Airports have always held a special place in my heart. Nowhere else in the world can you experience the unsettling shakiness and lethal velocities of a rollercoaster while seated in the midst of completely vacant, apathetic passengers. It’s all the fun of a theme park except nobody wants to be there.

All joking aside, I am one of the few people I know who loves turbulence, and the sensations of taking off and landing excite me to no end. I could fall asleep while nestled in that soft rumbling seat, let me tell you. Of course, I don’t fall asleep, because then I couldn’t savor the experience. Such is the plight of the overly enthusiastic traveler. I could take a ten hour flight (which, coincidentally, I will be doing very soon) and be completely fine as long as I get a bit of turbulence here and there. It might have to do with the fact that when the plane shakes you feel unsafe, but you are reassured by the fact that air travel is far, far safer than driving. It’s free adrenaline!

Side note: I would not enjoy driving to Argentina. Road trips have their limits.

In my last blog I mentioned that I wasn’t feeling much emotion regarding my departure. People kept asking me whether I was nervous or excited, and it felt so unreal that I didn’t have a response. Well, I’m about to leave for a foreign country that speaks a language I have only spoken in a school setting, and hey! I’m not panicking! Score! I guess I’m the type of the person who has to get slapped in the face with change to have any sort of response. My host parents have a four-year-old son, so once I realize I can’t understand a word he says it will probably dawn on me that I am in Argentina.

I had an aisle seat on the plane next to a man who had either a Latin American or Middle Eastern accent. It sounds ignorant of me to not know which was correct, but he was at the point in his English where he was so proficient that there were only notes of his first language interspersed throughout his speech, and I honestly couldn’t tell which was correct. I was only certain that he loved Chinese food, particularly lo mein. He had a big box of it as I sat down and he ate it with such gusto that it was hard to take my eyes off him. He was clearly also a discerning lo mein consumer, because the way he inspected each bite before eating it told me he knew what he was doing. Even after he finished, he held that box between his hands in such a way that I could tell he longed to take another bite. He fell asleep at one point with the box grasped firmly in his hands. He held onto that thing for a good two hours before throwing it away. I never did learn that man’s name.

As we landed and the doors opened, the humidity attacked. We Coloradoans have a word for this sort of weather: swimming. I am more or less used to it now, but this is only Texas. Argentina will no doubt make me drown. (Update: I’m still alive!)

After entering the Houston airport, I found a large Fox News store. That wasn’t the interesting part, though. The interesting part is that it took me less than a minute to find a CNBC store a few shops down. I imagine there is an ongoing rivalry between the two stores involving late-night heists and unrealistic Hollywood hacking scenes.

You can practically smell the green screen.

I also found a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory outlet. My Colorado instincts nearly had me skiing into the store and breaking the displays with hiking sticks and red rocks. Of course, my Colorado politeness kept me from doing something I would regret. The Rocky Mountains are the pride of my state! How could this store betray—ooh, it sells ice cream…

            There was a Dunkin’ Donuts on the other side of the airport that I stumbled across while looking for an outlet. Now let me tell you something about Colorado. We have lovely people. We have gorgeous plains. We have powerful mountains. We take pride in the beauty of our nature.

            …but we don’t have Dunkin’ Donuts.

Pictured above: happiness

            Yes, we created Chipotle. Yes, the Red Robin headquarters is located in our state. But if there are two restaurants I wish we had in our state, it would be Dunkin’ Donuts and In-N-Out. Yeah, you can get your coffee at Starbucks or a local store, but it’s always overpriced and too fancy. Dunkin’ Donuts is the only place you can get a cheap, tasty breakfast and feel patriotic while doing so. 

Dramatic representation >>>

Six Days Later

            Man, oh man has a lot happened since I wrote that post above. Alright, here we go.

            First off, I felt really bizarre meeting with my group. I have since learned to get along with and enjoy speaking to the other members of my program, but it’s still challenging getting to know people you otherwise probably wouldn’t know. That being said, I’m glad I’m in this position because I am once again reminded of the fierce diversity of the human identity when I grow closer to those around me.

