State College Memories
I lived in State College, Pennsylvania for 19 and 1/2 months and Amit for 3 long years. So, naturally we had witnessed many events with in this city and around.We wanted to share our memories with others who might want to come and stay in this city in near future and would like to enjoy our experiences.
Natural Beauty
At first I would like to share the memories of the natural and scenic beauties of State College. This sparsely populated city is situated in a valley named "Happy Valley" and surrounded by three different mountains. One of them is the famous Nittany Mountain named after a native Indian tribal girl. I was really moved by the natural beauties of this city. I came straight from Calcutta, my home city to State College in Pennsylvania,USA. It was a drastic change for me as I never went abroad and I never visited a single city outside my home country. In Calcutta its very rare to view greeneries as well as a broad view of the surrounding in true sense, as the buildings are built in very close distance. The greenish touch is almost vanished from the main concrete structures of the city.I have already visited some other big cities of the US and my experience is surprisingly same as before. So, for the nature lovers, this is a wonderful place to visit and experience few breathtaking views of blooming flowers and change ofcolors in the nature in different seasons.The best season in State College is obviously the fall and sometimes in the late spring.My house was at 10 minutes distance from the heart of the city and on one of the busiest business routes of the Pennsylvania state. But the scenic view of the city from my road facing balcony was wonderful enough to spend few hours standing there.
We watched the full moon over the mountain, the first sunlight in the morning and even the beautiful fireworks on the independence day(US)from our 6th floor balcony.
When moving around we took few good pictures of calm and quite winter evening of state college, sunset over the bushes, tree surrounded big shopping mall etc. There was a big green play ground just beside our building and a little flower garden near that. We spend few summer evenings there.
During fall the tree behind our house looks gorgeous. On July 4th, US's independence day, we witnessed the great fireworks celebration on both the years. The State College 4th July celebration is the biggest of its kind in the neighboring areas. We have also very nice memories of summer in state college.
In october'02 just before leaving for India, we stayed two-three weeks with Walt and Shirley Freemans. They had beautiful surroundings in their small village and we enjoyed our living there.
Pennsylvania State university
Pennsylvania State University is one of the biggest universities in the US. It's very much well known for it's agricultural and engineering departments and also for it's graduate schools. It's favorite for it's football(American Football) college team and their famous coach Mr. Joe Paterno. Mr. Paterno remained the best college football coach for past several years. We, also enjoyed few of the good moments of this college football. This University has few different campuses in different parts of eastern pennsylvania.Amit used to work in it's "University park" campus which is the biggest among them and almost 40,000 students were studying in different undergraduate and graduate schools. On the top of these, there were visiting post doctorate fellows and professors from all over the world. Amit worked as a visiting post doctoral fellow in Penn State University for 3 years.He was working in gravitational physics center.So, after marriage I came to State College( the University city ), spend a lot of time with in the campus and encountered many important university events.The campus is monstrous and built on acres of land.It has it's own two big stadiums,few other big play grounds, church, auditorium, galleries and innumerable buildings for different schools. There are many big libraries for students. There is an oval shaped hub for students for eating,chatting and for other recreational activities. Big parking lots,swimming pool, gardens and student homes are other notable trivial facilities provided for the students. For me, after seeing only the universities like Jadavpur and Calcutta, this university campus was most astonishing one! After all, we can't even dream about an university with so much of space and amenities for the students.I have almost visited every points of the university in these 19 months and tried to adjust myself with its hugeness. We spend few hours in the delightful university creamery which is its own ice cream manufacturing unit.I came to know that some times the governor of pennsylvania and other state governors come to enjoy its wonderful ice creams during the summer days.I had seen many Indian students studying in different schools there.Many eminent Indian professors were visiting or teaching in different departments.Sometimes I was amazed seeing so many Indians in all over the places in State college. May be in near future more and more Indian students would leave India after first or second phase of their education.This is a painful realization indeed but otherwise I think that my memories of the Penn state University would remain afresh for long years to come.
CentrePeace Inc.
My web page about our visit to the United States will remain incomplete if I don't spend few lines on my experiences in CentrePeace, my work place in US. I just loved to work there and might not be able to forget those people in my whole life. That was a place for love and peace. Marie, our executive director's mission was to percolate love through others for the whole society. I joined there for maintaining their accounts and books and successfully worked till I left US. I tried my best to accommodate myself in their system and be helpful. It was real fun working there and I learned a lot from my co-workers. At first I had little communication problem but it was very much trivial to me as I take everything as challenge and love to win it. I respect Marie a lot and tried to learn the positive approach towards life from her attitude. I used to be amazed by her cool nature and strength of character. I sill remember all my colleagues and co-workers. It would have been really difficult for me to continue to work there without their love and cooperation . Hopefully, the work experience in there would be my asset in life. CentrePeace's mission was to work against the incarceration of the people who committed any kind of offence in the society. They believed in changing the offender's mind through love and peaceful negotiation with the victim's( or their families).I believe in their mission and hope for their ultimate success. I wish that in my country also there will be a drive like this to solve the ever growing crimes in our society. CentrePeace used to help the inmates financially as well as mentally to return to the society and to get back their lost life. They used to help offender's family also. As a non profit organization they had to look for funds to bear their own costs and to grow further. A lot of well established people used to help them in kind as well as by their voluntary services. I met few of them too. I am very glad that I could associate myself with this organization and spend my time for the bigger human society( though may be not for my own country). They also had a very big showroom where they used to sell various kine of goods and some self made products from their own workshop. CentrePeace had a workshop where few inmates from their county jail used to come and learn some job skills till they are in prison. They used to have some fun time working in there. I purchased many items from the showroom and brought them in India with me to keep them as souvenir from Centrepeace.It is really hard to describe CentrePeace' mission in few words but I will finish this paragraph stating that I really respect their motive from my heart and consider myself lucky to be attached with that kind of organization.
Nittany Mountain And State College Overview
Just a week before our return journey to India, we planned to hike the Nittany mountain all by ourselves. We heard that the best overview of State College can be watched from one of the highest points of that mountain. That was one of the toughest journey I ever experienced yet. That was my first hiking and I was not feeling very well from the very beginning. But due to some unavoidable circumstances, that was the last chance we could avail to go for that hiking trip. The mountain track was extremely steep and few times I thought, it would be impossible for me to go further. Amit encouraged a lot and at last we reached the top. The feeling was unbelievable. Those magic moments are still framed in my memory. The environment under the sky and over the top of the mountain was like heaven. The day was chilli but shiny. The breeze was calm and ice-cold. And the fall view of the city was marvellous. Our mission was successful so the rest of the return journey was very easy and joyful.
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