Jogging in the evening breaks me out of the lethargy, and I enjoy the sky as it displays a beautiful blue gradient facing when facing eastwards and the melting golden orange at the tip of roads and houses westwards.
1 mile away from my home (away from home) is Washington park, a small area where grass and trees fills, picnic tables for gathering, and playgrounds and tennis courts for the municipal’s recreational needs. There in the park lies 2 basketball courts, some playing teams while some shoot baskets. I asked to join in shooting, and not long later I got the opportunity to play teams.
Having played basketball daily some years in high school, and I thought it doesn’t matter where I was, because the basketball, rim and net stays the same. True, the culture was similar in some ways, shooting in for teams, shooting 1s for fouls, but the mind needed some explicit translation to understand the lingos as I’ve used all those in chinese only.
The biggest exposure to me was the mix of people. Students to working adults, residents from mountain view to santa clara, from white and black americans, indians, mexicans to chinese, all mixing in teams to play. Responsibility in the game increased as I had to switch from my norm of zone defence to Man-on-Man.
And so that one of the things I didn’t expect myself to do here, yet experiencing familiarity with the scent of freshness.
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