Bubbles

I came across this funny + bizarre picture when searching for bubble images. It was the kind of thing that needed to be shared, regardless of the purpose of this post.
I was waiting for the bus today, after a stressful day at uni, getting a history essay finished off. The bus stop, just across the road from the university buildings was the perfect place to think thoughtful thoughts.
I was tired. I'd stayed up into the wee sma's, working on the essay, and had just dropped it into the 'history' box in the history department. It's always a relief to get rid of essays, but the actual drop-off is quite anti-climatical. After so much agonized thought and late nights and *dratted* references and editings and re-editings etc. there should really be a drum roll when you drop it off.
Nothing happened when my essay fell into the basket. I had to just leave it there and walk out of the building.
I digress. The air was chilly, the trees on the Uni side of the road were networks of spartan branches, their leaves half buried in the mud beneath them. The cars approached, came nearer, whizzed by me and rushed away. The sound was remarkably similar to waves on a beach - I closed my eyes and half-imagined I was at the seaside.
It almost worked, until in the corner of my eye I saw a cyclist laboriously cycling along, with a noise that I quickly imagined sounded a little like a whale. That really stretched my imagination.
There were people around - something not unusual for a bus stop - with their hands in their pockets. Just standing or sitting, waiting for the buses. Their faces were expressionless, a mask for their insular thoughts. Nobody talked, even though we all shared a connection with each other - being uni students and waiting for a bus.
Usually I take it for granted that people don't speak to each other if they don't know each other. It can be a strange concept when you think about it though. Why is it that we feel that speaking naturally to someone we don't know is an incredibly intrusive thing to do? We always have to have a reason for speaking to them when we do go out of our way to do it.

It felt like we were all in silent bubble-lives, everyone living in isolation in their own little lives.
That's something we know is true already, but when you're with a group of silent, preoccupied people you feel the impact of it. The bubles sometimes merge with other bubbles - it feels so lovely when, by providence you meet a friend at uni. Then your bubble-like life stops for a little while until the friend leaves you and you're back in the bubble.
*train of thought ends*
I just love these bubble pictures. Look at this one..

They're so perfect, but they're lonely to live inside.
Thoughts?

- Lydie