Today in class the prof told us to finalize our groupings and choose our topics. (for an ungraded presentation) I only had 1 other girl in my group, but the prof wanted 3-4 people. So during the break I turned to the group of people nearest to me, who turned out to be locals, and asked if they knew anyone without a group, because I needed 1 more person. They were rather awkward and said that they didn't, and I said okay, and there's a lot of people missing from class today so I can't really know either!

And then one of them said that he wouldn't mind leaving his group and joining us! I was really surprised. Because where I come from, people generally shun exchange students. At least, I try to shun them. Because everyone says that they don't do work. Not 100% true, from my experience, but better to be safe because project work sucks enough already, and you don't want an additional burden. And forming groups back at my school has almost always felt very politicky and sucky. I thought I would be treated the same here, and I didn't think I would find a group that easily. Because the prof did say that if it was a good presentation, he would raise our grades if we were near the cut-off mark. So there are still some stakes involved. I was already pleased enough when last week the girl in my group asked me to team up with her (but she's not a local so it's a different context).

I was really pleasantly surprised and thanked him. But maybe he wouldn't be that nice if it was a graded presentation.

The purpose of this post is to celebrate nice random things that happen. And tell myself to be a better person when I get back home and begin my final year in school. Anyway, why should we pick on the small stuff? When life is so short and there are so many other things worthy of contemplation. It does reflect on a person's personality, when a person has negative thoughts like that.