I am rapidly running out of three things that every college student needs: toothpaste, laundry detergent, and hard drive space. I also need an allen wrench to mod my scooters and more ethernet cables. Many many more.
So I’m going home on Sunday morning and staying until Tuesday. For some reason, Purdue transplanted the first two days of Thanksgiving break into October.
Don’t worry, I’m not going alone. My friend, “Larry”, is going up with me. He and his circle of international student friends are going up to Chicago to do the whole “tourist” thing. Since all my white friends went home by dinnertime Friday, I ate with Larry and his friends. To say it was awkward would have been unnecessary. You probably felt a wave of awkwardness pervading your being from across the state. It was like sitting at a table of eight ‘me’s. Everyone was quiet and didn’t make eye contact. I don’t blame them. I can relate. I mean, what else could they have done? I don’t exactly fit in with them. I stood out. Here’s a sample of conversation.
Larry: ????????????????谢谢???????
George: ????谢谢?????????? tennis ???????谢谢!
Cicy and Hannah (in unison): 谢谢??? wheel ???!
So I was a little lost because I only know one word of Mandarin. But they were nice. Larry tried to find us topics of conversation but we had a little trouble sustaining any.
I figure that it’s better to be awkward early than to be awkward on the 3.5 hour train trip. We leave on the daily Amtrak to Chicago at 8:00AM Sunday (Saturday’s train has been booked for months) and arrive at Union where the Metra station is just a short power walk away.
I stay just long enough to see some old friends, return stolen goods, steal some more goods, and upstage Cassidy. There’s also some dentist and medical related stuff on Monday at 1:00 and Tuesday at 11:00. The rest of the time, I’m free to see old friends/go clubbing/back up my hard drive.
your top thing caught my eye right away, remember ink
and by thing i mean paragraph