My first time living on my own. I started living on my own for the first time last summer. Before that, I had always lived with my family, but for the first time, I started living alone in a place 15 hours away by plane. Even before I left, I had a lot of mixed feelings. The fact that I would live apart from my mom and dad, and was only able to see them during breaks, was very hard for me. I cried a lot when I said goodbye to my family at the airport. When I first arrived and laid alone in my room, I was very scared. Even when I woke up and it was bright outside, I felt like I was alone in this world. Then, I joined a club. I met friends. So I quickly adjusted. As the semester started and I became busy with classes, I gradually felt less lonely. Still, whenever I had a problem that I had to solve by myself, it was very hard. I think it was more difficult and also scary because English is not my first language. But I thought, I came all the way here, so I shouldn't just stay afraid. I started doing things one by one, and I was able to solve them. After repeating this for a few semesters, I realized that I see my family more often than I thought, and that I can do well on my own. I still have difficulties and sometimes feel lonely, but I think I'm doing pretty well in my own way.

"My grandma collected turtles, and now I collect turtles." Do you collect anything? There's something that I do collect -- there's actually two things that I collect. But one of them's turtles, which -- actually, I'll talk about them later, and another of them is rocks. Ever since I was a kid, I've been obsessed with rocks, and all I remember is like, when I was a kid, my dad would take me around to caves and buy me rocks and geodes. And it was like a big thing that we always did together. And I ended up asking him about a year ago about it. I was like, "How did you get into rocks? Like, why do you like collecting them?" And he told me, "Oh, I don't like collecting rocks. You liked collecting rocks." I was like "What do you mean?" He said, "Ever since you were a little kid, like two, three years old, you always loved looking at rocks." And so, he would bring me places to let me look at rocks 'cause that was like -- my dad is single, my parents are separated. And so my dad didn't see me that much, so whenever he saw me, he would make -- go out of his way to go find a new place to go where we could go get rocks together. And so now I have a five or six shelf in my, my living room -- well, my dad's living room, where I -- we have all of our rocks that we've collected, and I also have some at my mom's house, and I have some in my closet, but we have a shelf of rocks now. Now, also on vacation, whenever we go somewhere new, you know, it's fun to get something that's a little ugly. You get something a little immemorial, the little thing to remind you that you went on vacation before. And so, one of those really cheap things that you can find a lot is turtles. You can find like, not plastic turtles, but there's different types of turtles, there's glass ones, like, there's designer ones. There's just different kinds of turtle related stuff. So me and my dad started collecting them. And we only found out later, we were on a -- I think it was -- we were on a cruise, or something like that. And…

"So every time we play, we end up calling the cards basically completely unrecognizable things." So, one of the big traditions in my family is playing this card game called Canasta, which is basically a variant of Rummy. I know that as a Michigander, the big card game around here is typically Euchre, but I never really grew up playing that. Instead, I grew up playing Canasta. So in those like, family get-togethers and events and holidays, we usually play Canasta, and it's a lot of fun. But the thing with playing Canasta with my family is that they never use the right names for any of the cards. I heard that the reason why is because my grandfather, who was the one who kind of introduced the card game to our family, didn't really speak English super well when he first married into our family. But the thing is that, as a result of that, when he taught everyone the game, I guess he called all the cards a bunch of incorrect terms, and now they just stuck around. So every time we play, we end up calling the cards basically completely unrecognizable things. So, like, for example instead of calling it like, a Red Three or Three of Diamonds or Three of Hearts, instead we call it a Cat's Eye. And like, I've learnt all the weird like, terminology and like, names that my family uses to describe each card, so I can play the game just fine. But the problem is that obviously, no one outside of my family knows like, the terminology. So what ends up happening is that I'll try to introduce Canasta to other people and teach them how to play the game. Like, I'll try to teach my friends the game. And they just get so confused because I keep instinctively calling the cards names that don't make any sense. So I'll be like, “Oh, if you draw a cat's eye, you can play and get 100 points” and they'll look at me like, like a deer in headlights. So as a result, I don't really teach people Canasta anymore, because not only is it always kind of difficult to learn a new card game, but it's made extra difficult by the fact that I keep calling the cards terms that they don't even know. So, Canasta has mostly stayed a family tradition.

"But I decided then and there, 'Mine.' " I once stole a completely functional smartphone. This happened when I just started middle school. I was a sixth grader. I was in a theater extracurricular and one day, I think we were cleaning the prop room, I found this phone. Charged it. Was -- Powered it on. It worked. The lock screen I think was a photo of what either was a current student in like 7th or 8th grade or someone who had just gone up to high school. But it was definitely someone's phone, not just a prop. But I decided then and there, "Mine." Yoinked that thing. Looked up how to factory reset it, wiped it, and repurposed it as, well, not even like a fully fun-- like a phone that most people would used to call or text. Because I didn't tell my parents about it, so I couldn't get a phone plan for it. I don't think they know to this day. I don't remember if I ever used in front of them. But my brother might have known about it. He probably did. And my friends definitely knew about it. But yeah, I stole a phone. And, you know what, yeah, I probably would do it again, if I saw a phone that was seemingly abandoned. Finders keepers.

