New place, new beginnings :)

I had been preparing for this move for days, in fact months now. Yet, here I stand, strangely wishing I could just run back home. Was the move not worth it? Confused? Well, let me start from the very beginning.

Offered a PhD fellowship from a well known US university, I grabbed the opportunity that I had worked so hard for. As the day for departure drew closer, a certain feeling clutched at my heart with its cold hands – what if I miss home so bad that I take the next flight back? Being home or close to home for almost 25 years, I felt miserable at the prospect of going away for the doctorate years.

Now when I look out of my small bedroom’s small window, my eyes rest on the fluffy white balls floating around and I look back on that first day when I came to the snowiest city in the US – Syracuse. All confused and jet lagged, stuck with a phone that refused to work, and wondering why on earth did I make this move. My landlord came around the corner and looked at me with astonishment – “Are you Sreyoshi? Your dad has been calling me. He is worried sick.”

It’s been more than a month now that I first came into this university town, been a part of the no.1 party school in the US, have been acquainted with how people resort to cars as quickly as their pocket would allow. I don’t blame anyone either, public transportation system can be a pain in the US (though Syracuse is not half as bad). I also call a four-bedroom house my home now, and a little carrel at the university my office.

I somehow feel like I just started warming up for a marathon which I should have been prepared for months in advance, and I guess that feeling would continue till the end of this semester. But beyond books and files, life is not that bad. If the first week was coming across Syracuse as the town that only comes alive to the shouts and screams of the students, the second week was all about getting around the fourth largest city in New York state on the public bus or trying to walk past a cemetery in the evening with a small prayer on my lips.

So do I still feel like taking that first flight back home. Not always. But sometimes I do. Like when the temperature suddenly dips down, it’s pouring and I am drenched enough to certainly freeze. Or maybe when I realize my friends and family are nowhere near me, and even if I cry they wouldn’t hear me. Within a month however, I have made new friends, reconnected with old ones and happily taken to the doctoral race.

Yes, the race that has a lower participation rate than most other educational levels. Probably because of the time commitment (3 to 10 years) and the fact that you remain a graduate student with ridiculous pay, most of which goes to taxes, health insurance, rent, food, and transportation. But on the plus side, you have the chance of gaining knowledge in your field and emerge with a degree that claims you to be particularly specialized in that area. So what that you have worn the same holey sweatshirt to the office for all the 365 days of the year and are considering wearing it for a second year. Advantage point – doctorates! Low maintenance, high knowledge power. Of course, then you also have to find a job, go through a rigorous process of post-doc, tenure track, and have no job security for another 10 years or so, lose all your hair, have barely any social life and be drowned in the misery of revise & resubmits. But, am getting ahead of myself. Back to my the present.

Stated to be one of the best places in the US to raise your children, Syracuse and its six months of snow may sound depressing but life here is always busy. Too much to do and too little time. I finally started looking forward to each day with a renewed vigor as I kept discovering new places to eat, new friends to meet, new roads to walk, new events to go to, figure out sports and social life in the US… life is finally rolling. And soon I will be bringing more on what all to do when in Syracuse 🙂