w V U w w V V W w. w _ 3 A cold United States welcome ext spring, I graduate and leave Ann Arbor for good. Even with still two semes- ters to go, I am already feeling myself terribly nostalgic at the prospect of bidding farewell to the only place in this country I've called home. But when I first arrived on cam- pus, I was less inclined to label Ann Arbor the best college town in the world. At the beginning of freshman year, I saw the campus as a collection of unappealing, brick academic buildings dotting a largely barren countryside. And in this unwelcoming dystopia, people rarely talked - they only nodded soundlessly in recognition. Who would have blamed me for see- ing that? I was, after all, an inter- national student who had, upon arriving to Ann Arbor, been mer- cilessly placed in the sedate, outer- most edge of campus - Baits I. On one of my first days on cam- pus, I watched a deer outside my residence hall search despon- dently for food. It was an unsuc- cessful attempt, of course, for Baits housed no dining facility. On a casual foray near the shrub- bery outside the building, I found an odd-smelling sofa and squirrels large enough to devour the deer. A drunken, haggard man lay uncon- scious by a walking path. Where - and how else - could I have cre- ated a preconceived general image of Ann Arbor that was farther from the truth? Fortunately, a lifetime's expo- sure to cable television in Pakistan had me sufficiently well versed in American pop culture to stop me from applying generalizations to a city I had only partly experienced. So I remained cautiously optimis- tic, convinced that I would soon witness America in all its quintes- sential Rambo-esque glory. Not even an earlier encounter with a brusque immigration officer at Chicago airport had dampened my excitement or euphoria. After requesting passengers holding Pakistani and United Arab Emir- ates passports to step aside, the officer proceeded to make us wait three hours until our names were called out in ominous tones. The subsequent interview had been straightforward. Until, of course, we got to a harder question: what color was my hair? "Black," I had answered coolly. "No, it isn't," he replied angrily. "It's dark brown." Then he needlessly reprimanded Why my first months in Ann Arbor were difficult me for my flippant outlook on life as I stood bewildered and per- plexed before a scared South Asian student audience. Still, it seemed the University was determined to test how much my optimistic patience would endure. Following University pro- cedure, first-year international students had to register in the final weeks of August, later than all other freshmen. Caught in the urgency of simultaneously pick- ing classes and figuring out how to use Wolverine Access and CTools, I found myself with a class sched- ule that required four hours of travel time shuttling back and forth between Baits and the corridors of Angell Hall. On my first day of classes, with my head still spinning from orien- tation lessons and tentative class schedules, I waltzed absentmind- edly onto a bus when I was ready to return to North Campus. Instead of being conveniently deposited at the Baits bus stop, I found myself looking at scenery I had never seen before, realizing far too late I had taken the wrong bus and ended up near the Northwood apartment complex. Sadly, that wasn't my last exhausting bus ride. Later that year, the state of Michigan, eager to contribute to the international student's freshman-year obstacle course, decided to impose a blan- ket ban preventing temporary residents from acquiring driver's licenses. Limited to travel itiner- aries that depended on Amtrak and Greyhound routes, I spent fall break touring Midwestern cities like Grand Rapids, Cleveland and Toledo. But unfortunately, I wasted much of the time waiting at Grey- hound stops in Jackson, Mich., Gary, Ind., and a host of other cities with names that would be more appro- priate in a University yearbook. Luckily, first appearances can be deceiving. Infollowingyears, I man- aged to erase lingering memories of monotonous bus rides, immigra- tion waiting rooms and needless detours to Detroit and develop a thorough appreciation of the city. Now, from the heart of Central Campus - driver's license in hand and officially brown-haired - I find myself in my senior year at the University. But it was only after successfully maneuvering an obstacle course - that may well have skewed perceptions, for me or any other international student, the other way - that I learned to make the most of my foreign expe- rience. -Emad Ansari is a senior in the School of Public Policy. The real-life application of medical marijuana From page 5B Right now, Joe has 12 plants in a small grow room that he is pre- venting from flowering by keeping them in 22.5 hours of light a day. He is working on finishing a larger grow room with the help of some younger friends, who often come over to work on projects in Joe's loft and mechanic shop. When he moves the plants into the main room later, he will change their lighting schedule to 12 hours of light so they will flower. "See how tall that ceiling is?" he said. "We're going to make them big." Joe hopes to convince his doc- tor that marijuana can be benefi- cial if managed in a safe way. If the doctor still won't see the value in medical marijuana, Joe said he will find another who has learned about the treatment. "How can you make a decision about something you haven't stud- ied or been to a seminar on?" Joe said. "I would rather have a doctor who's trained in the treatment of leukemia than a doctor who (has) just heard of the treatment of leu- kemia." Joe is used to figuring things out for himself. It's what he prid- ed himself on during his 18-year career as a Dodge mechanic, and it's what he prides himself on now as a cancer patient who is making the most of his remaining years. "You tell me I can't do some- thing, I'm going to ask you why and I'm going to figure out a way I can do it," Joe said. Joe's home in Ionia is a testi- mony to his determination and indomitable spirit. After he was diagnosed, Joe moved to be with his mother on a large plot of land his niece inherited. With his mother in the house, Joe decided to turn a barn loft on the property into a makeshift apartment. The loft has no glass windows, and the only heating is a radiation system in the walls and concrete floors. It is not the type of living situ- ation you would expect for a leu- kemia patient who has lived much longer than expected in blast cell crisis. But Joe has more plans for the place. Along with the grow room, Joe is currently adding a master bedroom and bathroom. Originally a car mechanic, Joe has made himself a jack-of- all-trades through researching building and growing techniques online. In that way, Joe is a model for all of the state's medical mari- juana patients who, in the absence of a state-run dispensary system, have had to engineer their own way to get medicated. SAM WOLSON/Daily A marijuana patient stands in the barn where he is building a hydroponics grow room.