Harvey saw the notification was for his email app. He opened the app and saw that it was from the Sikh Student Coalition. Professor Martinez had probably sent along his contact information as part of the term assignment. He read the contents of the email to himself:
Hello all,
I hope you're having a great start to the semester. Even though we had our first meeting last night, we will be hosting another tonight in celebration of our new members. It's intended to be more of a social this time. There will be food and drink, so prepare accordingly. Gurpreet and I have been working for an indoctrination style event for multiple years and this is the first time we'll be seeing it come to fruition. It will be a lot of fun!
Thank you,
Mandeep Singh
Harvey sighed, what the hell had Professor Martinez gotten him into? It wasn't like he had any choice in the matter of whether or not he was going. He just counted his blessings that he hadn't had much homework assigned yet due to it being the beginning of the semester. Harvey waited out the rest of his free morning in his dorm, and then headed to his 8:30 AM analytics course.
Harvey was about in the middle of the pack of students to arrive. He sat near the middle to the side, where no one would really speak to him. Or so he thought, anyway. Harvey was a bit off put when a Punjabi student approached him and sat right next to him. The man was dressed very casually, wearing a tshirt and dark wash jeans, and a snapback on his head. "Sat Sri Akal ji", he said to Harvey, and only got a blank stare in response. He then laughed, "Sorry man. I figured you spoke the language. Mornin'. My name is Mohan."
Harvey was still confused on why the hell this man was talking to him, but decided to not stiff him. He put his hand out for a handshake, "Harvey. Don't worry, it's still morning." he said, about the mistake. He started to pull out his book to take notes with as Mohan did the same.
"Still, it's cool to see people practice their faith like you are. I guess that's why I figured you spoke the language!" said Mohan, his cheery disposition entirely missing the fact that Harvey was grumpy.
Harvey was taken aback for a second, until he remembered. The turban! He had put it on this morning as part of his routine. He didn't want to offend Mohan though, and made some tongue in cheek comment about how it was important to keep faith close to him, and kept barely participating in small talk until the class started.
The lecture was fairly boring, but Harvey was trying to stay awake and alert for it. It wasn't easy, what with all that happened within the past morning and evening, but the introductory discussion about how analytics could take data from the present and predict future outcomes was pretty interesting. Harvey put one hand across his desk and held his head up with the other, scratching his thick stubble as he intently listened to his professor. It was a bit odd for Harvey, he normally was a very middling student, but everything felt so important all of a sudden. And very interesting.
Before he knew it, the class was over. Mohan had already packed up most of his things, and had offered a quick goodbye. Harvey was a bit slower to leave, listening to what his professor had to say to other students at the front while he slowly packed his belongings up. He left while only one or two students remained, as he walked into the hall, whistling to himself. He was in a good mood now.
He strolled down the hall towards the cafeteria, with only half an hour until his next class. He was stopped though, by a familiar voice. "Good morning, Harvey!" It was the bearish man, Gurpreet.