People occasionally tap me on the shoulder to let me know my roommate is brilliant and beautiful. Despite this, Cindy* and I get along marvelously well. And with all due respect to my professors, many of whom are wonderful and all of whom have yet to dole out final grades, rooming with Cindy has been exactly the kind of colorful college learning experience you read about in propagandistic brochures before arrival but never seem to have. I am writing my final column this semester on this experience for mostly selfish reasons, to use the permanence of cyber-storage for once to my advantage. Because ten in years, as I reminisce about my sophomore year at Duke, the exchanges we've had in our tiny room in Few are among the things I will most want to remember.
On first impressions:
Cindy is Bolivian, which initially impressed my Midwestern American sensibilities. How exotic! How fresh! Luckily, I wasn't as bad as some of our equally well-meaning peers. Cindy has chronicled for me the many, many times when she would give the standard name-and-major introduction upon meeting a new face, only to receive in gushing tones: "Your English is so good!" Then inevitably: "Where are you from, like, originally?"
On the flip side, we've noted that so long as we don't open our mouths, she can pass for non-minority American, while I can't. I'm American enough to wish I had been raised in England long enough to have cultivated a delicate English accent, the kind you can turn on and off, like a charm, like a faucet. But I, too, have spent the better part of two years (second and third grade) fielding inquiry as to my origins: "Are you Chinese or Japanese?" I guess we all have our points of mystery; for some it's the accent, for others the eyes.
On language:
The public school system has done my Spanish speaking skills little justice over the last six years. My father seems to be under the impression that having Cindy as my roommate has remedied the situation. Like a sponge, I have soaked up a year's worth of music and conversation in a lovely, steady stream of Spanish, including in my sleep, sí? Sadly, this is not the case. Cindy's English, on the other hand, is top-notch, but I suspect I did not have much of a real hand there, seeing as how her grammatical proficiency and consistency daily put me to shame. Rather, thanks to Cindy, my own English has improved: I am slowly breaking away from pseudo-Chi-town dialect, minimizing my lapses into "Sup dog" and "Dude." But I have honed one Spanish sentence to perfection, having uttered it in plaintive tones after every phone conversation with my enthusiastic dad: "Cindy -necesitamos hablar en español!"
On food:
I like peanut butter okay, and I was shocked when Cindy informed me this is a uniquely, grossly American predilection. I had been under the impression that peanut butter was a global phenomenon of McDonald's or Coca-Cola proportions. I'm not a peanut butter lover by any means, but she thinks differently, having eyed me with a look of indigestion as I finished a (small) jar over the course of the semester. I believe she is convinced I have a peanut butter problem. Kind heart that she is, she has taken to bringing me cookies from Whole Foods, and they are never oatmeal raisin or chocolate chip; they are always, always peanut butter. I think they're supposed to function like a kind of nicotine patch, to help me on the long road to recovery.
On differences:
Cindy and I are not so different. By chance or fate, our first real class of the day always starts at the same time (for sake of conscience, I ignore her 8:30 pilates and weight-lifting). We've both planned impromptu weekend trips to see family or friends at some point in the semester, trips that have coincidentally fallen on the same dates. We both consider ourselves strong, independent women. We both take issue with the structure of our knees.
Sadly, what we will not be sharing next year is the same address. She will be off to study abroad while I stay behind in the States; there will be no late-night conversations on the peculiarities of American drinking culture or on the price of fresh-squeezed lemonade here and elsewhere.
In my fast-emerging nostalgia, I don't mean to hop on the bandwagon, extol the cultural exchange experience and recommend you pick out an international/non-international at Room Pix, the way you might select a nice guava at the supermarket. I say very simply that it has been a spectacular experience, having a foreign roommate.
Just ask Cindy. She'll tell you all about it.
*name changed for identity protection.
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