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I felt lost
Like a tiny aquarium fish suddenly thrown into the gargantuan ocean, to accustomed to a place it has never even seen before while, at the same time, trying to protect itself from perpetrators skulking beneath the waves and behind the water. All it would take is just a mistake, even if inconspicuous, and you wouldn't be alive to make another one
This is what I felt, a Betta fish among the bevvy of sharks.
But I wasn't unfamiliar with this feeling. I had experienced this before. It was somewhat similar to the foreignness that had roused inside me when I first attended the university, my first year of college was spent feeling the same emotion as I juggled to come to terms with the new environment contradictory to that of the school's
This was the problem of the diasporic community. They felt alienated and dominated despite spending years in the host land. I couldn't help but reminisce about the pleasant days I spent in my homeland feeling equally accepted and loved. I didn't feel like an outsider who needed to shrink to make a place for the natives or who felt alone even when surrounded by a sea of people
"David Hume was a Scottish philosopher and historian who responded to and developed the empiricist work of his predecessors, John Locke and George Berkeley" The teacher spoke, breaking my trance and bringing me back to the class
It had already been three weeks since my arrival and one since I began attending the college. It was the same university I had seen the pictures of, but it looked so much better and grand in reality with its huge walls circulating the vast ground that lay in the middle of the building. The infrastructure was glorious and the crowd was amiable. Though I had been introduced to my classmates by the teacher, I still felt alone as I hadn't made any friends yet.
Bringing my attention back to the lecturer, I heard her asking the students if they knew what empiricism was. Few hands were raised among the hundreds of students that crowded the class, and even though, I knew the answer, I didn't raise my hand. I couldn't!
Answering meant that the entire class would look back at the second-last bench where I sat, making me the cynosure of all eyes which was the last thing I needed to decrease my already decreased confidence. I had always been like this, confident among my people but meek when the light was shed only on me.
"It is the belief that Knowledge derives only or primarily from the sensory experience," said a girl whose back was facing me while her front faced the teacher
"Excellent!" Ms. Ozdemir nodded, looking back at the laptop screen, probably reading the next paragraph of the text
The lecture went on for an hour and just like my parent's lecture, this too went above my head. The entire class seemed to be grasping the concept while I strived to make sense of the gibberish spoken by my teacher. I glanced around, trying to find someone as clueless as me so that I could feel less stupid, however, all I saw were the voracious students scribbling hurriedly as Ms Ozdemir explained the text.
