Dallas Diaries
After the usual woes of the baggage that I tend to accumulate over time and packing and moving, I have finally arrived in Texas. I was sleeping through most of the touch down and hence dont have any specific aerial observations about the city I am in. But from what my sleepy head can remember, the landscape seemed pretty sparsely crowded (with buildings and vehicles) and greener than I could have imagined.
Oh and the airs of Dallas blew me away. Literally. As soon as I got out of the airport gusts of hot winds greeted me. Except for the people around I had a deja vu feeling for a second of being in my homwtown, where things get hot, hotter and hottest! My shared cab driver made me wait for 20 minutes and then finally we took off. Normally I do my bit of research before visiting any city to at least know about the people and culture. But this time due to lack of time and lack of internet I ended up being a total nomad. I was clueless except for the fact that I had the address of the friend where I was supposed to go. [May be it was the comfort of visiting someone familiar that I was so careless to not do my part.]
And since I was caught in an unfamiliar territory I started my bit of small talk with the driver by talking about the weather. [:P] After making it obvious that this was my first visit to southern USA, he broke the ice pretty fast. Talks soon moved to schooling and education and what I was doing there. After giving my standard replies, I asked him where he was from. Algeria. I made a very stupid attempt of guessing its geographic location and made a huge boo boo. Thankfully I was judged for being an engineer, a person who should know more about technology than geography. He then went on to explain the whole geography of Africa. He had no difficulties telling stuff about India and our neighbours too. He also mentioned Kashmir and then we ended up discussing how political the whole situation has become. Which lead to an interesting revelation on his behalf. Apparently he was a business administration student at a nearby university. And due to the recession he dropped out of school in his last semester, 2.5 years back and started this driving business. That was apparently the reason for his good knowledge of current affairs. Looking back he reflected he should have continued school and finished it sooner instead of trying to earn more money. But for the better part he also got his family here [but it seems his younger brother and sister have also dropped out of school and are part time drivers].
We humans are weird. I met a guy who quit school to earn money by doing something he never thought he would do, at a point when I am contemplating my next career move. I could not help but compare myself with him and feel a tad bit secure.
At the same time, I could not help but wonder if they will join school again and be able to go back home ?
So that's the story of the first texan friend I made. He plans to join school and finish his Bachelors soon. And I can just hope 'that soon' is not the next 2 years.
~nightflier