

When it comes to judging people, I am no expert, I have my moments of uncertainty, moments of doubts and moments of disappointment but these are only fleeting moments. Once I doubted a person who is now a pretty close friend of mine and I felt so bad doubting her when she is the one that I should trust more than anyone else and till today, I still feel guilty towards this close buddy of mine so please don't assume it is easy for me, it never is and never will be. But the beauty of such mistakes made is that, I understand the importance of trusting not just your guts but too the person whom you actually know. Sometimes hearing from others corrupts our minds but that does not mean we have to stop thinking for ourselves and see if that person is truly that sort of person whom people claim he/she is. There is really no short cut when it comes to befriending, trusting and knowing somebody. There's really none.

So many times, so many things I've said and done, so many how I wished I could have done things in a better way. All of those are really useless. Once you've doubted someone you are just plain guilty, there's no appeal that will acquits you of the charge. Ultimately it is all about how well you know somebody as a person and how much you trust that person that earns that person a place in your heart and I've always believed in that just that sometimes applying it is hard. But hey what a great summer, I finally sorted my thoughts out properly and well at least all that bumming around made me spring clean my heart and relationships with people and well you can be sure to know that I'll always be the person you know me by and you'll always be the same person I've known you as and I'll trust you just the way I've always have unless something disastrous happened, which is quite unlikely, isn't it?