It has been exactly six months since I have landed in the US and being in Texas have survived climatic extremes. With the unbearable heat in August to the 18 hour snowfall a few days back and temperatures as low as minus 4, a month ago.

My view of the US in the physical sense is still limited to the University Campus and the local superstore Walmart 6 miles away. Not been anywhere else due to the lack of transport facilities. My exams got over in Mid-December and had almost 3 weeks of vacation with nothing to do but remain confined to this mini-campus in this small town of Arlington. There are no special events for the christmas season here and so all I had to do was spend time with friends and we tried to make the most of the new year eve by having a dance party with added attractions such as DumbCharades, Guess-the-Product(A Different version of Ad-Mad Show) and the regular Antakshari Stuff and more. The delicacies that we prepared included Kheer, Halwa, Pakoras, Biryani with Raita etc etc. We partied till 6am.

Now let me shift my focus to the university and studies. Well here at UTA, the lecture rooms seem more like the crash courses we had back home with 80-100 students per class(though more sophisticated with TV screens and internet recordings). And on top of it majority of the students are Indians in most lectures!! There is a rat race for everything from the occasional Free Pizzas to the course registration every semester. I still remember the day when we had to register for courses for the Spring(January-May) Semester. It was the 29th of October. We got up at 6 am and rushed to the computer lab to get a seat before online registration began at 8 am. Their are limited  seats in every subject and hundreds of students interested.So it is First-Come First-Serve. When the clock struck 8, there were 200 people trying to access the registration website and as a result the server with a normal actual download speed of around 200kbps became very slow taking minutes to load every page and tensions began to rise. All the prime seats were full by 8.10AM. Phew!! I was lucky though to get the courses of my choice.

To be frank, despite the hectic schedule, studies are enjoyable here with projects etc. However at UTA, the huge number of students and the strict university guidelines regarding grades, makes the atmosphere very competitive. In the little time that we get to enjoy, we sometimes watch screenings of English movies or get the newly released hindi movie videos for our own private screening in the lounge.