What is happening here, welcome to the US and Milwaukee

Atınç Gürçay
Sep 3, 2018 · 3 min read
Milwaukee Art Museum, by me.

Oh man, it’s been a while. I am finally here in the US. I am not sure how the life goes in here yet. It just goes which is fine I hope. After having an okay flight from Istanbul to Chicago and then having a ice cold bus ride from there to MKE, I had a full American experience, by that I mean I had to face the unnecessary usage of AC. It does make no sense to freeze the inner places that much… For sure I got sick due to that but I am okay now. I had 4 orientation by the university for each title I have; Graduate Assistant, International Student, New Grad Student, New Student to the department. It was exhausting and boring to have the similar content orientation. I am glad to be here tho, I am finally here where I feel like I belong. Do not get me wrong, I mean the Graduate School not the US. I feel like people are here nicer (some says that this is thanks to being a Midwesterner.) However, in general people are often smart asses which makes no sense because I genuinely think they are neither smart or wise on many subject (except UWM faculty&staff who are amazingly helpful and wise).

Life is not that expensive here, you can easily find sales on almost anything. A beer can cost around 2.5 dollars or you can have a “all-you-can-drink” options for 10 dollars. I am not sure I am happy to be in the US. I still have some doubts about it. The poverty is at its worst here. The economic and social segregation is a big deal. People are often concerned about the safety. I believe they are making a scene out of this but who knows what’s gonna happen. It is better to stay in the safe side.

As mentioned before, people are quite nice and helpful for that I do not feel like I am away from home. I had some issues after arriving here tho, for some reason my phone did not work with network towers here, or the food portions are extremely big, or everything that includes sugar is way sugary than I am used to have.

As the case in Europe, Germans are here as well. They are often rude, loud and friendly. I appreciate their being here because somehow they makes me feel like I am okay. Actually, they are right now in the Common Room of my building watching an American show in German.

I have waited for this so long, to do this. I am happy to studying in here. Above everything I am studying in a higher level of education. It feels like I am going to have hard days due to number of readings but still I really enjoy this.

Oh a final note could be this: Since I am also a graduate teaching assistant here I am assigned to an undergraduate level course. Name of the course is Freedom of Expression in the Digital Age. This is a hard topic yet I am not going to be in charge of any discussion sections. Meaning I will mostly grade papers and exams.

All is fine everyone. I am kinda having some issues about the life here but this week the term will kick in and I am going to make more friends. By the way September 3rd is the Labour Day here, feel free to celebrate my first Labour Day.

And yeah whenever I say cannot /kɑːnt/ people wonder about whether I said the other word (you know which) or not.My name is another issue which I do not want to even talk about. Americans found a new way of pronouncing my short name (Ati) like Adi (really fast no emphasis on any letter).

Good bye everyone, that’s it so far.

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