As you may imagine, I have never celebrated Thanksgiving before. In fact not even this year did I feel anything special for this day, simply because it doesn’t have any meaning to me. Back home, I barely knew from movies something about this holiday. Nobody cared about it. While I was looking forward to get some rest and catch up with some sleep, I wasn’t looking forward to being alone on campus. The campus is even more empty now than in fall break. Then some people decided to stay and study or whatever, but now everybody wants to be with their family. There are indeed some international students around, but most of them went visiting family or friends here in the US. I am one of the very few left here on campus.
But it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. On Thanksgiving day, Dr. Fetea, my Physics professor from IQS, who happens to be Romanian, invited me and some other Romanian students to her house. She wanted all of us to be together, spend the afternoon with other Romanians, and speak Romanian. And it worked! I had a very good time. We were 3 students from UR, me and 2 juniors (the others either were invited somewhere else and decided to go there, or decided in the last minute that they preferred to sleep some more!), Dr. Fetea’s family and another family of Romanian immigrants.
Cornel, Smaranda, and me
It was interesting to observe the different stages of Romanian-English language mixtures: from people who only spoke Romanian, to people like us who were still more confident in Romanian than in English, to people who were equally fine with both languages but had some sort of influence from one language to another, to people who were more confident in English, to people who didn’t even speak Romanian anymore. I wonder in which of these categories I would fall several years from now…
I don’t know very well what a traditional Thanksgiving involves, but I am pretty sure that not much of it was preserved in our celebration. We just had some specific Thanksgiving food such as turkey, and the TV turned on for a while on a football game that I think very few people watched. I gladly found out that I am not the only one who hasn’t ever seen a football game and has no idea what it involves. (which doesn’t mean I’m not a proud spider - by the way, Richmond won the first game in play-offs against Elon today! GO SPIDERS!!!). Instead, we discussed about things from back home, about all sorts of issues that Romanians may have in the US, or comparisons between the US and Romania. We also received more practical information about how life in the US is like, from people who already experienced what we are going through right now.
food!!!
In a way, I did have a sort of Thanksgiving in family. Since I started living so far away from my real family, I gradually began thinking of all Romanians, especially the ones that happen to be close to me here in Richmond, as the closest idea of family I can get. They know best the culture where I grew up, the things I have been used to, and can best relate to what I am going through as I adapt to a new culture.
Don’t get me wrong, I did not fall into the most dangerous trap that internationals can encounter: I do not hang out only with Romanians. Think about it this way: how much time would you like to spend with your family versus your friends, especially when you are in college? I have many American or other international friends that I like and usually hang out with. They are very understanding when it comes to me never having seen or heard of something that is common knowledge in here. They try to help me the best way they can whenever I have a hard time, and many times they are successful. Only that in some rare circumstances, their best is not enough. I am conscious that it is even harder for them to fully understand my background, than it is for me understanding theirs, considering that I am now living in their background. This is where I go for support to other Romanians.
Most internationals get in touch, at least at first, with at least one upperclassman from their country. I was even more lucky to also get in touch from the very beginning with Romanian faculty. For me, the IQS course has one additional advantage: both Physics professors are Romanian. And since all IQS professors are coming to every class, and we have a class every day, I get to see them every day. Especially at the beginning of the semester, I greatly benefited from their presence in the course. I realized that despite my good general English, my scientific English wasn’t good at all, simply because I haven’t been exposed to it before. Overall, I was overwhelmed by everything new that was going on in my life. But simply the idea of being in the same room as 2 Romanians that could sympathize with what was going on with me, made me feel better, and get over that initial shock very quickly. We didn’t get to talk every day, but their simple presence helped. Now I feel I am adjusting better and better, and still IQS will not be over until the end of my freshman year. It is much more than I ever needed!
I am sorry if I bored you, dear prospective American student. You may never need this information. But prospective international student, you may find it useful to be warned that you won’t adapt to American college life overnight. The best way to do it is, as I was telling you a few post ago, to look for help. Get as much advice as possible from people from your country, both before and during your stay in the US. Just keep away from the tendency to only hang out with them! Find a proper balance and try to build your character by preserving the best in your culture and adopting the best in American culture!
In case you didn’t yet fall asleep reading all this stuff, I have some photos for you! Here are some pics of the recently inaugurated Westhampton Center, that is probably too new for you to have seen if you didn’t visit very recently:
