I love Dallas, and that has meant embracing Texas with a big, Texas-size hug. I enjoy seeing things that would be strange anywhere else but are completely normal here — like snakeskin cowboy boots peeking out under a businessman’s trousers. The one time my parents and I went to a Buc-ee’s on a road trip to Houston and tasted a brisket sandwich, we couldn’t get enough. But gun violence has now become an inseparable part of Texas’ reputation and culture, more than all the other wholesome things like the State Fair pays tribute to. I just hope that it doesn’t become the state’s legacy.

I’ve now spent six months car-free in Dallas, and riding DART light rail nearly every day has taught me more about the city than blindly following directions on Google Maps ever could have. Using public transportation even taught me about the city's past. At DART light rail stations, the city’s very own open air museums, poetry, bronze sculptures and murals house the history of the Dallas’ railroads, changing neighborhoods and its lovers.

I have never had a deep, personal faith. But after my first two weeks of being in the U.S., I took myself to Mass at the basilica on my college campus. I sidled into a pew in the corner, and in the quiet moments before the service, I stretched my neck back. As I stared at the blue vaulted ceiling studded with golden stars, I could feel warm tears rolling down my cheeks. I had just moved from India to college at the University of Notre Dame and it was my first time going to Mass alone. I wasn’t

For some reason, whenever anyone in the U.S. remarks on my fluency in English, I seethe. Growing up in India, I internalized an obsession with “proper” English due to the social currency that English represents. In India, many well-paying corporate jobs are simply not available to those who don’t speak English fluently. Thus, being educated in English is a means of upward social mobility.

On my love for the whimsical bossa nova of the Barfi! soundtrack and how exploring new Hindi music has been the most strange of constants through different majors, friendships, clubs and seasons in my life at Notre Dame.

To this day, I remember second grade as the time I started to love school. Before then, I was extremely reticent, allergic to socializing and participating in class, but my homeroom teacher, Mrs. Bhatia, was the first teacher who seemed to see me for something other than being shy. I would sit with my classmates at colorful six-seater tables in our class, sunlight and the raucous honks of Mumbai traffic streaming in through the open doors, as we learnt about multiplication tables and metamorphosis.