When I first found out that I was accepted for a bachelor\u2019s program in political science at Illinois State University, I celebrated like every to-be college student would. However, a lot of questions started popping up in my mind: how will I live in a place that\u2019s like -25<\/span>\u2218<\/span>F every winter, how will I learn to adapt and accept the different cultures and traditions I will be exposed to, most importantly what about the jet lag? Overthinking is one my weaknesses and thankfully I didn\u2019t have much time to think through stuff before boarding on that long-awaited flight to Chicago.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Flying on a 17-hour long flight with stops at Japan and San<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Francisco comes with its own benefits and drawbacks; this was also my first-time tasting pretzel chips, which continue be instrumental in damaging my taste buds. I express my sincere apologies to all the pretzel lovers out there, but those taste like vomit. Consequently, for comparing pretzels to vomit and offending a fair few, you will be pleased to know that I missed my flight from San Francisco to Chicago, and I had to spend more than 3 hours waiting for my newly booked flight to Chicago.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As I stepped outside O\u2019 Hare airport, I was welcomed like a celebrity by a fleet of taxi drivers, each of whom offered to take me to my desired destination. Since I had already booked an uber the moment I landed, I absolutely had no intention to oblige to their requests. My ride was a few minutes late, and since it was my first time navigating the O\u2019Hare airport, I realized that the driver had parked around 9-10 doors away from where I was waiting for him. So, how did I find my way? Well! I asked around. I feared the staff wouldn\u2019t understand my unusual English accent, but nothing of that sort happened. So, I finally found my uber ride and embarked on a 2-hour journey from the airport to the campus.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The weather outside was warm and clean, exactly the way I hoped <\/span>it would be. Moderate weather is the kind of weather I prefer; I am neither a fan of too much of a warm weather, nor am I fan of weather that\u2019s freezing cold. After getting into an uber and leaving for the campus, I did hope to experience an array of tall and impressive skyscrapers and\/or buildings on my way, but instead experienced a range of lonely narrow fields all around me. The calming breeze of fresh air accompanied by the beautiful view of the fields was enough to give me a calm and relaxing nap after a tiring long journey. The moment we passed by the Bloomington water tanker and the Illinois State University labelled water tanker, I realized that I was almost there, my new home for the next four years, my new school. My new journey had begun; I couldn\u2019t be more excited and frightened at the same time.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Atharv Walimbe When I first found out that I was accepted for a bachelor\u2019s program in political science at Illinois State University, I celebrated like every to-be college student would. However, a lot of questions started popping up in my mind: how will I live in a place that\u2019s like -25\u2218F every winter, how will Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":0,"parent":25,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-full-width.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-256","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":801,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/256\/revisions\/801"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}