Orientation

As Sam approached, I felt compelled to reach out. "Hey! You're blind, right?" I called out quietly but loud enough for him to hear. "There's an empty seat here, first spot from the stairs."

He turned in my direction. "Thank you," he replied, his voice calm and composed.

Sam moved slowly to the seat next to me. With a steady hand on his staff, he lowered himself into the chair.

"I'm Sam," he said, holding his hand out to me.

"Jack." I returned the handshake.

The lecture hall was really filling out at that point.

A few minutes later, an elegant-looking man, not much older than the rest of the students but dressed in neat clothes, walked confidently onto the stage at the front.

He approached the microphone and cleared his throat.

"Nice to meet you all, students of the class of '02. I'm a third-year finance student and also the president of the Student Council, so forgive me if I speak informally. I will give you a bit of an introduction to students' rights and an overview of what to expect regarding lectures and classes."

"After, I will divide you all into your respective groups. I will tell you where to go and I believe there will be someone in each group responsible for your particular major who will provide more information," he concluded.

The guy took about twenty minutes to explain everything by reading from a slide show.

Since students from four different classes were gathered in this auditorium, he told us where we should go next to talk about our majors in more depth.

Luckily, the Economics Major group was to remain in the large auditorium. As the other students filtered out to their respective destinations, about 60 of us remained.

Some would drop out after the first year.

Who knows where life will take me this time? Maybe finishing the major wasn't what I wanted to do.

All I knew was that there were a couple of individuals who had an in-born ability to make others do their work and I didn't want them in my group.

"You're an economics major as well?" Sam, sitting next to me, suddenly spoke up.

I was startled for a moment, almost forgetting he was there. That's how quiet he was.

"Yes, I guess we're stuck together for a few years."

"Why did you pick Economics?" Sam asked with a tone so serious that it sounded like it was a matter of life and death.

He had a way of getting inside people's heads.

"It might sound embarrassing, but I want to be free," I replied earnestly.

Sam was silent for a moment, processing it.

"That's a strange answer," he finally said.

"What's so strange about it?"

"Studying economics is just studying economics," Sam explained thoughtfully. "And even if you use that knowledge to make money or build a business, it will only imprison you, not make you free."

"I know what you're thinking," I said. "That money costs too much time. That the imprisoned ones are those who crave more, not those who have too little. But I think you're wrong. Being rich means having the ability to fully experience life and avoid being controlled by anything or anyone. 24 hours of being poor are not equal to 24 hours of being wealthy. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a hypocrite."

Sam tilted his head, listening intently. "Interesting perspective," he said after a moment.

As he spoke, he opened his eyes, revealing a cloudy, unfocused look. His eyes, though unseeing, seemed to reflect the depth of thought.

"Have you been blind since birth?" I asked, pretending not to know the answer.

"No," he replied simply, his face calm but introspective.

After a brief pause, he went back to the previous topic: "Just one more thing. You mention twenty-four hours, but what if all that time is wasted on making money instead of spending it? Or what if a disability doesn't allow you to enjoy that money?"

"That's why I'm working on creating a passive income for myself," I told him. "As for the second question, I might sound pretentious, but don't let a disability prevent you from enjoying life. Focus on the things that you can control."

Sam nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe you're right," he said slowly.

'Well, this was certainly a different first conversation with Sam than the first time around,' I thought.

Back then, I was just a newbie, naive and unprepared. Taking my first steps into the money-driven world, trying to make a few bucks to live a better life.

Just then, a woman entered through the door.

She looked to be in her late 30s, wearing a loose skirt that ended just below her knee and a cotton sweater. Her deep cooper hair was tied up in a bun, and she wore thick glasses.

She was limping slightly with her right leg.

I knew the reason.

She had Parkinson's disease.

A student approached her as she was making her way to the stage, spoke to her, and she nodded before continuing on her way.

She approached the microphone, "Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Sophia Fletcher," she introduced herself. "I will be taking care of your major when it comes to formalities."

She paused, looking over the students. "I also have a Ph.D. in International Economics and will be giving you lectures this year."

Then she went on to tell us about our schedule.

There would be lectures from Monday to Thursday.

We were the lucky major to have Fridays off.

"The academic year officially starts in a month, but your major will begin lectures and classes a week later. So we will see each other on the 9th of September."

"In the meantime," she added, "familiarize yourselves with the campus and get to know each other. I believe that your seniors will be organizing parties almost every weekend from now on. I'm not saying that you should go crazy, but... well, maybe you can go a little crazy. But no alcohol!"

Mrs. Fletcher was about to wrap up when she suddenly remembered something. "Oh right, one more thing," she said. "We will also need to pick a president—someone who will speak and inform the professors about any issues. Anyone interested?"

Everyone was quiet. If anything, they were looking around for someone to dump that burden on.

I did not want to do it myself, but I knew someone who would very much like to.

Mia Allara was the one to raise her hand after a short time.

"I can do it," she said with a stone-cold face. "I was the class president in high school. I believe I can manage the responsibilities here as well."

'Yes... she is a very serious girl.' I thought.

Mrs. Fletcher smiled, clearly pleased with Mia's assertiveness. "Excellent, Mia. Thank you for volunteering. We'll have a formal vote whenever the year begins, but it's good to see someone stepping up already."

 "Oh, and before I forget," she said, addressing the room again, "one of your fellow students stopped me on the way in. I think he had something to say."

She moved out of the way so a good-looking blonde guy in a Hawaiian shirt with pineapples all over it could jump on stage.

He oozed a kind of infectious, outgoing charisma.

"Yo, I'm Lucas. If you guys have a Mac or Windows, you can get AIM and hit me up. I've set up a group for us to use. Screen name LucasSurfer02." He quickly scribbled down the information on the board. 

"Thanks, y'all!" he called out before smoothly stepping down from the stage.

His dismissive and very rash attitude brought some laughs and made everyone relax a bit. Everyone wrote down the information and then started chatting with the people next to them.

"What was his screen name again?" Sam asked me.

"LucasSurfer02."

Then Sam used his phone to record himself saying it.

He would never write things down.

The phone recordings were like a holy grail to him. He would record all lectures and listen to them again and again.

I saw right away that the phone he was holding was the newest Siemens, a model that hadn't even been publicly released yet.

After recording, Sam turned to me. "It might sound weird, but what would you do if something strange happened to you? What if those plans you have been making do not work out? Would you still be motivated to continue on?"

I thought for a moment, then replied, "Someone I knew used to say, 'Even when you can't see the stars, the Milky Way is still out there, shining.'"

"Milky Way?" Sam tilted his head.

"Yes... the Milky Way," I replied, a bit puzzled.

"What do you mean by Milky Way?" he asked again.

"Umm, our galaxy?" I said, looking at him like he was crazy for asking.

"Since when is our galaxy called the Milky Way? I've always known it as the Silver River."