>Play: One year on...

It’s been almost a year now since I arrived, alone and timid at the DFW airport, welcomed the cheery smiles and open arms of my uncles, aunts and cousins. I would love to say that I remember the day as if it was yesterday but truth be told I have but a very vague recollection of the event, besides I find the statement “I remember it as if it was yesterday” painfully cliché. Looking back, I find processing all that has taken place since an amazingly mind boggling task. I am in awe of the average human’s capacity for growth and adaptation.
I am well aware of the fact the college experience has and still is (I dare say to a lesser degree, but that’s another story) been commonly associated with great revelation and insight into oneself and into the world that one lives in. Colleges the world over are famed as the places at which the world greatest minds, found wings and took flight to lead the way into uncharted territories of though, pulling the rest of humanity along with the shear strength of their passion and dedication. Yet I would venture to say that mine has been a unique college experience, a unique awakening, a unique occasion for internal and external reflection and revelation. “Why?” you may ask do I presume to think my college experience this past year has been different enough to warrant special mention? Well here’s your answer, for the past one year have been able to live, work, play and observe the goings on at UT from the perspective of an international student, and not just any international student mind you, an African International student.
Taken superficially the above mentioned fact may seem little more than an interesting footnote too an otherwise typical story of a year spent at our dear University, but then, a basic characteristic of superficial analysis is that the details are often missed and as they say “the devil is in the details”. One would be utterly surprised at how much being an International student, nay, an African international student can affect ones collage experience, and how literally everything looks… more interesting when viewed through the eyes of one whose culture and background is so profoundly different. The effect of the “cultural lens” becomes clearer with each observation, each comment, each right analysis and each hopeless misinterpretation.
Some would be tempted to view this so called “culture shock” experience as a something negative, something to be quickly gotten over so as to smoothen the way for a less “shocking” semester or year. I on the other hand see it is a boon to my college experience and the very spice which makes college so vibrant and alive. If it is a malady, then it is one that I am not ready to recover from yet. At the very least it enables me to reanalyze things that have long since been thought too mundane to look into and bring out aspects that can only be seen when viewed from my angle, my view point, my cultural lens. Furthermore it allows me the leisure of skipping between the worlds of the typical UT student, the Engineering student, the International student and the African student at UT with relative ease, collecting tidbits from each to form the interesting collection of experiences that form my unique UT experience.
As overwhelming as it may seem, having to maneuver my way between these different realms, often feeling like the title of default ambassador/ representative has been thrust upon by all those to whom you claim affiliation, I wouldn’t have it any other way, if only for the joy of watching others light up as I give them a peak at the world through my end of the looking glass.