Chapter #4
[Scrap #1] This is not how this chapter was supposed to begin. According to the plan I was supposed to be already working in a restaurant, have my friends come over after work and drink milkshakes. Instead, I had spent the last month walking through almost every street of Palm Desert dropping my resume (with Paradise Pub listed as my last place of work and Dominika as the manager) at every restaurant I could find - Mexican, Japanese, Italian, Greek. I would always try to talk to the manager and convey my sense of enthusiasm (or desperation) but the conversation would pretty much always end up in the same way - "we are still waiting for the season to start but we will call you whenever we have something suitable". It was still summer and it would be a few weeks before tourism started picking up again. With the dry air of the desert everywhere and the temperatures reaching almost 50 centigrade the search was starting to resemble looking for life on Mars. Dad had told me there was no shame if I decided to come back but there was no way I was getting back on that plane.
[Scrap #2] I was just taking a hike with Kamil on one of the nearby hills and looking around one could easily see how the geography of this place contributes to the heat and drought. Palm desert was part of so called Coachella Valley community which we could now clearly see looking down the hill. To the left was a range of relatively high mountains which were a natural mark of the desert keeping the moist from the West Coast away. This was also where Palm Springs stretching to the east joint with Cathedral Mirage, Rancho Mirage and finally Palm Desert. The cities were roughly enclosed within the boundries of highway 111. Traveling further east on the highway you would pass La Quinta and eventually Indio and the rest of the valley. The highway would eventually merge with freeway 10 which stretched all the way to Florida making it one of the longest route in America. The valley was roughly divided into West and East. The former was a home of many celebrities and homes of 'snow birds', second home owners, and potential source of my income. The Eastern part was mostly inhabited by citrus fields and immigrants from Mexico.
[Scrap #3] It was strangely quiet even. It was a place that in theory was probably not supposed to exist. Despite the high temperatures and desert climates there were over twenty golf courses and most of the houses had green lawns in front of them - all thanks to the water stored underground and ever present sprinkle system that would keep ground irrigated. We were looking down at the valley. Down one of the main roads (all of them crossed each other at a perfect 90 degree angles) I noticed blue lights of ambulance. "People's everyday problems seem so small when you look at them in the distance. We are here just for a blink of a second anyway". It was one Kamil's moments of wisdom. And looking in that way I knew he was right. The words in the emails or phone calls sent back home telling about my first trip to the ocean or huge houses were not exaggerated. But it was also true that I had spent a lot of time worrying. I had already known that this fear of unknown combined with crash of expectations with reality was something I had to learn to live with.
[Scrap #4] The orientation session for international students of College of the Desert marked the official beggining of school end the end of summer. I had been quite looking forward to it. Apart from occasional trips with Kamil outside of Palm Desert, local bus trip to Palm Springs with my new Polish roommates or visits at the nearby mall there was not much to do. Byran, my new landlord, tried to be as helpful as possible taking us for grocery shopping or correcting our English wherever he detected bad grammar. We would also hang out at Kamil's place whenever possible, sitting by his swimming pools enjoying the warm nights. Night was really the only time when one could enjoy the outside so I would sometimes take Kamil's roller blades and ride around the neighbourhood - the college of the desert was just five minutes away and there was also a small park outside. I started understanding the meaning of those balmy nights the the college brochure was talking about. But the truth is that we spent many of the days sitting inside the living room with the blind closed watching TV and drinking Jack Daniels with Coke and slices of orange.
[Scrap #5] English was going to be another battle to fight. Yes, I had a great knowledge of grammar - the result of hours spent at classes led by Mr. Potrowiak, my high school teacher, who would constantly torture us with Murphy's rule on grammar and never ending tests. I loved knowing what was happening around the world so back at home I would watch CNN on daily basis and read Newsweek. I knew my knowledge of vocabulary was all right. But nothing could more damage confidence in my conversational skills than my first visit to Subway a day after my arrival. The speed and the accent of the American language was so overwhelming (plus I wasn�t familiar with the whole system) so when asked what I wanted all I managed to say was 'everything'. English test was going to be a part of the two day introduction session. It would decide whether I could attend regular classes or would need take English as a Second Language program. The second option was according to Kamil, a "complete waste of time and money" to be avoided at any price. With that in mind I reached the sunny campus of College of the Desert.
