Most of first year, I couldn’t help but feel that as an international student who was in this part of the world for only four (now three) short years, I didn’t make nearly enough use of my proximity to Philadelphia. I would go into the city every few weeks with some friends to run some errand and catch a bite, but would rarely stick around to explore the city.

This semester, thankfully, I have fewer complaints of that sort. The major reason is that this semester I actually have a journalism class at Penn so going into the city once a week is a must anyway.

The other reason is that this time around, I’ve also made more of an effort to be a part of stuff happening around campus itself. For the current year, I am treasurer of the newly renamed South Asian Students (SAS) affinity group and this weekend, in collaboration with the Muslim Students Association (MSA), we held our annual Eid-Diwali Dinner.

After a week of frantic organizing, form submitting, playlist making, and catering deciding, it was finally the day of the event.

Our deepest fears went unrealized and the turnout was larger than we expected.

I am pretty sure the food had something to do with it.

After everyone was full and sated, they made it to the front of the hall, which was turned into an impromptu dance floor.

Once the night had wound down and we all made our way back to our rooms, out of sheer serendipity, I discovered my dorm, Erdman, was hosting the Night Owls acapella concert.

A friend and myself caught the tail end of the concert and a frighteningly good rendition of Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me.”

Finally, as if one stroke of luck wasn’t enough, Saturday night saw daylight savings hours being implemented which meant I got a whopping nine hours of sleep.

Pretty sweet Saturday I’d say.