Sigh. It's always me.

I know I just posted yesterday, but I have to share this.

So I was on my way to class and decided to get a cheeseburger for lunch. I go into the store and buy one, except they don’t have cheese. I’m cool with that, if slightly annoyed. I can’t even remember the last time I ate a burger without cheese. It’s like eating pizza without pepperoni—what’s the point?

But anyway, I get the burger, and now my mood is a bit down. I suck it up and take a few bites of my burger, going outside and walking towards my class. I’m about to take another bite when out of nowhere something hits the right side/back of my head. I thought someone threw something at me before I noticed by burger was gone. A bird landed in front of me and my burger lands a few inches from it. It was then that I realized it had stolen my burger. A bird STOLE MY BURGER. It was fairly large, kind of like a gull. And it started cawing and other birds showed up to eat their newly acquired meal.

So I paid for a burger that didn’t even have cheese, and a bird stole it from me. Needless to say I was not pleased. I was so displeased, in fact, that I wrote a mini rap about it during my lecture:

Yo I’m walking down the street
With a burger in my hand
I’m about to go to class
When BAM! Something unplanned
Occurs. I get hit
On the back of my head
It’s a bird and very clearly
It wants to be fed
Whoosh goes my food
Right down onto the ground
The bird picks it right up
And makes a really loud sound
It was calling other birds
To eat the stolen meal
I’m standing here in shock
Imagine how I feel.
I’d only taken three bites
And now my food was gone
The bird is clearly the queen
And I’m its lowly pawn.
Oh well. I have to go.
Class will start really soon.
I hope the day won’t get worse
But—sigh—it’s only noon.

Yep. There it is. I’m going to assume getting food stolen by a bird isn’t an England thing, and I was just unlucky. Here’s hoping it doesn’t happen again.

Cheers.

Harassment, a segment title, and a lesson in inflection

Hey there.

It was a quiet week and weekend. It passed by fairly quickly. I have two essays due in two weeks, and my NaNo is coming along swimmingly…which is a weird phrase, by the way.

I guess I could go on about some more British tidbits…hm, I should come up with a catchy title for my British life section, since I talk about it nearly every week. British tidbits…aha! BritBits! Yeah, you know that’s awesome.

Sooooo it’s time for another segment of BritBits!

Something odd actually just happened yesterday. In the UK you need to have a TV license if you have a TV or if you watch live TV on your computer. Seeing as I don’t have a TV and I don’t even know how to get live television on my computer, I don’t need a license. However, someone in my house had gone to the mailbox and brought a stack of mail into the kitchen, many of the envelopes coming from the same person. It said “URGENT” on it so I assumed it was a bill or something about the university.

It wasn’t. It was a threatening letter stating that I had not informed TV Licensing, some company, that I did not need a TV license and that my house is currently under investigation. They said to call to inform them if I didn’t need one, so that’s what I did today. And what happened? The lady said they were sending someone to my house anyway.

Really irritated by this point, I went online to search what one of these “visits” were like and found multiple comments saying “Don’t let them in.” They have no right to enter anyone’s home. They aren’t the police. They have no warrant. They’re just a company trying to sell something, and being rude while they’re at it.

So basically, it’s harassment, and they’ve been getting away with it for years. They’re like Jehovah’s Witnesses, except they act like they have authority and they get people to let them in their homes. I’m not sure why this company hasn’t been shut down for consistently harassing people, but whatever. I’m ignoring them from now on. Talk about invasion of privacy.

So. There’s that.

Another slightly interesting (if obvious) BritBit is that Thanksgiving isn’t big here. That makes sense, as it’s an American holiday. Still, online I see all these social networking sites talking about Thanksgiving and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I would have forgotten about it if it wasn’t everywhere I looked online. I feel like I should care that I’m going to miss it, but I don’t. I’ll probably end up eating pizza.