            I’m not sure what reputation I’ve formed in the minds of my compañeros here in Buenos Aires, but that’s not a big concern for me. I’ll grow closer to whoever I do and will just be acquaintances with the rest. However, we’re all united by our clockwork-like ability to forget every word of Spanish we know in the face of necessity, and if that isn’t bonding, I don’t know what is!

            Hey, look, a picture of something cool!

            These two statues are one of many at the Cemetario de la Recoleta, which we visited a few days ago. I never thought cemeteries could be beautiful until I came here, and now I totally want to be buried there. Is that gruesome? It doesn’t matter—I don’t have enough money anyway. Some of the statues are absolutely lovely, and some are—

AHH! AHH! AHH! AHH! AHH! GET IT AWAY!!

            Our tour guide had an explanation of who this was, but all I could see was a vengeful ghost woman hovering a good six feet above our heads, ready to shoot laser beams from her eyes to vaporize a randomly selected student from the group. (Note to self: install laser beams in future grave.)

            Hey, look, another cool thing!

            This was from the church attached to the cemetery, and trust me, in person it looks awe-inspiring. I am definitely going to attend a service here at some point, because I have never seen anything like it before.

            Nothing beats topping off a day of admiring the beautifully adorned graves of the deceased with a fresh cup of coffee, so after touring the cemetery we headed to the notable café La Biela to get some refreshments.

It was a nice place, but after being in the sun all day I just got a bottle of water instead of coffee. This café, however, was nothing compared to what we found just nearby.

Whoa.

Whoa.

DO YOU SEE THIS TOO BECAUSE I AM MOST DEFINITELY SEEING THIS

            This hulking mammoth of a tree is a historical monument of sorts right next to the café, and it is so enormous that it requires branch rests to keep growing. I was a bit disappointed that everyone else wanted to go to the café instead of admire the tree longer. I felt like Neville Longbottom in a group of Harry Potters who didn’t care about plants. I intend to come back here just to sit under the tree, because you really don’t realize how big it is until you see it in person.

            Since then I’ve grown closer to my group, made a few good friends, learned to understand the Castellano of my host parents better (although understanding my four-year-old host brother is still a lost cause), and gone to some really cool locations throughout the city. I can’t wait for the rest of the semester!

            As they say in Buenos Aires, ¡ciao!

            -Josh

Howdy to all of you sophomores!

Welcome back to school (a month in)!! How does it feel? From what I have heard from my friends, this semester has been nothing but BUSY. I completely concur with that statement. All I have been doing is studying, doing my extra-curricular activities, studying some more, and sleeping. In a way, I did bring it all on myself. At the same time, I know some things that I am doing this semester are just absolutely ridiculous when it comes to classes and other things. You know what I mean? I keep trying to remind myself that I have to do the dirty work to have the fun. I am not really digging the dirty work though… see what I did there?

Anyways, I was walking to the library today and a thought popped into my mind. I was passing a few freshmen holding onto their lanyards with the proxies attached. They were walking confidently, but almost to the point of being to cool for school. Are we too babied as freshmen or even in general when hitting college? Think about it. Most of us by the time we reach college are 18 years of age. That is 18 years that we have witnessed and experienced life. Is that not enough time to really be independent without some extra nurturing? Of course you could say that it depends on how the person was raised, but is it necessary to have certain skills acquired by the time we hit freshmen year of college that some do not currently have? I know when I was a freshmen, I was ready to fly the coop having been the baby of the family. Therefore, I made sure that I went to ask somebody for help, self-advocating, rather than just slumping around not knowing where to start. For others this did not ring true. If they did not have the drive to really figure out a specific issue, they would not even try to solve it. Either way, my freshmen year was successful because I was open-minded and willing to try new things. Do some of you now as sophomores regret not having tried more as a freshmen or even younger in general? I know I have missed some opportunities.  I feel like there is some need to motivate students, going into a school where they may know a lot of people from high school, to meet new people and get out of their comfort zones. The same things I have seen occur at CU, too. Maybe it is a large state school thing? We gravitate towards our comfort zone when college is the time to expand and break free from it.

