Hello

Diary Entry: August 29, 2016

A peculiar incident occurred on campus today that briefly soured my mood, though upon later reflection, I conceded that everyone operates on their own time, burdened by their own preoccupations. I spotted the fellow I’d had such a wonderful time playing beer pong with just last night. He walked right past me in the hallway, failing to even utter a greeting! “Wow,” I thought, “he must be deeply lost in thought, undoubtedly already preparing for his classes!” The sheer focus and academic gravity everyone displays here is nothing short of inspiring.

I am currently still confined to the temporary dorm, biding my time until I can move into my permanent room. Yesterday afternoon, my new roommate arrived. He was a guy of South Asian descent, lugging a massive travel bag, and he simply stared at me with incredibly wide, unblinking eyes magnified behind his glasses.

Then, he unzipped his bag.

Resting right on top were a couple of transparent cellophane packages stuffed with a green, leafy substance. He gestured casually toward them.

“Do you want some?” he asked.

I stared in confusion. “What is it?”

“It’s weed,” he replied, as though mentioning the weather.

My jaw must have dropped. “You traveled with that? Into America? Wasn’t it dangerous crossing the border?”

He merely shrugged, utterly unbothered, and explained that there was no danger, as no one would ever find out. “In my country, Pakistan,” he told me, “people smoke this every day, just like a cigarette.”

Unbelievable. The absolute last thing I wanted was to kick off my LLM studies by getting high on smuggled Pakistani weed. I declined, naturally. Why on earth should I trust this guy? Still, in some twisted way, I recognized it as a gesture of goodwill.

Later that evening, we were invited to a party at the home of one of the assistant professors. On a whim, figuring he was alone and might appreciate the distraction, I asked my new roommate if he wanted to tag along. He agreed. We decided to walk — neither of us had downloaded the Uber app, and parting with ten dollars for a taxi felt wasteful. That proved to be a severe miscalculation. We walked and walked, the road seeming to stretch out into an eternal abyss. I had the location pinned on Google Maps, yet I had no real sense of the remaining distance. He kept asking, “Do we have far to go? Are we close?” and I had no reassuring answers to offer. He grew agitated; I could palpably feel his patience fraying. Finally, he simply stopped in his tracks. Announcing that he couldn’t walk another step, he turned back toward the dorm. I suspect he simply couldn’t endure the ambiguity of blindly following me through the dark to an unknown destination. Heaven only knows what was truly running through his mind.

So, I forged ahead alone.

The streets were perfectly plucked from an American movie: cobbled roads bordered by two-story houses boasting sprawling porches and balconies, with an eerie absence of fences. And the trees... wild, foreboding figures looming heavily over the sidewalks. Cast in shadow, they looked like the perfect hiding spots for a lurking maniac, ready to drag an unsuspecting wanderer into some subterranean torture chamber. A bizarre thrill shot through me. This was it — a genuine, untamed American adventure. Yoo-hoo!

I finally arrived, armed with a stash of beer and crisps. The party was already in full swing, the house brimming with young men and women. I didn’t anchor myself to any single person; instead, I floated peripherally between groups, attempting to weave myself into the ongoing conversations. The beer, at the very least, proved a reliable companion.

Yet, the undisputed main event of the evening was the beer pong tournament. As always, I threw myself into it with perhaps a bit too much fervor. I’m fairly certain my intensity grated on a few people; I could sense the slight shift in the room. Nevertheless, it turned out to be a rather good night.