And that’s another thing. The UK is extremely Americanized. I mean yes, they have their own culture here, but I was expecting a bigger difference. The food is different but they still have Pizza Hut and Burger King and even KFC. They have Sprite and Coke and Cheerios and Capri Sun. They listen to American music, they watch American television, they watch American movies. I wasn’t expecting any of this, or at least not at this scale. This just makes “culture shock” even more laughable than I found it before I came here. I thought it wouldn’t be that bad, and that was when I was expecting huge differences. I’d compare it to visiting another state. Yeah there are lots of differences, but nothing anyone can’t handle.

I just remembered something else. British people have different inflections in their tones. It drove me crazy when I first arrived. So, for instance, let’s take this scenario: two roommates are looking for…um…a remote control for the TV in their room, but they both realize it is missing at different times. They can’t find it, so they both assume the other has it. So one day the first person finally decides to ask. In the U.S. the conversation might go like this:

Person 1: Hey, have you seen the remote?

Person 2: What? You don’t have it?

In the U.K. it might go like this:

Person 1: Hey, have you seen the remote?

Person 2: Do you not have it?

It seems almost exactly the same, doesn’t it? But it isn’t. The inflection in the tone of the second person is different. The American person’s pitch increases throughout the sentence, so that the last word (“it”) is the highest pitched word. In the U.K., however, the last word goes down in pitch. So it’s sort of like, “do You NOT HAVE it?” whereas in the U.S. it’s, “you Don’t HAVE IT?” That’s how you determine if a question is a question: the pitch increases at the end. Have you ever seen those girls who speak like every sentence is a question? We think it sounds like a question because of the rise in pitch, not really because of the words she’s using. If someone said, “What is the capital of Texas.” with the same pitch throughout the entire sentence, the average person would be confused for a second or two because it would be unclear if it was a question or a statement.

Why is this important? I dunno, I guess it isn’t really. It’s just something I noticed, and it probably doesn’t apply to every single person here. Just generally speaking. I guess it interests me because I’m an English major and language fascinates me. Or something.

Okay, one last BritBit: British people are not reserved. I don’t know where this idea came from, but it’s a lie. They’re just as loud as Americans. This could be due to the fact that the drinking age is 18 so people are wandering around drunk. That, or it was just a misconception to being with. Here I was, hoping for a quiet, relaxing year away from the rowdiness that is America. Nope. Don’t believe everything you see on TV people.

Speaking of which, I miss TV. I had one in my room last year but I couldn’t exactly pack a TV in my suitcase. I guess I could have had it shipped…but then I’d have to pay for a license. Sigh. Nothing is free anymore. I hope this atrocious practice doesn’t spread to the U.S. Though I guess it already has, since you have to have a digital cable thingy in order to watch TV now. Still, that’s not really a license. And now I’m rambling.

That’s it for now. See you next week. Happy Thanksgiving!

Good times, missed food, and more English stuff

Hello there! I am back and ready for action!

I had a great weekend this past…weekend. Let’s just ignore that awkward phrasing, shall we? I went on an overnight trip to a local town with the Christian Union. I had a great time. I can honestly say I have never been around so many nice people at one time. Ever. I mean, the level of niceness was almost of ridiculous, like they had some sort of secret diabolical plan. It’s kind of like fattening up a pig before slaughter. The pig is all excited to get lots of food, thinking their owner is amazing, but they don’t realize the evil intentions behind it, muahahaha.

I’m kidding. I know there isn’t a secret plot against me or anything, it’s just that we live in such a cruel world that sometimes you forget that good people exist.

That bit of philosophy aside, it was a great weekend. We all brought sleeping bags or, in my case, comforters, and we slept on the floor…the very hard floor. Fun times. There were a few sessions where we listened to a speaker about the Bible, which led to some of interesting discussions. We watched Hitch on Friday night, always a good time, and there was a 90’s party on Saturday night that was pretty awesome. Who doesn’t love the 90’s?

And now, moving on, it’s time for a bit of a rant.

I miss American food. I really, really, really miss American food. In particular, I miss American cereal. Cocoa Puffs. Fruity Pebbles. Captain Crunch with crunchberries. Apple Jacks. This is the stuff dreams are made of, and they don’t have them here. The cereal selection is actually pretty limited. And they don’t have grape jelly so I can’t make peanut butter and jelly. I’ve tried looking in several stores for it but I can’t find any. They have this flavor called blackcurrant, which is apparently a fruit of some sort. I haven’t tried it yet and I don’t currently have any plans to.

