After lunch everybody took a trip to Sky High, a trampoline center in Santa Clara, as an alternative to our game day in the park. We got passes for two hours and believe me that those two hours were more than enough for us coders who spend more time sitting in front of a computer screen than at the gym. All that jumping around and playing dodgeball on trampolines exhausted us and our muscles sore as VT and RP would describe later in the day. Even now my back is aching and it was a burden to carry my backpack around.
Today was RP's last day at the dojo. Tomorrow he will only be at the dojo briefly before leaving to SF to be near SFO so he can catch his flight on Thursday back to Korea. VT and I wanted to give him a proper goodbye so we decided to go out with him. He expressed an interest in Oakland, a place he hasn't seen yet so after Sky High we got in my car and drove off. We parked at a BART station and walked to Lake Merritt. The last time I was in Oakland was in December 2013 as part of a weeklong school trip and on our final night my group took a walk around the lake. That memory stuck with him and I wanted to show them the lake and we got dinner at a restaurant that overlooked it. After dinner I took them on a walk around the lake as I had done back then and halfway through we stopped at a bar to split a bottle of wine. Why wine? It was the first thought that came to my head and the others were ready for anything. We continued our walk and the guys talked about their plans for life after the bootcamp. We all want to get jobs but understand that it will take time. VT talked about working in the UK, then switched to Canada, then the US, and then suggested going back to school. RP expressed an interest in returning to the US because he doesn't want to live in Korea any longer. I talked about the goals I want to achieve as well. Everybody has ambitions to be somewhere and do something with their lives but I don't think any of us have a clue on how to achieve it. I mean job hunting takes time and for the ones who want to live in the US immigration is an issue. Most of us made things up as they came along, which is how life progresses for most of us. We ended our walk in an unknown location and with another long walk back to the car that none of us wanted to take. So we called an Uber back to BART and returned to the dojo. That was the first time I used Uber and it was very efficient. Along the way we listened to 90's boy bands on Pandora so we can reminisce about our youths. VT sang to almost every song that came up while I enjoyed the pleasant nostalgic feelings in silence.
I'm back home exhausted from the day, unsure about how to say goodbye tomorrow. I think back to my German friend and how in the early years of our friendship I'd be sad whenever he'd leave to Germany. I'd act like I'd never see him again but no matter how many times he left he always came back. Saying goodbye got a lot easier each time cause I knew I'd see him again. The last time he left home was in 2012 and when we parted we hugged and I said "I'll see you around", cause our goodbyes are never permanent. I told RP and VT that we'll stay in touch after the bootcamp and I'll make an effort to visit so our goodbyes won't be permanent either. When tomorrow comes all I could do is just say "I'll see you around".
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