[Scrap #6] The introduction started in a very well air conditioned room. We listened to stories about living in the United States, cultural shocks, differences in measures systems. My biggest shock so far had been seeing water in the toilet filling up the entire basin before finally flushing down. As for the metrics everything here seemed to extra sized and sold in gallons. Including milk that somehow stayed fresh forever. The adviser also mentioned emotional roller coaster - moving from excitement to homesickness. That also sounded familiar. After few more talks we were led to a computer room. We were told to relax and do our best. I thought I did all right but I was most nervous about the second part - the verbal test. This one was done on a one to one basis. I walked into a small room where I was greeted by a nice old lady. She asked me about my family and life in general. My plan was to show off all my knowledge of different tenses I learned from Mr. Piotrowiak. I expected lots of tricky questions but the lady stayed extremely nice and finished interview telling me that I had "very nice white teeth".
[Scrap #7] Well, whether it was my smile or just general knowledge of English I passed all the tests without problem which meant I did not need to sign up for the ESL (and as a result saved myself at least a 1,000 dollars. I needed it. The school would start in just a few days and I had never been so much looking forward for it to start. The whole registration process was slightly complex but what I loved the most about it was that students had a complete freedom about what classes they choose at what time and what day. The only downside was that as a first year student I was of one of the lowest priority which meant a lot of courses were being taken by the time I managed get to the registration desk. But I was finally feeling optimistic and was looking forward to this part of adventure. As for the courses I ended up taking Sociology class on minority relations, the US histoty, General Psychology and finally a history of Rock�n�Roll. It was part of the curriculum that students were supposed to take a lot of general education requirements and with the last one ticking boxes for the Arts.
[Scrap #8] My first day at school was just a few days after the orientation session. With new books in the backpack I headed to the campus. It was a beautiful sunny morning. Architecturally College of the Desert was quite a modest with mostly one level stories concrete buildings connected with each other by covered pillared passages. There were a lot of date palm trees outside of the buildings and a big fountain with a pool in front of the Hillb Student Center. My first lesson was taught by Dr. Rios, a professor recommended to me by Kamil. The classroom was not very big few five or six rows of tables accommodating maybe about forty people. There were more people than seats - as I found our later those were people on the waiting list hoping for someone to drop out. The teacher called the names of students and then asked everyone what we thought the origins of our names were. It was the first lesson and right away I had to speak in front of group. It was intimidating. "Pole in Polish means field so I guess farmers" I improvised to a reassuring nod from the professor. Everyone was so nice!
[Scrap #9] The remainder of the classes would start in a similar way. The teacher would read out the name of students and then always hand out a syllabus. It was a detailed plan of the semester with every topic of the lecture listed, required reading that needed to be done and exam dates. It was basically almost like a contract and students still had time to drop out of the class for a period of few weeks in case they did not feel the class or the teacher suited them. In addition, there were also going to be regular, in some cases weekly, to test the knowledge from the previous work. Also, the participation was mandatory and would become part of the grade. I thought college life would be mostly based on a lot of free time and cramming for a final exam. Although I knew it was going to be a hard work I suddenly felt just in my element. That was exactly what I was looking for and my determination to stay here, to make it happen grew even stronger. "I'm going to realize my dreams because I've got a lot of them" I wrote in my journal.
[Scrap #10] And then a couple of weeks later my phone rang. It was very early in the morning so I was a bit surprised to see Kamil's name show up on the screen. "Turn on CNN. Terrorists attacked New York". It sounded like something from a movie but when I went to the living room I saw that he was not kidding. There were two towers burning and lots of of confused voices. Soon the images of the collapsing towers would be replayed on every possible channel. Dr. Rios asked if anyone wanted to voice their opinions about the events. There were voices about need for revenge. Later on Kamil picked me up to donate blood in the medical centre but the queue was so long we were asked to come back the next day. Everyone wanted to help. With the air traffic put to a halt the usual blinking lights of planes were all gone. I woke up the next morning still on the couch with the TV on. No, it was not a dream. I had no idea what the future was going to look like but I knew that nothing was every going to be the same.