From the window, I can see rain pelting down. I like the rain. It is one of those things in life that can make one feel contrasting emotions—joy and distress, optimism and cynicism, rejuvenation and numbness—all in equal measure.
I like contrasts. Juxtaposition and oxymorons are my favorite literary devices. I used them so often that my teachers throughout high school (finally) relented to an endless storm of “blissful pain,” “surreptitious vigor,” and “Herculean triviality” in my essays and stories. So, renewing yet desolate downpours should be my happy place.
Except this is New England. The monsoons in my hometown in India epitomize the revitalizing thunderstorms ambiance I so adore after long, blistering summers. This rain is so cold and miserable. I feel like I have been sweetly gaslit by the glorious weather of Providence’s summer.
Oh well, I think. We move.
Literally though. I am always on the move—from classes to libraries to social events to random walks around campus with friends when I have one million assignments due. Maybe I am to blame for taking four STEM classes in my first semester. But, I thrive on testing the limits of my pain threshold; it is my Desi-perfectionist version of “very demure, very mindful.” Not to mention, being a cheery, slightly crazy, exuberant, lowkey overworked person is a lovely juxtaposition.
Brown itself is replete with oxymorons, and that knowledge brings me indescribable, unadulterated joy. The SciLi—the architectural monstrosity that juts out rudely between beautifully constructed edifices—is unironically my favorite building on campus. Hidden beneath its admittedly ugly exterior, is an immaculate aesthetic and a surprisingly comforting grindset. The most dramatic, thrilling, and animated stories have been told on the (supposedly) Quiet Green as I (very collegecore) sat on the grass with my (kind of) multicultural group of friends. I find my home, Keeney—which the upperclassmen called the “slums”—quaint, cutesy, serene, and altogether very wholesome, even though the basements have a slight proclivity towards flooding.
In fact, they are probably flooding at this very moment. Oops!
Blinking myself out of my momentary stupor, I rise from my chair and leave my room for Arnold Lounge, where people from all the dorms in Keeney gather to take refuge from the horrible, chilly, singularly horrible rains. Arnold Lounge, to its credit, is both cute and filled with endless possibilities for irony. Towering portraits of stern-faced men overlook a boisterous, yet somewhat charming cacophony of students attempting (and failing) to “lock in” together. Large groups of friends, formed only after a skillful bypassing of the traditional formalities (“Hi, I’m ____ from ____ and I’m concentrating in ___”), engage in delightful tomfoolery together, their high intellect, overachieving minds dexterously employed in brain rot. I join one of the groups and am immediately swept up in a wave of captivating chatter.
The rain slows to a drizzle. Pearly, incandescent drops form prisms on the slightly frosted windows. Gloomy showers have, in fact, created something vivid and beautiful. I still prefer the revitalizing showers back home, but Brown is, at the very least, a reflection of a new exquisite world.
