More advice

Some meetings are not very important in the course of World Domination, but you can never be certain. Today I met a strange character who was extremely pissed by the lack of information at the University of Waterloo. He went like "the buildings are after the names of people and have no information about the departments". He wasn't too wrong either. Actually all the engineering buildings (1-5) have multiple departments, and in some cases the departments are spread over more than one building. He wanted to reach the undergraduate admission office, and even with my help, it took us 30 minutes to reach the place, only to realize that the office was closed. Then he wanted to meet some of the profs, but it happened that they had all just left for some office party, leaving this old man fuming.

Despite the day getting wasted, he invited me for coffee as a sign of gratitude. And then he spoke of his life. He was originally from Pakistan, and he had a messed up life but still was quite successful. He got selected into too many things, and he didn't make the right decisions at the right time. A potential Harvard student ended up in Queen's University of Canada, studied economics, became a professor and remained single for the rest of his life (he dated many women during his age but never found anyone suitable). He had a lot of free advice for me, career advices - where all to apply for PhD, why I should consider IAS, and what are the possibilities that it would open up in the long run.... and then social advices - what I should do to date someone. In this regard he started off with "You must be having a girlfriend" - like that is the most obvious thing. On getting a no, he said "Either you are not trying or trying at the wrong places. Do you hang out anywhere with other students?" "Yes, sometimes in the grad house." He bluntly retorted "Wrong place. You should be going to the undergrad house." And he was like talk to the girls here, they are very open.. ask them out for a movie or something. I was like I am here for only three months. And he said, "How does it matter? You should enjoy the present..." All this coming from a guy two generations older than me... seemed kind of funny.

We talked of loads of other things... from the current social scenario in India, to the snobbish behaviour of many of the South Asian immigrants towards the newcomers, and about how he belonged more to Canada than to Pakistan. Before going back to Toronto, he left me with a thought: "You may be having the maximum freedom possible, but more than freedom you need to be well informed to make the right decisions...."