"We just kept talking and talking and doing other things, and next thing we knew it was 6 a.m." So first semester of college, I was really worried about making friends. I was like, "Okay, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna attend some club meetings and hopefully I'll find some people there." So I did. And I actually very quickly found people. First meeting of this one club, I found -- what, it's a group of six people, and we all would hang out every meeting and we were getting pretty close. We had hung out like a few times outside of the club, but not very much. But two of the group had never seen The Lord of the Rings and so we were like, "Okay, obviously we need to do that. We need to all do a watch-through." So we picked out a day, and we all went over to one person's dorm hall. It was just -- we were just out in the open and one of us like brought down an Xbox. We set it up with the TV and we just sat there watching The Lord of the Rings. This hangout started at like, I think 5 p.m. And we got through I think two of the movies -- which, this was the extended edition, so like, that was pretty long. And then we just kind of ended up talking for a long time after that. Which was very nice and very fun except we lost track of the time. And we just kept talking and talking and doing other things, and next thing we knew it was 6 a.m. We had been hanging out for like 13 hours straight. And so at that point we all, kind of a little like delirious after that long, we all left, except for the person who lived at that dorm hall. And we all went home. And I just like, whatever stage of friendship it is that you hang out for 13 hours straight, I think we just speedran that. Because after that it's like I've known them my whole life. We like to, we like to joke that we're like pair-bonded cats. Like we're just all very inseparable. But evidently I had nothing to fear about finding friends in college.

"And I was a little bit hesitant, but I prepared the potatoes, I prepared all the stuff in kind of an order, and it went so much better." So, today I made baked potato soup, and it went much better than last time. The last time I made potato soup, it -- I was so rushed, and it was late at night, so I was so hungry. And I didn't have all of the necessary spices and things, so I just -- It wasn't the best experience. And I made a lot of it, like I did this time as well. But it just wasn't the best. But this time, I kind of learned from that previous experience. And I was a little bit hesitant, but I prepared the potatoes, I prepared all the stuff in kind of an order, and it went so much better. And I also got to snack on some carrots and dip while I was doing it, so I wasn't hungry, which was really nice. And when I was done, it was so good. I loved it. I don't know. I think I will definitely make this again.

"And so that's how I got my first cat." It was during Covid, going into my senior year where I felt really, really lonely. Like how everyone else really felt during that time. And so, I was really hoping to get a pet. And I was begging my mom to please just let me get like a guinea pig or a hamster. Like I promise I'll take good care of it. Like I have all the time in the world right now. So she finally gave in, and took me to, I think just like Petco, or PetPlus. Was it? It's like a store, a pet store. And when we first went, it was moreso I was gonna get a guinea pig or something, but when we went there, they actually had cats. They had rescued cats there. They usually don't. They don't always have like cats or dogs or animals like that. But because like coincidentally the day that we went they had cats, my mom saw the cat that was in the little, like, their area, and she also fell in love with -- actually it was only one cat remaining out of like four. And he was also sleeping, and so we couldn't like take a look at his face. But like, I mean, it was set and done. Like I was like, "Pleeeease let us," like, "let me get this cat, Mom." Yeah. She was also like, "Yeah, okay." And so that's how I got my first cat. His name is Theo.

"We end up having a big, big, big, big simba." Yeah, I've been thinking for the past few days, "What can I share with the group?" And it is hard sometimes, when you are thinking of the best topic to share with people, then you end up finding a lot of stories. So today I pick a story from simba. Simba is a common word for dogs in Africa. It is rude sometimes to call, for instance, dog as Mofart. Where I come from the culture does not allow. Probably people will be thinking, "Why call somebody Mofart?" "Why call a dog Mofart?" I mean. So, simba. I want to share a story about simba. So, sometime back probably 15 years ago, my mom wanted a dog. And of course, my mom and my elder brother, they love dog. The other group is my sister and I, probably we are not fond of pets. So we were debating, then my dad decides, "Hey, a friend of mine, who is a serviceman, has a German Shepherd puppy." Then my mom convinced my dad, "Hey, probably, we should go and take a puppy." That's how we ended up having a simba. It is not easy, a dog growing. I remember it was young, taking care of the bro, it was not easy. Especially my mom telling us, "Hey, you have to cook." Especially when our -- the person who was helping us in the house chores was not available. Then simba is growing every day now and then, and we end up having a big, big, big, big simba. So, I remember when we were coming from school sometime -- that is during the half terms when the school, it is out like half of the term -- we could go with the simba, with my brother, to train him how to hunt. Yeah, that's all I wanted to share about simba.

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