They also have this stuff that I finally tried during the weekend away. It’s called squash. I don’t remember if I mentioned it before, but it’s this concentrated fruit juice liquid type thing, and you pour a bit into a glass, and then fill the rest of the glass with water. It’s not good. I can stomach it, but I would never go to the store and buy it. It’s just watery juice. I don’t see the point. Maybe it’s healthier or something. Silly Brits, caring about their health.

Oh America. I miss your unhealthy foods. I miss sour patch kids and Twizzlers and those giant blow pops. It’s a hard life I lead.

One thing I’ve learned since coming here is that there are way too many accents. I haven’t learned how to tell the difference between most of them yet, but I can still recognize the difference, if that makes sense. As in, I can hear the difference in a person’s voice, but I don’t know what area that person is from. I can, however, recognize the Manchester accent, because it stands out.

What else is going on…well, my nanowrimo book is coming along swimmingly. I’m thousands of words behind, but I’m not worried. Why? Because I discovered the most amazing tool to ever be invented in the history of EVER. It’s this website called Write or Die. You enter how many words you want to write, and you enter the time you want to write it in. Then you click “write” and go. It sounds simple, but it’s really effective because there’s a clock ticking down to 0, and if you stop writing for five seconds or so the screen starts to change colors. I’m not sure what happens after turning slightly red because I was so unnerved I started typing again. I might just let it run to see what happens. I started out typing 500 words in 15 minutes and I’ve gotten it down to 10 minutes. It’s a great site for me because clocks counting down freak me out. My brother (I have a twin brother) used to play Sonic on his Sega Genesis (old school right?) and whenever Sonic was underwater for too long this intense music started playing and you only had a few seconds to get above water before you died. It always freaked me out. In fact, all video games seem to have scary music whenever you have a few seconds to do something, and it always bothered me. So that’s where my fear of being timed comes from.

That was a strange tangent. Let’s get back to English stuff.

Okay, I’ll talk about one more thing before I go. Actually, two things. One, it’s weird going into a store on campus and seeing alcohol. It’s even weirder seeing students buying it, like they’re adults or something. Psssh. We Americans know better. I’m joking, by the way.

As an avid hater of alcohol, I don’t really like the huge drinking scene here. There’s a huge drinking scene in the U.S. too, of course, but here it’s legal so it’s more accepted. I just find alcohol gross. The smell makes me nauseous. I’m not saying I don’t want other people to drink it or anything. I just don’t see why getting drunk is fun. It doesn’t look fun. It’s only fun for me, because I get to watch people act like idiots. It’s free entertainment.

And the last thing: living in a house is awkward. If you don’t make friends with your house mates it can be uncomfortable. Sometimes you just don’t click. Say, for instance, they’re more of the partying type, and you may not be. Just as an example, say you’re spending the month writing 50,000 words for fun while they think getting wasted is just as amusing. For instance. In a hall if you don’t make friends it’s still big enough that it doesn’t matter. In a house it’s more personal. So if you decide to come to Sussex, or have a choice for a house in general, remember that. You can get lucky and become the best of friends with your house mates, or you could be stuck in an awkward situation.

And that concludes this post ladies and gentlemen. See you next week!

Oh, wait a minute. One more thing. Recently it was implied that all Americans like George Bush. Huh? Absolutely not. I’m pretty sure it’s the exact opposite. Just wanted to clear that up.

Fail.

Oops! I nearly forgot to update. This is going to be quick for two reasons: 1) I’m way behind on NaNoWriMo, and 2) I’m falling behind in school. Being sick 2 out of 6 weeks so far is NOT GOOD.

This weekend I went to Warwick Castle. It was pretty cool. On the bus ride there and back we watched Cool Runnings (always funny), Meet the Fockers (it was fairly amusing) and Forrest Gump (I don’t care what anyone says, I hate that movie). In the castle there were these creepy wax figures of the people who lived there back when it was occupied. You could also climb up these stairs and go to the top of one of the towers, but after climbing a bit I had to go back down because I was terrified. I have a thing about heights.

