As an international student from France, the question I am asked the most is: “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?” For the sake of decorum, I won’t venture too much into this area and I’ll treat the second most asked question instead, which is: “How do you like it here?”
Here is Bloomington-Normal, a place between Chicago and St Louis, in the middle of Illinois. Around it, corn fields. Inside, a lively student town for 9 months a year, and a playground for ghosts otherwise. It doesn’t seem like it, but if you look closely, you can easily amaze yourself with what this place has to offer.
I’ve been around for exactly 327 days (yes, I did the math) – hence, I know a few things. First off, I’d like to reveal ISU’s biggest secret: students have superpowers.
Their livers are wrapped in steel. I’ve been to a few parties, ready to re-enact American Pie’s full oeuvre, and I was astonished by the incredible amount of liquor which can occupy a single belly at any given time. Yet students hold, defying physics and biology, fierce and fearless like old Greek statues.
Alas, every Achilles has its heel, and ISU students are no exception: wait until approximately 11:17 pm, and you’ll witness the collapse of countless bodies into oblivion like Rome once did.
Their skin is made of fiberglass. They don’t need anything to withstand the extreme temperatures we experience here. I’d heard stories before, but nothing beats the sight of students out in the winter, steam coming out of their mouth and nose, their skin exposed to the freezing cold like an astronaut dropped in space without its suit.
No jacket, no hat, no gloves, and no terror in their eyes – pure serenity. To me, that is supernatural.
Talking about attire: students travel back and forth in time to bring back dope styles from the future. It’s Fashion Week every day down here. Even the most impetuous designers from Paris wouldn’t dare try something like what I see on campus. Socks and crocs? Classic. Pink hair with a blue strand? Timeless. Tracksuit and bow tie? Coming soon.
More seriously, students developed a freedom to dress however they like, elegantly distancing themselves from mocking, and ignoring childish remarks like the ones I’m making right now – for a European, that is both respectable and hilarious.
While the people are already supernatural, their environment also offers marvelous sights.
The campus interacts with students to constitute a remarkable ecosystem. On a quiet morning, as you walk through the Quad to attend your next class, you’re suddenly submerged by a flow of students, heads down, eyes to the last trendy meme on Instagram, aware of their surroundings by some mystical ability... No bells, no signals whatsoever to warn you of what’s coming.
As crazy as it seems, they know where to go as if the buildings were calling them, whispering their names in the cold air. And it works, just like in a gigantic anthill: students flitting through campus, seamlessly linking one hour to the next, making it through the day – and eventually the semester.
That’s some dark magic. That is life.
Finally, if I’m ever in need of more adventures, I can just explore the Walmart. Whenever I wander through the dark aisles, rows of cereal boxes preventing the artificial light from reaching my eyes, I feel like Indiana Jones exploring the Temple of Doom.
As I run to escape the boulder of consumerism, avoiding traps disguised as promotional offers in vivid colors, I quickly find myself trapped in the overpriced toilet paper aisle, letting me no choice but to grab the cheapest roll and get out.
While I struggle to finish this article, trying to think about a relevant conclusion, I cannot. Perhaps a citation of my fellow countryman Marcel Proust will suffice:
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
