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I left Cosmo Club and the prairie four years ago and it has been a whirlwind trip ever since, but when things quiet down I remember slow Sunday mornings. The house would be quiet, my room on the first floor full of whispers from the coffee maker. And then I would hear a soft thud coming from the general direction of the porch, marking the delivery of my Sunday New York Times. I’m not kidding about the thud; you could break windows with the Sunday New York Times, both literally and metaphorically. Living in a country where newspapers average about 20 airy pages, I miss that. Coffee in hand, I would then spend hours pouring over every page, the embodiment of the kind of journalism I had come to UIUC to learn. Not once was I not informed, awed or surprised by the content held within those pages. And, here comes the best part, I would take what I learned and unconsciously put it to the test against my housemates. We have spent many hours sprawled against soft cushions in the living room, talking just about anything, from American politics to attitudes towards sex, the death penalty and, sure, my house mates’ poor opinion on journalism. We asked each other how sex, racism, and violence were perceived in our countries. We asked the Germans how they felt about the Holocaust, the Romanians about communism, the Malaysians about Muslim treatment of women. We discussed riots and education. There was an entire world in the Sunday New York Times, and it mirrored the world assembled on the ground floor at Cosmo. And as we discussed, we’d prepare drinks, cook food, do laundry. It was on the ground floor of Cosmo that Daniela thought of an eating contest, which led to Anand dyeing his hair hot pink after he lost. Sometimes our chatter was clumsy, others naïve, conversations often heated up. But we always came back, because, I think, we had gotten a taste of the large world out there and we needed more. My stories have made it into the New York Times once or twice since those days of discovery. A lot of Cosmo memories are blurry by now, but I remember a little bit about each and every one of my former housemates. There was Ajay listening to Iron Maiden huddled over his laptop, Young Jae playing piano, Felix talking about going to Africa, Ingmar watching sports matches on lazy Sundays, Sheila cooking Thanksgiving dinner. I remember watching silly TV shows with Kimiko. Then there was Zhong-ning’s wanderlust, Andres’s compassion, Daniela’s enthusiasm for life, Stefan’s smile, Ana’s curiosity, Moussa’s French accent that made everything he said sound like music. There was Anand and the way he would know to greet you in your language, whatever the language. For me, the time spent at Cosmo with and around my housemates told me things about the way we live now and the way we live now ultimately confirms why I chose to spend my days telling stories. Some good, some bad, but always from the heart. * Luiza is a journalist and former Cosmo resident. She lives in Bucharest and sometimes misses the Illini prairie. |