30 Days of Me: Day 3

“A picture of you and your friends”

There’s no one picture that truly captures the insane glory of my friends.

These pictures below are of a rare breed of people, known as MUDS-kids, who are the most amazing people I’ve ever come across. They were the first group of people that I called friends, as opposed to a few individuals who were friends and the rest were “those people I hang out with”.

A few of my beloved MUDS kids. Adams in the front. Sachan to my left, Jessi to my right and blood covered zombie me in the middle.

MUDS is the Massey University Drama Society, a performing arts group based at Massey in Palmy. While most of the members are students or alumni, it is possible for members of the public to become involved with the club.

My first show with MUDS was Vampire: Bride of the Isles in 2009.
I’d met a few of the members during the Festival of New Arts in 2008 but Vampire was my first introduction to the madmen that were going to become my family.

The show itself was a melodrama complete with ridiculous acting, stylistic mono-chromatic backdrops and stage-crew dressed as ninjas holding up the castle’s stained-glass window.

I don’t remember much of the show itself anymore, bar the boat and William’s Wig, but there was a lot of fun backstage. We sang, danced, played cards and ate enough candy to drown a bear.

Rocky Horror night. At the front are Erin and Sachan. Sofishie, Joy and myself are cavorting across the back.

We went on to do a lot of dancing, singing and card games over the next couple of years.

Most of the parties involved some kind of theme, mostly because it was such a lot of fun to spend the week before assembling our costumes. I’ve now got a suitcase and a bit clothes for dress-ups, not to mention a well honed eye for kludge.

But wait, there’s one more photo!
You see, I couldn’t find any one photo that really captured my friends.
Even two of them wasn’t going to cut it.

So here’s a photo that I took.
It makes me smile every time I see it and reminds me of home.

To me it says no matter how far you go, we’ll always be here.
It says we’ll always be behind ya, we might even be closer than you think.
Just don’t forget that you need to put the time into maintaining what we’ve got, otherwise our friendships could fall into disrepair. Letters are lovely, social media will do when you’re busy. Don’t forget to come home.

Wherever we are will always be home.

Because, cheesy as it is, home is where the heart is.

’til tomorrow
Ninja
<3