It was really cold there too. We spent the afternoon there but there’s only so much you can do, so I wandered around bored for a bit. There were some beautiful views though. Oh, I took this gorgeous panoramic picture that I'm really proud of. I used some special feature on my camera that I've ignored for a while. It's kind of small on here but it looks pretty when it's bigger.

I’ve joined the Christian Union on campus. It meets every Monday and it’s incredible. Never have I met such a nice group of people all congregated in one place. Everyone is so friendly and caring. It’s a nice way to start off a week.

Ugh. Sorry for another bad post but I have so much to do, so I have to go. I’m determined to win NaNoWriMo no matter what. Oh, and there’s that pesky schoolwork too.

Next week will (hopefully) be more interesting, I promise! I know, I fail. Sorry.

Sick of being sick

I don’t have anything major to report this week, due to being sick. Again. Also, it turns out the first time I was sick I had swine flu. I went to the Health Centre and the doctor said that’s probably what it was, and I was just unlucky enough to get sick again. Go figure. I don’t know what it is I have now. To be honest, I don’t care, I just want it to go away.

Since I spent most of the week in bed I don’t have that much to say. I missed out on any fun Halloween activities that may have happened, as I was too busy coughing up a lung. Ugh. Oh yeah, Saturday was Halloween. I’m kind of annoyed. I wanted to see Saw 6 but I didn’t feel well enough to go.

My classes are going okay, but I’m worried about falling behind since I’ve been ill so often. This week will be spent catching up.

There is something exciting happening this month though: NaNoWriMo! What is NaNoWriMo, you may be wondering. Well, it’s short for National Novel Writing Month. Basically it’s a challenge to write 50,000 words in one month. You don’t actually win anything, but you get the satisfaction of accomplishing something. 50,000 words seems too short for a novel (to me) but you can still work on it when the month is over. It’s good inspiration for me to actually start a novel I’ve been thinking about writing for a while. Unfortunately I didn’t do enough preparing and now that I’m actually writing it I realize I haven’t done enough research. Whatever, I can always go back and fill in important information later. The point is to write.

Speaking of which, I should probably go work on that. I don’t really have anything else to say right now. Wow, what a lame post. Sorry about that, I’ll try to be more interesting next time.

A Nice Surprise

I had an unexpectedly good weekend.

So here’s what happened. I went to the International Office to pick up a ticket for a trip to Warwick Castle (which is in two weeks I believe). Upon entering the room and looking at the various options for trips, I noticed a sheet describing a tour of the Sussex countryside that was planned for the next day (Saturday). Oh, why not, I thought. I’m not doing anything else so I may as well go.

I’m SO GLAD I decided to go. I met a really nice girl on the trip and we ended up hanging out the whole time. It was raining and the fog was ridiculous (you could barely see anything), which was disappointing because it meant we couldn’t go to Beachy Head. Beachy Head is this really huge cliff that has amazing views. It’s also a very popular spot for suicide in the UK. Understandably, we couldn’t go.

We visited the Seven Sisters Cliffs, which was cool, but the rain and wind was uncomfortable. Afterwards we traveled to Eastbourne, a really pretty seaside city. It must look gorgeous when the sun is actually out. We had a bit of free time so we ate at a pub (my first pub!) and went shopping. I finally got a UK phone so now I can contact other people here, and we went to a place called Primark which is my new favorite store. They have great clothing and accessories in there, and even better, it’s cheap! I’ll definitely be going back.

We stopped at the ruins of a castle next. Apparently it's only half the size it used to be (vertically I mean). For a castle it was pretty small. There wasn't much to see so we didn't stay very long. It was an interesting visit though. My umbrella blew inside out. That's always fun.

Our last stop was in a town called Alfriston. It’s a quaint little English town with narrow roads and cute little shops. We went to an adorable tea shop and I finally had a cream tea and a scone. The scone was delicious.

