Bookworms, that is.

Last month, I left work completely overwhelmed. The 49 wasn’t coming, so I walked home on the hottest afternoon, ever. I’m pretty sure parts of my skin melted off in protest of the high temperature — I have yet to discover the patches they left behind. On the corner of Ashby and College, I wished I could ditch my rock of a bag and the huge Amazon box in my arms without any regret. By the time I got to Telegraph Avenue, I was secretly wishing Cal had lost its game against Portland so the jubilant crowds sporting Cal gear would stop being so damn chipper and happy.

But somehow, by the time I reached Adeline, I had a wide smile on my face and an even bigger stack in my arms.

On the block between Shattuck and Adeline stands a small white house with a slanted, bridgelike white porch. And that porch was exploding with books. I could almost hear it grunting as it tried to support all the books it carried. A tiny handmade cardboard sign quietly announced that the books scattered on the porch cost 50 cents to $2, which made me wonder where the rest of the Berkeleyans were and why they weren’t there fighting over Dickens and Camus.

I have serious issues when it comes to buying books: I don’t know when to stop. Growing up in an Arab country, where the average a person reads was about half a page a year, limited the variety and quantity of books available. So I buy books like I’ll never have the chance to again. I had to smuggle in small piles last year and hide them in my bedroom because my sister swore she would fight me if I brought one more book inside our already cramped apartment. Having moved to a bigger place, I saw this as my chance to decorate.

I step inside, and suddenly I’m in paradise, where piles and piles and piles of books cover every inch of furniture. Excluding bookstores and libraries, I have never seen so many books in one place. I didn’t know where to start.

A tanned Armenian man in his late 40s walks into my newly discovered wonderland, wiping his hands on his apron as he informs me about his plans to cook for 40 friends that night. He then notices the book I’m holding, “Asterix et Obelix,” shouts its name in French and then expresses his deepest apologies: He cannot sell that book, as it has too much sentimental value.

I spent about 40 minutes with him, talking about a wide range of topics, from the Israeli treatment of olive trees — prompted by my interest in a book called “Cooking with Olive Oil” — to the library scene in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” all the while my ADHD kicking in and drawing my attention to that stack of “Harry Potter” hardcovers perched precariously on the edge of the table, the worn-out Hemingway book on the ground, the discolored French children’s book on the old TV set.

I left his house promising I would stay for dinner next time and wobbled along with my new 17 books that I got for 40 bucks, plus an elementary Arabic book he gave me for free to give to my friend. As I skipped happily — and fell repeatedly — down Ashby, I remembered my trip across the border from Jordan to Syria a few years back. The soldier searching my bag nudged a book with the butt of his gun and asked me what that was doing in my suitcase. I didn’t know how to answer him. The person driving me hastened to answer, “Mu’allem, she studies in America: They make them read books there.”

No, I wanted to say, I read because when I was a kid, I fell deeply in love with reading. My father would stuff duffel bags with books and travel with overflowing suitcases halfway around the world, all so my heart would break with Fred Weasley’s death, so I would go through the war on Tara with Scarlett, so I would live every emotion that colors Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s beautiful stories.

But I held my tongue. I felt a wave of gratitude toward my father wash over me. He’s the one who introduced me to the world of reading, which in itself has millions of different ports to other universes, some filled with black holes that suck us in once we get too close and others we must avoid at all costs because they are too alien and put our brain cells at risk, such as “Twilight.”

College = zero times the number of minutes spent on external reading. But, I am positive my love for books will emerge as a survivor after I graduate. “Harry Potter” DeCals and random Armenian men will help me make sure that happens.

And a special shout-out to my dad: Thanks for all the books and all the love. I hope your backaches will not go to waste.

Sarah Dadouch writes the Friday column on global perspectives of Berkeley. You can contact her at sdadouch@dailycal.org or follow her on Twitter: @SarahDadouch.

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I was stuck in an elevator in Barrows for 88 minutes — and then there was a fireball on campus.

It wasn’t as scary as it sounds, except for those two seconds in the elevator when I misunderstood the student worker who was helping us and thought she was informing us of the possibility that we may plummet to our deaths. Someone finally came to help us, and I acquired the skill of knowing how to open an out-of-order elevator door. I jumped onto the fourth floor, finally leaving that box that constituted our world for 88 minutes (not to be dramatic or anything), and soon after I left the building, I got a call from a friend telling me to get as far away from campus as possible, right away, because there had just been an explosion near California Hall.

You know this by now. The news is all over the Internet. Within hours, a page popped up on my Facebook suggesting I buy a shirt that said, “I Survived Explosive Midterms — Cal 2013.” There are memes and pictures showing how studious we Berkeley students are; my favorite is the image of a sea of students’ faces in a dark classroom, half illuminated by their iPhone screens, scribbling away, completely unaware of the chaos that was about to break out around them.

I was heading down Bancroft when I got the call, and the panic in his voice made me turn to my right. The big gray cloud that from afar I thought was fog turned out to be smoke from the fire that had just erupted. I got to Telegraph and Durant and watched the masses of students anxiously walking or sprinting across the street, everyone glancing back at the disarray behind. The sirens occupied the surrounding air with their shrieks as the campus blinked with the fire trucks’ lights. A general sense of panic seemed to be spreading throughout Sproul Plaza.

My friends came out, and we stared at the smoky sky, wondering whether we would have class tomorrow (of course we did) and whether this meant any deadlines we had would be pushed (of course they weren’t). As I looked up at the Berkeley sky, I had a flashback: It’s July, and I’m standing right outside the Syrian border, staring up at the half-Turkish, half-Syrian sky. I am listening to a man tell me about the rumor going around that said that the camp we worked at will be bombed soon. “So keep looking up at the sky like you do, and run away from explosions, OK?”

