Celebrity.

Today, as I loitered outside Goodbody Hall listening to a voicemail on my cellphone (oh, how the mighty have fallen), I felt a tap on my shoulder. Suppressing the part of me that remembers living in the shadow of New York City and the larger part of me that got stomped a lot (see previous post), I turned around while fingering my car keys in my pocket so I could get stabby. An international student stood there, lighting his Camel. He got lit up, took an impossibly long drag, and smiled. The smile quickly faded and, as he was flicking ash on his Abercrombie jeans, he looked like he was screwing up the courage to do something. The keys were hot in my Italian hand and reassuring. "So", I say, "Is there something I can do for you?" He smiled again through the smoke and said:

"Yeah. I wanna know how I can apply the OPT."

For the overwhelming majority of you who read this, that makes no sense whatsoever. For those of you who work in the Office of International Services, though, I bet the small hairs stood up on your neck as, I have been told, happens when you are about to be smote hardcore by a thunderbolt. (Aside: would that be "smitten?" "Smitten" sounds like something that happens on playgrounds when little Susie got back your note where you had checked "yes" next to the question "Do you like me? Check 'yes' or 'no'. OK, so that never happened to me. Whatever.)

OPT is, for the rest of you, a way that a certain kind of student (F-1, if you care) can stay for a year in the U.S. after s/he finishes an academic program to work in his/her field of study.

So, whatever. I looked at him and he looked intently back, as if he expected that I would be able to pull the forms out of my saffron bookbag and send them to Nebraska right there. Delicateness, I thought, delicateness. I smiled broadly and told him that I was not working at that particular time, and that he could come to our office any time during our regular business hours to ask about how to apply for the OPT. In fact, I pressed: I bet they are open right now! It's only 2 PM! He thought for a moment and brutally crushed his cigarette into the earth, leaving only a cork-colored smear where there had previously been dying grass.

"So, what you are saying is that you won't help me."

I was taken aback for a moment. As an anthropologist who has studied dozens, if not hundreds, of cultures and peoples through four years of an education, I am nevertheless shocked every once in a while at how much of a clash there can be sometimes. In this case, this gentleman knew I had the goods, and saw my refusal to help (then) to be my unwillingness to share. I saw it as me, not on the clock, trying to get to class as a student like him, thinking longingly of eating one of those huge stuffed hot pretzels that they sell in the Union. My blood pressure rose ever-so-slightly at the insult and I quickly went to the happy candy-and-unicorn-riding place. I explained to him that yes, I was an employee, but I was also a student who had an existence (pathetic as it is) outside work. "Whatever", he said, and walked away, lighting up again.

This has happened before. In the OIS we trade horror-stories of being in supermarkets, bookstores, restaurants, on the street, and being approached by students who recognize us. I've only been there a year and it's happened to me four times already--in the Wal*Mart, in the Kroger, in my old dorm, and now, in front of Goodbody Hall. The day will come when I am in line buying something embarrassing, like glow-in-the-dark condoms or People Magazine, and it will happen again. It's only a matter of time.

It's Friday night and I just ordered a pizza from Aver's that has, and I am not kidding, potatoes, bacon and gorgonzola cheese on it. Inuits on their yearly migration into the Great Lakes will row a skin-vessel to Bloomington and end my days with a harpoon.

Until tomorrow, I remain,

Dom (fatty) Potorti, aka Demir