Malaysians are taking over!

Well, not quite. Drake begins its spring semester on Tuesday, and out of close to thirty new students arriving, twenty of them are Malaysians. That’s a pretty amazing percentage when you think about it. Yesterday was the day I picked some of them up from the airport.

The flight was scheduled to arrive at 8PM and I had checked the arrival schedule to see if that plane would be on time. It was not. After some back and forth between me and the International Center coordinator, we figured that the flight was arriving at 11:30PM. One flight was cancelled so instead of two Malaysians, five Malaysians ended up arriving. We figured there was no way all of them and their luggage would fit in my Corolla so two guys from the group got a ride with a cab. I had three ladies in my car.

Out of the five, three of them were from Johor which was interesting since I had in my mind that most of them would be from KL, Selangor or Penang. All but one of them is Actuarial Science majors. Drake put them up at the Holiday Inn Express which is pretty much right across from campus for the night. By the time they got situated, it was close to 1AM.

One of them was hungry so I drove him to the 24-hour McD to get something to eat. The others were content to stay at the hotel. I finally made it back to my apartment close to 1:30AM which was a little later than I had planned, but that’s the thing with flights.

Meeting them at the airport brought back memories of me nine and a half years ago arriving in DM. Boy, time sure flies when you’re having fun! I kind of chuckled when a number of them commented how cold it was. The weather was probably 29 Fahrenheit, but it really was a nice winter evening. I told them that it’s definitely going to get colder. In fact, snow has been forecasted for this weekend and I advised them to get a nice heavy/thick/warm winter jacket before the weekend. I can only imagine how they will feel without a proper winter jacket over the weekend. Orientation begins on Thursday and I do believe that part of orientation involves a shopping trip. Hopefully they’ll be able to get their winter clothing then.

With this new arrival, there are close to seventy Malaysians at Drake which is a very significant number. My only wish and hope for them is that they be part of the Drake community and not hang out amongst themselves. That would be such a shame. I’m sure my “spies” at Drake will let me know how they are doing.