Unfortunately, all my recent reading has been done with the sole aim of putting up a facade of knowledge in a class of seemingly intelligent graduate students. All my writing has been about theories on this and that - things that are irrelevant to my life, things that I am indifferent towards. The bane that required courses are!
So anyway, here are the tiny, trivial details I have noticed about Boston, Americans and life in general.
1. Grad school here is a huge deal. If you get into one, your nose should be immediately put in its rightful place - high up in the air. You are now a part of a very exclusive American minority that is worlds away from phenomena like high school dropouts.
2. Consequently, "grades" (not marks, you villager!) are the most defining characteristic of your personality for as long as you are in grad school. You shall not make yourself vulnerable to competition by revealing this very important collection of letters your career and thus, your life, depend upon.
3. Americans do not believe in being formal like Indians do. Back home, if someone were to pay for our coffee, we would unite heaven and hell to wrench the money back from the cashier, force it back into our "host's" pocket and clinch the transaction with bills of our own.
To an American, this would seem like a much-ado-about-nothing situation. In this country, if you offer to pay for someone, they will let you. I learned this lesson the hard way!
4. "Formulae" and "fora" are not considered words in this country.
5. "Pat comes the reply" and "in two minds about something" are just two of the phrases I have found are greeted by blank expressions.
6. If three people have to walk from point A to point B and even if each of them knows that the other two are walking in the same direction, they will still walk separately. This is called being individualistic.
7. Pleasantries almost always open conversations. My favourites include - Have a good day! (which changes to - Have a good weekend! - on Fridays) and How was your weekend? They are the perfect ways to talk to someone you have to talk to, but don't know what to talk about with.
8. For all my criticism of whatever I have seen of the United States (which is limited to Commonwealth Avenue - that long stretch that connects my apartment to my college), I do believe that this place has truck loads to offer. For someone like me, at least. I have four years here (that's the plan, anyway) and I need to pack them with as much as I can. There is no other place that I know of that can help me do that, given my field and tastes.
9. I used to consider diversity as India's rightful and exclusive property (I think the phrase "unity in diversity" that was repeated ad nauseum in my class 8th Civics paper may have something to do with it). But I find that the diversity in this city alone is mind-boggling. All you need to do is ride the train for five minutes everyday (and please leave the iPod at home!) and listen to the conversations between people (yes, some people do talk on the T). I have a wonderful time just trying to figure out where they are from. What better way could there be to improve my linguistic skills?
