One year later...

The first thing I felt after landing in the US – sleepy.

My friend and I had a comfortable flight, but still were groggy eyed, and we had to wait for sometime for the seniors to arrive for our “pick-up”. We tried calling them using the public phones at the airport, fumbling with coins, trying to decipher quarters and dimes! It’s been exactly one year since that day, and now we find ourselves planning pick-ups for the Fall entrants this year!

Roles change here, and quickly - The reserved newcomer in August, the settler for the next couple of months, the inquisitive traveler, the laptop-addict (read Youtube in my case), the cricket-player, the laundry-boy(girl), the amateur cook and of course the student, for the rest of the year. Life’s been good, I should say, coming to a new country amongst new people, with not-so-many desis, so to speak. I live in Amherst, a small town in Western Massachusetts and go to Grad school at the University of Massachusetts here. The early mini-struggle for jobs, choosing courses for the Fall, getting a social security number, a cell-phone, an internet connection and a few more things – take up time, almost one semester, but at the end you feel good about having settled down well!

In the next few months at Amherst, I found several things amusing – people run a lot, on the roads with a music player and a beverage; most of them help you find your way if you are lost, and very politely; some of them will make a mockery of your name (most make one of mine!), the police cars, ambulances and LOUD fire engines try to scare you off, bus drivers wave at each other, cars stop for you if you are a pedestrian crossing the road(though, this almost never happens in the cities here!), students skate-board their way onto campus (sometimes right into class!), every food item has lettuce, tomato and cheese in it, and most importantly one will not find a single public toilet in case of an emergency!

What you might possibly find is, few Indian students trying too hard to make an impression – most commonly this means trying the accent but making it very obvious, criticizing India (this gets them a bashing, of course), trying to roller skate (but without practice, we know what can happen), changing voice mail messages on their phone every week with an accent that gets heavier with time! You will definitely find a couple of such specimen, but my friends and I just have a good laugh at their expense.

The biggest change one feels is that you have to do all your work yourself - Shopping for groceries, converting pounds to kilos and gallons to liters, long queues, dividing the shopping list amongst your roomies and finishing up quickly to get the bus back home on time(get a car!); washing utensils; cleaning your room, and the kitchen (the frequency varies drastically from house to house); ironing your clothes; cooking by guess-work(for the newbies, turns out alright, don’t worry) and other chores.

Seriously speaking, you just have to make sure you are doing things right, like paper work at the University administration offices, your taxes and legal stuff, and of course not getting on the wrong side of the law. Look for a house online before you arrive so that you don’t spend a lot of time here and staying at other places for too long. I would also suggest that newcomers share apartments with themselves, as it just helps each other to get along better. Just an opinion.

All in all, I would just say – the key is to find like-minded people to stay and interact with, go out and explore new places, talk to people and just be yourself.

You’re all set! (I bet you’ll hear this phrase time and again).

Welcome to USA !

Hello Mr. Hedge!
One of the many strange things that happened to me upon coming to the USA - my last name being pronounced Hedge. Isn't is easy to say - 'heh-gh-dey'. I was taken aback, almost laughing at the other person, thinking "Is it really that hard ?? !!". How does one manage to interchange the 'g' and the 'd' when it is'nt written that way? Nevertheless, they're nice enough to say 'Oh ! Its two syllables!! I'm sorry !", when I correct them. But my friends enjoy this the most :)

Helping pick up truck
Like most new students here, we set out hunting for stuff to furnish our apartment - mattresses, couch, closets, lamps etc. After a few days of collecting bits and pieces, we hit a jackpot. A really nice study table with several shelves - was an amazing find, a bit too heavy though. Not a big deal for four guys we thought, but 10 steps and we were spent :P
We caught our breath, and were about to start over when this pick up truck with a couple in it offered to give us a ride. We were amazed - helping strangers was not something city-bred people are used to, for obvious reasons. But I guess its something really nice that small towns like Amherst have'nt lost yet. So we loaded the treasure on the truck, and jogged along till the apartment. Said our goodbyes and thank yous to the gentleman. The next hurdle was to get it into the apartment, and we somehow managed to hurl it in without damage :)
Nice feeling at the end of the day!

Friendly directions
Recently, we were looking for a new apartment close to Amherst Center. We found a nice one on Craig's list and decided to have a look. We took Route 30, and got down at the Main Street bus stop (the one near Amherst groceries), and started walking further hunting for Spaulding Street. After a long walk and not finding it, we took a turn into a road hoping it would be the right one. But we didn't find number 40 on it. Right there, on our left, there stood an old man with a long beard mending the plants in his house. I went in and hesitantly asked, hoping he wouldn't get annoyed, "Can you please tell me where Spaulding St is ?". He came towards me with the spade, and I moved back a bit. Then, slowly he said, "This one is Gray, next is High, then comes North Whitney, and then you have Spaulding. So it's a little further way!". I was surprised - it was the most polite reply I've got :). Amherst has some really nice and affectionate people. They'll go out of their way to help you. And about the house, it turned out to be nice, so we'll think about it !


More of these to come...