Along with the visa came new and unknown situations in front of me. Whatever the situation - I was ready for it. At least, that’s what I thought. Leaving my family and my life back home, I started my journey with a newfound passion, making way toward my new life. [break[
Now let us meet the novice alien. Gosh! I really did not know many interesting facts about America then, and now that I do, would like to share those with you. Basically it starts with being an alien (with two antennas coming out of your head I guess). You get admitted to the land of opportunity with a tag “ALIEN ADMISSION NUMBER”. GOD! Am I an ALIEN, SERIOUSLY??? One step further out of the airport, and another fact hits my eyes: Literally no one walks in America apart from a few who don’t have the luxury of a car.
Now going on to the technological facts. The bandwidth of the Internet will shock and dazzle you! You will have to trust online transactions, you go to a website, click the buttons, and conduct transactions online. So don’t worry about cyber crimes, since you do not have time for that. Truly speaking, do not worry, there are people out there working on all sorts of security issues so you will have to wholeheartedly trust the cyber world and its stakeholders. But beware of issues related to identify theft; all your personal information might be stolen by someone who might try and conduct fraud acting as you.
There are many other facts but the last one I want to share with you is regarding people and their behavior. Few popular words out here are: “hello, have a good day, I appreciate it, sorry, and excuse me”. I think these are the words that Americans are used to while communicating with others. At first I was like, “My friend you haven’t even touched me while passing by, why are you saying sorry?” But now that I have been here long enough I feel that this is just an example of their courtesy. It is always nice to receive greetings and express your feelings with a few words. You don’t have to be the best or the closest of friends with someone to be nice to each other. So no matter what you are going through, bring a smile on your face and many faces around will not hesitate to smile back to you.
I forgot to mention, most of the aliens in this country will start researching on the word “racism”. You might have difficulty believing this but I have witnessed many doing just that. This word might haunt you, can’t say how and why because you need to feel it and unless you have will not be able to get this.
The writer is a current graduate from Western Illinois University, who believes that life is precious and everyone has the right to make the most out of it.
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