I bring this up because I am studying abroad next fall. I think it’s so important to travel and experience the world. It builds your confidence, your understanding of the world, and simply makes you grow as a person. My teacher for my film class agrees with me in this sense. He even mentioned that he is flying to Switzerland for a week starting on Sunday to see a film festival. Who does that?! What a champ, in my opinion.

I challenge you all this week to try something that is out of your comfort zone. It can be little or large. There are people who are currently standing in the plaza holding signs for “free hugs”. Don’t be embarrassed to ask for one! It’s college. For some reason, I have recently felt like I am back in high school because I’ll get weird looks or feel like I am at least. I then remind myself that NOBODY CARES. Well, the mature people don’t care. You’re bound to find those immature people who clearly have not left high school, but don’t let them make you feel inferior. So once again, try something you wouldn’t usually do. You may like it or you may not. Either way you learned something. You won’t learn anything unless you try!

Much love to you all!

~ Chand 

Happy Lucky: Old Town Tea

Going Grocery Shopping

To you hopefully non-slumping sophomores,

You all are almost there! Well, through the first semester at least. I hope the Thanksgiving break treated you all wonderfully. I will say it was much needed. There is nothing like getting back in touch with your roots (in my case) and traveling to California. Sleep and comfort food, mainly Indian, preoccupied my break.

In this past month, I watched my grades increase (in the last week before break), lost every single intramural soccer game (but had an absolute blast), watched the Broncos lose in overtime to the Patriots (which I was happy about because I love that team), finished applying for a Semester at Sea, and cultured myself by watching an excessive amount of Netflix.

Back to the education aspect, I thought this meme completely expressed how we all feel about writing essays. I can sit for at least 30 minutes trying to figure out how to phrase something and failing fairly epically.

So far, I have managed to still meet new people every day, or almost every day, when I am on campus. I cannot fully decide if having Fall Break is a total tease, or like winter break a month early.

I know for a fact that November is just an odd month. For me, I start feeling the holiday spirit early and get the spirited bug of wanting to play carols on my Pandora radio station. I went home the other weekend to put up lights and this year I had to hammer new nails in to put some up in our background. Not only did we place them around the porch like shown in the picture, but we also put them on the railing by our hot tub. Here is my reasoning, although it may be cold and snowy, we will be hosting 32 relatives that are coming in for the holidays and New Year’s. CRAZY! I KNOW! I am convinced that I will become even browner than I already am! I may even be able to come back with an accent if I am lucky. Just kidding. I am beyond excited for this crazy reunion. My dad’s side of the family has 9 brothers and a single sister. She is a champ! Some of my uncles have kids, and their kids have kids even. Plus there is always the family-in-law which includes all of the wives’ families and whatnot. I am pretty confused about how I am related to most of them besides my first cousins. It is okay though, they are family! What could be better? It ought to be one darn good reunion. Out of the 32 relatives, 10 are kids so it is definitely my duty to make sure they still believe in Santa.

I have a theory about that guy! Maybe the North Pole does not actually exist, but I think that Santa’s helpers are our parents. They are the true elves and they help with putting out the gifts along with wrapping them while Santa focuses on the children who are more in need. I will continue to stick to that theory until proven 

Off the holiday chatter, there are wonderful volunteer opportunities like soup kitchens and food drives. I bought the kid I tutor a gift card so he can buy whatever he wants. I love the later months because they truly focus on being selfless.

