Just Another Day…

Hey everyone!

I’m typing this next entry reluctantly. I have been typing for the past two days, perfecting things and being very detailed. I had written over 3,000 words and counting when it decided to delete everything. Me, being the lazy person I am, have now decided to just make a condensed version unfortunately.

So before anything else I’ll tell you my conclusions on my fears:

Now on to answering the initial question [“What’s your typical day like?”] …

My day at Northwestern usually starts with my roommate Laila’s phone waking us up to “Don’t Wake Me Up” by Chris Brown. Then we lay in bed for about 10 more minutes. Laila gets up first to get dressed and I check my phone and email. When Laila goes to brush her teeth, I usually get up and get dressed. During all this, Sakina, Sara, and Xaviera have already called me reminding me to eat breakfast. By 7:45am we all are in the lobby ready to head out. We walk 10 minutes to make it to the dining hall called Plex. I usually have to hold the hands of Sakina and Amy because they walk so slow.

We go eat and then all the Global Justice and Humanitarian kids group up to follow me. Apparently, I’m the only one with a really good sense of direction. On numerous occasions I’ll stand in the back and see where they go. Each and every time they get confused. Leader has become my unofficial job. We get to class early and wait for the TA (Rose) and the professor. Rose always gets there like 5 minutes before the professor. His intros always consist a comment about his wife or, as he dubbed it, his bum of a son (his son bought a house for 2,000 dollars and is renovating the whole thing himself). The rest of class is discussion-based and the professor only adds in to play devil’s advocate or bring up main ideas we should be focusing on. One day the topic was the causes of the Rwandan Genocide and we basically went on to talk about imperialism and its ultimate effects.

After class, we go to lunch at the dining hall again. The rest of the afternoon is free for us. One day I went to downtown Chicago. Another day we went to downtown Evanston. Another day we just stayed in watching Netflix. Each day is different somehow.  At 10:00pm we must check in the lobby and hear a few announcements. Room curfew is midnight, so friends stay in my room until then. Laila and I end up talking about something for an additional two hours, so by 2:00am we are finally on our way to sleep ready to start the day again.

As you probably have noticed, my roommate is a huge part of what makes this experience so great. Laila is amazing! She was born in Virginia but moved to Amman, Jordan when she was 7 and has lived there ever since. She speaks fluent Arabic and French. She reminds me of a doll. Laila is obviously loaded with money but I wouldn’t have known that if she wasn’t constantly exchanging Jordanian money for American money. Her personality is so generous. Whenever we’re out, she buys something for her friends and family back in Jordan. She’s always secretly paying for things. One night our group of friends wanted pizza so we ordered thinking we’d all chip in. Laila refused to take our money. She pulled that trick on a couple occasions. I plan on giving her something with more sentimental value because material things have no significance to her. She is by far my favorite person here. We balance each other out so very well. We are able to talk about virtually anything and understand each other well. I couldn’t have asked for a better roommate.

Thus far, my favorite moment has been my first full day at Northwestern. Waking up was simple and nice. Breakfast was fine. Class was exceptionally fascinating. After class I saw Laila and Tanya walking so I asked what plans they had for the rest of the day. “You, Tanya, Sara and I are going to check out Chicago.” said Laila. I had no say in the matter so I went along. As we were walking towards the “L” I was freaking out and began texting my mom. I didn’t know these people well enough to be going to a foreign place with. Plus, I didn’t know how they shopped. These girls could be the type to buy a new wardrobe every season spending thousands of dollars each time, while I was the girl that wouldn’t buy any item other than shoes if it was more than 20 dollars. Mom calmed me down and just said go with the flow and to not be ashamed of my financial status; we live in a capitalist society so for that to work someone must go without. (She also tried to add that it was America, the land of equality opportunity, but I quickly disregarded that telling her I did a speech on how the American was fiction. )

On the way downtown we got to know each other well. We’d talk about normal things, then we’d get into a conversation about the theme of Slaughterhouse-Five.  Our day in Chicago was great. They ended up not being snobby rich girls and actually were bargain shoppers so that worry was alleviated. We ate Panera for dinner and started to head for Millennium Park but it started pouring, so we had to go under this random tent. That moment under the tent was my favorite. We were all drenched but we were drenched together. We started to laugh at one another and just enjoy our time while being soaked. The train ride back was terrible. It was incredibly crowded, but we all stayed together and nothing makes a friendship [closer] than being crammed together on a train for an hour.

Peace, Love, and Ambiguity

Jaelynne