I nod yes and keep my eyes glued on my beloved country’s clear blue sky, decorated with wispy white streaks. I wondered what my reaction would be if I saw a plane approaching: Would I freeze, or would I shout and start running? And then I thought, would running even help me? A feeling of helplessness slowly trickled throughout my body and gradually took over. My brain seemed to place me in someone else’s shoes, subjected me to someone else’s emotions, someone who is watching a bomb fall down on her country, her city, her house, herself.

It is painful, knowing thousands have had to answer the question of whether running is beneficial. It is even more painful knowing those people and I shared the same nationality, the same land.

I stood on that corner of Bancroft and Telegraph, watching students rush toward my side of the street, and thought, this is a small glimpse of what it must be like to be in my country. My friend, commenting on the excitement of the day and explaining why he so desperately needed a drink, said, “An explosion. That doesn’t happen every day.”

But it does. It is happening every day. And it’s not because wiring was stolen but because people are purposefully dropping bombs on others. And it really is horrible that some of our fellow Berkeley students were hurt, and all of our prayers are going out to them. But I want to point out that my fellow citizens are not only hurt but are dying, on a daily basis. In their homes, their schools, everywhere.

The explosion in Berkeley reminded me — not that I needed a reminder — of what drives me to be here, the reason I listen to professors talk about human rights and conflict-management strategies. Everyday life in Berkeley, whether it’s another normal day or a huge-fireball-on-campus kind of day, speaks of Syria to me.

It’s as Walt Whitman said,

“I was looking a long while for Intentions,

For a clew to the history of the past for myself, and for these

chants — and now I have found it,

It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them I neither

accept nor reject,)

It is no more in the legends than in all else,

It is in the present — it is this earth to-day.”

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One morning this past August, at 5:07 a.m. in Farmington Hills, Mich., it seemed the only thing that would get me out of bed after the lousy three hours of sleep I got would either be some magical burst of inhuman strength or an earthquake (and I wasn’t so sure about the earthquake). As I plopped a second pillow on my head to block out my mom’s reminder that I was the one who didn’t want to be late, I remembered: I’m flying back to California today. That was all the incentive I needed. I immediately got up, got dressed and was in the car with my suitcases in the trunk by 5:19.

At the airport, while I tried to retrieve my friend’s ZIP code from my horrific memory, as my bags would be sent to her house in case they were lost, I heard the United Airlines employee uncertainly say, “Um … Ms. … Dad-Ouch? Is that how you pronounce your name?” Looking up smiling, as I always am when people mispronounce my name, I said, “Sure, that works.” Her face lights up when she notices my numerous flights’ final destination, and she says, “San Francisco! Is that home?”

She looks at me expecting a simple yes or no, not realizing how her question has prompted my brain to go through a slideshow of a hundred different images and memory snippets. I’m sure my eyes glazed over during the few seconds it took me to answer her, each second adding to the almost tangible awkwardness. I finally laugh the moment away and say, “Yes, I suppose in some ways it is.”

I am Syrian. Born in Connecticut but raised in Damascus, I am lucky enough to have dual citizenship. My American passport, and the fact that I look and sound American, prompts both my Berkeley and Damascus friends to tease me about how I cannot deny my true American identity. But just because my mother gave birth to me in New Haven does not mean I culturally identify as an American.

I have spent the majority of my last three years in Berkeley, meaning I have naturally picked up words and expressions used here. Now, I find that pest of a word “like” worming itself into a growing number of my sentences, and I once mistakenly used the word “hella” — but I’m pushing the blame on Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop,” which was on repeat in my brain last semester. But a friend whom I met here once told me a language is considered your first if you think in that language. And I still think and dream in Arabic, and I occasionally revert to it when I distractedly answer someone’s questions.

When I first moved here in 2010, I got furrowed brows and quizzical looks whenever I mentioned my hometown or country of origin; the change in that reaction over the past three years would be comical if the reason behind that transformation weren’t sad. There is no equivalent for the word “home” in Arabic, but if I got to pick a word that carries that meaning, it would be Dimashq (Damascus).

Everything about that city — its markets, its mountains, its old streets, its generous people — blends together and forms home. But although I belong to Damascus and miss her every day, I still fell in love with Berkeley. I love its crazy weather, how on Tuesday I was rocking shorts and a T-shirt and today am seriously contemplating getting an overpriced Cal sweater because it is just so cold. I love being able to bike everywhere — as long as I’m not going uphill for more than three blocks — and I love the neon pink carstaches that pop up every once in awhile. But most of all, I love the freedom.

I love the freedom of choosing how to dress and the diversity that abounds in Berkeley. I see this when I walk into a classroom to find a skinny-jeans-wearing hipster, a blond sorority girl, a hijabi and a foreign exchange student seated next to one another. Where I’m from, you have Syrians. And that’s it.

I also love the freedom that comes with picking classes on my own, although I am convinced Tele-BEARS has nurtured a secret vendetta against me due to my indecisiveness this semester. There was also the freedom that offered me the chance to vote on propositions last year and the freedom that prompts me to speak out on politics in class, at restaurants or in my apartment. This is something that was and in some ways still is unthinkable where I’m from.

If this Syrian had to pick her favorite thing about this odd little town called Berkeley, it would be just that: freedom.

And Ici. Because Ici is the bomb.

Sarah Dadouch writes the Friday column on international perspectives of Berkeley. You can contact her at sdadouch@dailycal.org.

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