When I first applied to come to the University of Michigan on an exchange program from the University of Western Australia, I had no idea it was going to be so cold. No, really, I didn't know. First of all, I had never seen snow; in my hemisphere, it never went below 42 degrees. So when it transitioned from fall to winter and snow started accumulating on the sidewalks, I found everything so novel. But snow not the only thing that is new to me in Ann Arbor.
I really liked the eight months I spent in Ann Arbor. I got to do a lot of things that I wouldn't get to do anywhere else. As I settled into my sophomore/junior year (I could never pinpoint which year exactly I was supposed to be in since the school year back home starts in March and ends in December), I not only noticed some American differences, but some things unique to Ann Arbor as well:
1. School spirit. As my family constantly moved, I never developed a sense of patriotism or particular feeling of belonging to an institution, which was why I was amazed in Ann Arbor. It astounded me that there were pizza cutters that sang "Hail to the Victors" or golf balls emblazoned with M's, yet I was almost moved by the students' loyalty to their university. I told myself in the first month, I'm not ready to embrace this whole school spirit stuff. But when I discovered that Victoria's Secret had a U-M line, I was sold. Also my mom really liked the pizza cutter.
2. Michigan football. Going to my first game here totally took school spirit to a whole new level. However, American football was, and still is lost on me, but I enjoyed tailgating.
3. Studious students. Back home, one can attend classes three days a week and hardly do the readings and get away with a decent grade, but here students study awfully hard and become awfully stressed. I think that it is a statistical fact that going into the fishbowl at any given point of time in the year, there will be no free computer. Is there some waiting list I don't know about?
4. I also must add that students party as hard as they study.
5. Coffee. I haven't figured out if coffee-drinking-bordering-on-addiction is an American thing, or a college thing. I think it's both, because after living in A2 for this long, I have developed a dependence on coffee. It can be any kind-vanilla latte, caramel frappucinos-but my favorite is black coffee. I also discovered, to my delight, that Starbucks is about half the price here than it is overseas.
6. Food. I have probably tried most of the restaurants near campus in the one year that I have been here; my favorite café is Beanster's and my favorite food is from Amer's. And of course, the cafeteria food. Being given so much free reign over helpings in the dining halls ("Wait, you mean there are three types of dessert?") did not help my diet at all. However, I think the quality can be improved ("Burritos? Again??") But I still think that this is a small price to pay compared to staying at Northwood and having to spend the year unhappily commuting the three hours between North and Central campus.
Yes, I did enjoy my time here immensely, and I have met a whole lot of interesting and different people. I've made really good friends, perfected my paper-writing skills and have become surgically attached to my laptop (which never happened to me back home!) and traveled to neighboring states during term breaks. As I write this, it will be five days until I leave Ann Arbor, and there will be some things that I will miss about this place and the U.S in general. However, I'm sure I'll be back in the near future.
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