College life in the States
The reality of my coming to the US didn't really sink in until I touched down on American soil that morning, the fall of 1991. The last few months were spent in preparation, yes, but nothing ever did prepare me for the shock that I will not see my parents, or taste Malaysian food for at least the next 2 years. The friends that I have made, that I grew up with, the games I played - all this seems a distant memory the moment I arrived in Des Moines Airport. "So this is it." I thought. "Whatever happens, there's no turning back now...so help me God."
my first semester
The flight was absolutely horrible...it was my first time taking a plane by myself, and the journey was close to 28 hours. The plane left Singapore and stopped at Tokyo. Tokyo to Los Angeles. From there to Chicago, and finally to Des Moines. Then we took the transport, a van managed by the International Students Association to Friley Hall where we stayed for a few nights before moving into Linden Hall, my home for the next few months (it turned out to be years, in fact).
I can't recall how I got to know Steve, a Malaysian college senior but he was great in providing a tour of the Iowa State campus, and also helping me get all the essentials like toiletries, bedsheets, laundry detergent, i.e., important stuff that you know you should get but somehow at the spur of the moment, you don't. Oh, now I remember - the university actually mailed us a letter telling us that we should report to the Orientation Office at a certain date, and after the talk, we were paired up with a mentor. Steve was the mentor assigned to me.
Linden Hall opened up, and Steve helped me move into the room. It was not as big as I expected it to be, and I had to share with another person, a white guy named Sean. He has not arrived yet, so I made room for him to move in. Boy, Sean was a big boy, close to 200 lbs and his family were pretty big-sized, too. He brought in his TV, his stereo system, his Mac, almost everything. Me? I only brought my clothes, and some stationary, that's it. We introduced ourselves and started talking about stuff, just to get to know each.
The first week-end arrived and I had my first culture shock. Sean went to a party and brought home a lady, and both of them were naked, having sex in the room! Almost had an argument with the man - I thought that watching American shows on TV would have prepared me for this, but it didn't. Later, I also discovered that Sean smokes marijuana, and watches a lot of pornography...welcome to America!
It's at this time that I felt the greatest loneliness. Coming to America and seeing the entire class of whites is enough of a revelation, and I had to be sharing a room with what-you-would-call a red-blooded American. I guess there needs to be a paradigm-shift on my part, that there is a need for me to accept the fact that Sean is here to stay. Our friendship grew to be pretty close, and I never uttered a word regarding his behaviour. After all, he is away from his family and to him, he is free to do whatever he likes, which includes sex, booze, and getting high.
my cool, black room-mate
The next semester, Sean decided that he wanted to share the room with another guy who shares the same "hobbies". Chris lived right around the corner, and he probably has the biggest room in the hall. So we swapped rooms, and my new room-mate is this good-looking black guy. This man has got to be the best-dressed guy I know. I peeked at his wardrobe, and there are mostly blazers, and leather jackets. This man is the president of a black-students association, and in my opinion, he is cool (that's the first time I knew the meaning of the word).
Theo has an excellent stereo system, he uses records rather than CDs, and listens to jazz. And his grades are fantastic, too, since he came to ISU on an academic scholarship (he's doing a pharmacy degree). He is also a Christan, and he sings for this Southern Baptist church which meets on campus. One can even attest to the fact that he sings like one of the guys in Boyz II Men. This man is perfect, and no wonder there are so many girls looking for him - before he got an answering machine, I was for a while, his personal telephone assistant. I must say that a big part of my life has been shaped by him, in the way he lived his life, how he studied, his jazz music, et cetera.
campus crusade for christ
Of all the influences in college, this must be number one. It is through the fellowship with this group of Christians that I guess I am what I am today. Really, there aren't that many Asians in the group, but it seems that among this community of believers, I really felt most at home. My first introduction to the group was during Prime Time, their weekly meeting of fun and games. It is then that I met Nai-shear a Malaysian who helped set my path straight. He became my closest friend, since we both share the same faith and pretty much the same background. He later introduced me to the bible-study group which later, I stayed with for the rest of my college life.
