"i'mfinethankyouhowareyou?"

This is the standard answer. Spoken without any breaks. Whenever I ask my students, "How are you?" The answer 90% of the time is "I'mfinethankyouhowareyou?" Followed by a giggle. Even they know how superficial it is.

In grade school, we make these promises to our friends. "BFF." "Best friends forever." We think that we really will be friends forever. Then, middle school, high school, college comes around and people move, people change, the world changes. We lose touch -- though in modern times, we think we're staying in touch through the medium of technology. Facebook, Blogspot, Gchat, Skype, etc. But nothing, nothing, nothing can ever take place of live interaction, face-to-face conversation.

There's another cute promise we used to make. We scribbled it into our yearbooks. "K.I.T." "Keep in touch." I'm terrible at this "K.I.T." business. Friends to me have been more of a convenience of location. People nearby. Once they're gone, once I'm gone, it's gone too.

But lately, I see that I've harbored naive expectations from some of my friendships. Being in a different country, I see that things just are not quite the same as when you're around the same town. Not only that, life situations change, and along with that the way people think, the way they express themselves, the way they interact, all a part of the evolution we participate in throughout our lives.

In my search for meaningful conversations, I've noticed that even people you just meet want to tell you their story -- if you're willing to listen. So even if they say "I'mfinethankyouhowareyou?" I'll do my best to read between the words and letters. To read into the tone, the voice, the face. For candid, point-blank conversation should be cherished, as there may not be many more.