Trains have steadily been regaining their appeal for me. For a while, between the Montreal subway, the MTA subway whenever I’m back home, and the Adirondack railroad in between, I was spending a sizable chunk of existence in tepid motion and developing an allergy even to toddlers wearing jumpers with smiling trains all over them.

Today’s train is almost completely empty. I only recognize the man three rows ahead of me. Siavosh, I believe. He’s an Iranian-Canadian working in the states and does this trip every two weeks. I must have on my grumpy engineering-midterm face today because he nods at me from afar but doesn’t engage.

I’m grateful, considering this problem set worth 30 percent of the final grade is slowly killing me. Mechanical Engineering is profoundly stupid. Mechanics is nothing but the misshapen twin of calculus kept chained in the basement. Why do I need to understand how pulleys work to design shoes?

Occasionally, there’s a kerfuffle at the border because someone is trying to sneak into Canada or America with an expired passport, and you end up sitting without power, but it’s mostly time to sleep, catch up on assigned reading, homework, or just doodle shoe ideas. Occasionally, Ming is up halfway across the globe, and we text chat like in the old days, depending on the connection.

After a few hours, the numbers get blurry, and I switch over to this essay I have to write for this Nike shoe-design internship that starts in the fall. The submission deadline is a week away, and historically speaking, applying for competitive programs has not been my forte.

The prompt is deceptively simple: “Personal statement. 800–900 words.”

Dear Nike Design Internship,

I greatly appreciate the fact that you don’t ask for recommendation letters.

Eighteen minutes later, I’m still no closer to cracking this code.

“Next stop: Saratoga Springs!” the conductor announces.

I get off with my backpack and a nod goodbye to Siavosh. It’s so cold out now that my glasses are dangerously close to developing a layer of frost. Another life update, subfolder “FML”: there are glasses now. I’ve apparently been staring at a lot of screens for the past eighteen months. Ma says I pull them off well, and I don’t get the Thank God you’re pretty thing anymore. Well, I get it less.

I cross the street from the station and settle in at the Haitian bakery, Sak Pasé. How a Haitian bakery ended up in Saratoga Springs is a testament to the American dream. I take a booth and order two slices of orange cake and a large coffee from one of the servers I don’t recognize today.