Our leader's name was Steve Papez, and the group were basking in his enthusiasm. Most of the time, the venue was not fixed since he would give us new ideas on what to do. The one thing that did not change, is our love for the Lord Jesus Christ and for each other. Each time we met, it was like we want to have a good time. Even for bible-study, Steve sort-of "encourage strongly" that we spend some money to buy 2 books, i.e. Strong's Concordance, and Vine's Expository Dictionary, which turned out out to be the best purchase I have made as a Christian. He would give us an outline of what we need to work on a week before, and had us to "do homework" so that we can discuss it. And the discussion was always so much fun, because each of us has a different idea what the passage meant, and Steve would bring us back to reality once the discussion get a little heaty. We had a great time, all the time.
outreach to the peoples
Being a Crusade-er also meant that we reach out to the campus, and this group, almost all the time, takes the lead in doing stuff - perhaps because they called us an Action Group - in bringing in speakers, to setting up information booths, to even ushering in concerts. Oh, Campus Crusade at ISU has a unique opportunity every time there is a stadium concert. We would be called in to be ushers, and the money is being paid to Crusade, while we get to watch the concert for free. During my time, we had concerts with U2, Billy Joel/Elton John, and the Rolling Stones, all free. Fall Retreat is the first time that we actually got to know the people in a closer sort of way. where the whole group spend the week-end together as a campus. Christmas Conference is another fun time where we would drive up to Minneapolis/St.Paul for teachings, and worship together for the entire Midwest. My first conference, they had a local Christian band called "Pray For Rain" which later we found out was nominated for a Grammy for Christian music. The next best thing was of course, Spring Break. This is the time where we had an entire busload of people going south to Daytona Beach for outreach to the partying college folks. Great time, especially when the highlight of the day was when we were given the opportunity to go up on stage to share how good God has been in granting salvation to the beachcombers.
joining a band
The band, hmmm. It actually happened by accident, really. I guess it started during one of the Fall Retreat when David, a full-time staff was leading worship on his keyboard. I was requested to do a presentation by one of the speakers, and then David started to play as well. Both of us had never played in a band before, and somehow, the coordination turned out pretty good. The next thing I know, David had suggested that we get a band going for Prime Time since he has drummer friend in the bible-study that he's leading, and I must say that I became a band player...and never looked back after that. Later that semester, an Indonesian who played the bass also joined us, and we became a full band (plus some vocalists who are quite handy with the tambourine).
The experience really helped a lot, even when I was working as an intern in Pella. I found out that as a musician, I could actually hang out with a lot of people since music is such a common language. In Pella (almost the entire town was white except for the Chinese restaurant), I hung out with the guitarist who has a kid my age. We jammed quite a bit and he became my best buddy. Even in many of the churches that I have been, being a musician helped initiate the fellowship so much that I guessed it was by the grace of God that I took up the instrument.
hanging out with Carter and Scott
Carter and Scott must be the coolest guys I have met. They are actually members of the same bible-study that I'm in. Looking back, I think that the time that I stayed with them during the summer to be the most enjoyable time of all. You see, these guys are interested in everything outdoors, and life for them is just fun.
Both of them play golf (Scott's score on an 18-hole is 76, he brags about it everytime he does it...and he does it quite often, too) and it's weird to hang out with them since the Masters is like the World Cup to them. Both Scott and Carter will have the TV turned on the whole day when the Masters is on. They enjoy barbecue, and they have this huge pit and they taught me how to cook steak to perfection. Fishing is kinda interesting because you have to first catch these big worms called nightcrawlers (these things are like 1 foot long). We'll go out at night with a flashlight, and these worms would come out from their burrows. The trick is that we have to be real slow in the approach, and then pounce on them with our hands because they would go back into the burrows at lightning speed at the slightest vibration. Once you catch it, you then pull the thing out and be amazed how long these nightcrawlers really are. Come to think of it, I even go out sunbathing with them (pretty stupid 'cos I'm already dark without the sun). Other games we play, beach volleyball, tennis, frisbee. We even smoke cigars together during bible-study...something that we are proud of, until today. We also watch like tons of videos...one night we even watched straight through all the 3 Star Wars movies at one go.
epilogue
College is an experience of a lifetime, and these guys made it all worthwhile.
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most recent update: June 16, 1999
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Romans 8:28