I think, nowadays, we all need to be reminded that it does not hurt to give a little because it will pay off in the end. In the present, we are so focused on the future and constantly running our brains to get errands, homework, and other commitments done as soon as possible. Sometimes we forget to just sit and let life soak in. So, that is my task for you all. Take five minutes out of your day and think about this past month (November, that is). Think about what you all have accomplished and be proud of it. Even if this semester has not been what you were thinking, it does not mean it was not meant to work out the way it did. Do not forget that school is a learning experience and we grow each day from those experiences. I just hope that you all can express your goals with proper grammar and achieve them as well. I am sending you all good luck vibes for your finals and safe sparkles for your travels home.

Your blogger and friend,

---

Chand

To the lovely sophomores of CSU,

            As I sit here in my apartment complex, I suffer a pining headache, a sore throat, and exhaustion. Sound familiar? If it does not then you are very lucky! Drink lots of orange juice, tea, or anything containing vitamin c! It all does wonders.

Anyways, it seems to be a mutual consensus that just halfway through October was about when we all were finally fully adjusted to the academic aspect of this year. Just in time for mid-terms. I spoke to multiple sophomores and they all said that they were finally easing into this year halfway through this past month. I know I can certainly say the same and it’s quite the relief. I figured out that all of my teachers thought to put the heavy load of the semester at the beginning. Normally that would have worked if they all had not done that. Oh the joys of college. Always keeping you on your toes! I still dislike most of my classes, but my motivation to do the work is back. I created my own motivation because it certainly was not about to spurt from the classroom.

This year the hardest thing for me has been discipline. I struggle to do my work in a timely fashion. I still get it done but not as thoroughly. Life is all about learning so sometime I will. Do not take that to heart, though, please don’t do what I am doing! You all are stronger than that! As you may learn, I do not take my own advice. This month has been filled with people having personal, friend, and relationship issues. I am fortunate enough to have people come to me when something is going on and then later I am scolded for not following my own advice. I’m convinced that is just a human thing to do. That’s my justification.

My family visited me a few weeks ago. We went to dinner and spent a lovely evening chatting about miscellaneous things in honor of celebrating my dad’s birthday. My mom was taking this picture so she’s not in the photo. From left to right it goes me, my dad, and my sister named Sitara.

This month, I really got to thinking about being “that person”. When we entered the restaurant, my mom immediately requested to be seated at a booth instead of sitting at the table that we were led to. I thought to myself, “oh no, we’re that family.” From then on, I thought of every scenario where being “that” something applied. There are those people who put hot sauce on everything, those who prefer to sleep instead of party, those who walk around in sandals when there is snow on the ground and many more. Do we humans categorize to give ourselves peace of mind or is there an alternative purpose? For me, I talk to random people too much whether it’s on random flights to different states or at social gatherings here in Fort Collins. I’m that girl. This is simply food for thought. What makes you that person? I have so many situations where I am that person. Just yesterday there was a man who pressed the cross button but proceeded to cross anyways and then the light turned red for nothing because he had already passed. Darn guy. Don’t be that guy. The scenarios are infinite of who can be what type of person.

In summary, I crafted myself a new earring holder from materials at Joanne’s, had some friend dates, went on a real date, and came to the conclusion that I am content with receiving more than two B’s by the end of this semester. I've admired beautiful sunsets from outside my apartment window and here is just one of the many.

The holiday season is fast approaching and I can say I’m that girl and I start playing holiday music before Thanksgiving is over. KOSI 101 becomes my go-to radio station and out comes the apple cider and chocolate chip cookies. I look forward to celebrating fall break in California with some relatives and then having many, 31 to be exact, celebrating Christmas at my house for winter break. The true question is: how many family members can you fit into a hot tub? Last time we had 10. As much as I would like to say that this semester has been slowly going by because of the sophomore slump, it truly has sped quickly. I cannot believe that October is over and finals are just around the corner. Cheers to you all for the hard work that you've put into this semester. It will pay off soon! I believe in all of you even if you don’t believe in yourselves. J You all are stuck with me until the end of the year so get used to my positivity.

Much love,

            Chand