That’s right, we had a great party on Saturday night, the official “Freshers’ Party” for Indians, hosted by the Cornell India Associ­a­tion. So the CIA (no, not that one) is the news again, two days in a row.

The Big Red Barn is the perfect place for this kind of get-together. The first item was a very good way of getting people to mingle: you pick up a chit that gives you a word or a phrase, and form groups of five with others who have related phrases. In any case, I’ve noticed that people intro­duce themselves and talk much more freely with others from their own country, now that they are in a foreign land.

To me, this is both a good thing and a bad thing. When we are united by a culture and an ideology, we also proclaim that we are different from all others. A sense of unity at any level prevents us from having the same feeling at a higher, perhaps universal level. People from different states or cities group together when they are in their home country, but the distinc­tion of state or city is seldom consid­ered when they are in a foreign land. If everyone felt the same way back home, how much better our country would be!