The first few days were spent in establishing my identity to the university, meeting new people, going to places to eat and wasting my time with my roommate. The orientation stuff was pretty straight forward. People were very helpful and not like people of my Delhi University. Well you can't be sent back India to get a document from your college. The time went through quickly that I failed to notice some subtle things like the American Girls, the cleanliness of the place and ease of use of practically anything.
Things are very different here as compared to India. You have to shop for groceries, make your own food, care about yourself and protect yourself from other nasty things. You have to wake yourself. No Mom to wake you up. I remember back in Delhi, I used wake my mother up in the middle of our sleep and tell her to wake me up early. If she did not listen in her deep sleep or forgot to wake me, I used go mad at her saying that those 2 hours could fail me in the exam. Here you can only shout at the mobile. Thing is it is rarely at fault and it won't say sorry even if it did listen to my bashing.
For any Desi it is very difficult initially to decide what to eat and what to shop. There are possibly two reasons for that. First reason is we get a completely different range of food-stuff that we had never seen in India. Second is probably the more important one, the price for 1$ is 50 rupees. Thankfully its 50 now. When I had come it was around 48 and I had a hard time doing the Maths.
There are big coffee giants here like StarBucks probably the most famous. People, at least in the Computer Science are heavily caffeinated people. My adviser might be drinking at least 2 glasses and not even cups of coffee. God, back in India drinking one cup of coffee used to give my parents a hard time in the night. Two big glasses. That's insane.
Thankfully the bus system is very pleasing. People like me who just know the spelling of driving, notice very closely everything that is good or bad the public transport. No people hanging out of the entrances or exits. We have timetables here. See your time for the bus. Leave your office accordingly. Go to the bus stand and get in. There was only one time when the bus did not come at all. But you can take one lapse in four months as okay. I do not know how many hours my mother would have spent waiting for bus.
Then there was snowfall. I had never seen snow ever. Its very tempting to seen a snowfall. The initial crush then withers off and the other aspect comes out to fore. Its bloody cold sometimes. The lowest so far that I had experienced was -6C. Trust me even if cover yourself completely, your mouth, nose and eyes get really uncomfortable. You feel like covering them also. US really the largest producer of CO2. There heating practically everywhere except the bus stand. You can compile the figures yourself.
The greatest thing about here is the existence of so many different demographic cultures. The three main categories are Desis, Chaptes and Amro. That's what we say in our Desi language. Everybody is bothered about themselves and do not care about you. Thankfully, I did not get hear anything racial up-till now. Touch Wood. For first few days I could not stand these chinese. They talk their own language and its very difficult to communicate with them even in english. God, how do they clear TOEFL.
I saw the presidential elections which was probably the most amusing experience of all. Its no different from what happens in India. Good looks and dumbness even sells here. That was in some sense a relief. The debates were to fun to see. And most impressive was the declaration of results the same day. That was quick. Another striking thing was whites voting for a black. Not that it really matters to me or you but still it tells you one thing that sometimes merit rises above everything.
Really boring uh!
That's what America is.
