Next few days

Thus after looking at the house, we agreed to sign the lease for a year. The contract is $475 per month and early vacating would result in penalty of $900. The contract would cover furnishing including microwave. After finishing the formalities we went to do the shopping! After all it was like setting up a new home! This was the first such experience for me as I have never been in a hostel.

I remember buying things like dust-bin, pillows, broom, cleaner, detergent powder, oil and what not! I would not say that the experience was exciting because it really was not! But anyway, it had to be done. Gone were the days when I used to enjoy the freedom from going to any grocery store or a mall back in India. Now it had to be done and done by myself. Thus it was a unique experience of shopping for my own house. We finally moved into the Crossroad Apt. that day only and started arranging things.

The memorable experience on the first day in the new house was messing up with air conditioner. I tried to lower the temperature in the AC and it did not like to take orders from its new master. Thus it straightway refused to operate. And there we were. Left in the heat at night. But luckily the there is a fan in the sitting room. So I brought my bed from the bedroom and set it up under the fan.

The responsibilities were many during initial days. Many formalities had to be completed. I remember I had to submit some documents at the college, open a new bank account, apply for electricity transfer on our name, get the keys to our post box, activate the gas connection and many other things. These were my first lessons of an independent life. A unique experience was at post office. We went to that place and did not know what to do. Because there were some numbers being put up on the board and we did not know whether we had to get a number from somewhere. I remember asking an American gentleman and he was kind enough to explain me the system of getting a number from a machine and waiting till the number is called.

I am very impressed by the system here. Most of the people enjoy their work and look happy. At least they look happy which is in sharp contrast from the situation back in India. But I will refrain myself from making comparisons. People here are very patient with everything. They would listen to you carefully and try to help you. Holding the door open for the person behind you is a very normal custom here. I am greeted with a broad smile wherever I go. Even government places like post office or Social Security Office have friendly people. And things move in a very efficient manner. At least till now, I have not encountered any stumbling block in my processes.

I remember my struggle to memorize the roads in and around the University. I am not legendary for my road sense anyway which I confess. The University is huge. It is about 1 square mile in area. And it is so wide that many busy streets pass from within the University area. It is a beautiful place. Full of trees and gardens and fountains. The buildings are very old fashioned with the tallest building being our own Computer Science department building. All the buildings are redbrick type. I have fallen in love with some places like Student Union which where I am sitting right now, writing this. They have benches under the trees where you can sit quietly and do your work. And added advantage is the wireless availability at this place. There are fountains around this place which make beautiful sound of water and reminds me of the days when I used to sit in my balcony back home listening to rain.

There are two libraries I visit often. Both have very nice places for studying. Isolated tables and chairs provide a refuge from the busy places of university. The place is full of multicultural people. I remember the first day of International orientation when every one was asked to identify oneself with the country. No wonder we Indians outnumbered every one else. Even China. Indians were the biggest in number. Followed by China. The orientation was not very eventful and was mainly a series of boring lectures.

----------Coming back to the topic of people composition of the University, there are people coming from various parts of the world. And the roads in the University are always full of people during the weekdays. Apart from cars, people use bicycles and skateboards. The roads have restrictions for everything. Some roads you can’t ride your bicycle on, some roads you can’t do skate-boarding and all sorts of rules to make the life of pedestrians easier. One more interesting thing about campus is the UofA anthem playing at 12 noon everyday. It is a very jolly theme and exciting to listen to. They play it from the top of library and graduate college buildings and it creates a very energetic atmosphere.
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It ended here. I think I had got tired of writing. I get bored of things pretty quickly and I am sure I was fed up of this too. So it ended abruptly here! But when I read it now, it feels nice to recollect some of these incidents.