Random interjection here, but I’ve been wondering what the UK equivalent of a biscuit is for a long time. Because okay, an American cookie is a British biscuit, so I wondered what an American biscuit would be—that is, I wondered what the word for it was. I’d heard of scones before but I never had one, so now I know. They’re not exactly the same of course; biscuits aren’t really sweet like scones are, but they have the same texture. I hope that made sense.

Anyway, I now know why British people put milk in their tea. It’s really good. I usually only drink fruit teas so putting milk in that would probably be weird, but for regular British tea milk is an excellent addition.

When we finished our tea we looked in some shops. I bought a mug, surprise surprise. After looking in a few more shops it was time to leave. And guess what? The sky started clearing up about half an hour before we left and by the time we got on the bus it was a beautiful sunny day. Argh. Good job sun.

So that was a good day. Sunday was okay too. I didn’t do much but it was relaxing. It’s always nice to be pleasantly surprised. I liked that trip better than Stonehenge, and I was expecting it to be just average. You never know what can happen.

In other news, I may be planning a trip to Paris. We shall see. It won’t be for a while though, probably December. Eurostar is expensive unless you book really early, so I’d better make the decision fast. I tried looking for plane tickets but, long story short, it didn’t work out. The train is the best option I have.

Okay, a few more British tidbits for you before I go:

Instead of saying, “Can I help you?” cashiers just say, “Can I help?”

Some British people end their sentences with the word “yeah”, or stick it into the middle of a sentence. I guess it’s similar to an American saying something like, “So I was walking down the street, right, and then blah blah blah”, the “right” being the equivalent to “yeah”.

They ask, “Are you alright?” more than “How are you?” This threw me at first, because in the U.S. people usually only ask “Are you alright?” if you look like you’re upset, so I was worried that I was walking around looking sad or something. Nope, just a cultural difference.

People seem “greener” over here than in the U.S. On my campus one store charges for plastic bags, and when I went to one supermarket off campus the cashier told me that their plastic bags were free, as though it’s a question that many people have. It actually works—I got a few free reusable bags at the Freebies Fair early in the term, and I bring them with me whenever I go shopping. Less plastic bags! Maybe America should consider it…

Okay, I have to go work on an essay. Is it weird that I’m kind of enjoying writing it?

Hm…there’s no trips this weekend (as far as I’ve planned) so it’ll be a bit more relaxed. I’ll update again soon J

Stonehenge and Some Fun Facts

Well, I had a theory, tested it, and it turned out to be correct. Unfortunately, my theory was that every time I say I’m going to do something, something else happens in an attempt to prevent it from happening.

I considered not writing that I was going to Stonehenge for that exact reason, but decided to go ahead and write it just to see what would happen. I got sick is what happened. I still don’t know what it was, but I think it was a stomach virus or something. Painful stuff.

However, I refused to let it stop me from going to Stonehenge because I really wanted to go. By the weekend I was feeling mostly better, though I still had some sniffles. That didn’t matter though, because I was at Stonehenge!

It was really cold out. We walked around in a circle that goes around the rocks. We couldn’t touch them, which was sad but expected—can you imagine thousands of people leaning on and touching the rocks every year? Bad idea. They could fall and crush someone and that’s just a lawsuit waiting to happen.

I saw a mug in the gift shop that I fell in love with, so I bought it. It has a painting of Stonehenge on it and it says Stonehenge along the inside rim. It’s smaller than average but it’s really cute. I also got another little souvenir: some friend/family member back home will be the lucky recipient of their very own Stonehenge keychain! I’m being slightly sarcastic, but it is a nice keychain.

I’ve tried to stop thinking about money in American terms. That is, I’m trying to stop converting the pounds into dollars in my head and deciding if it’s a good deal, because it usually isn’t, and if I continue my head might explode from realizing how many dollars I’m actually spending. I had this dilemma in the gift shop, but I had to have that mug.

Anyway, we also went to Bath to visit this museum. We saw all the ancient Roman baths and stuff, it was cool. The city was nice too. We were free to wander around for a few hours. I just went shopping, not knowing what else to do.

So! Here’s some random English facts for you non-English people out there. These are things I’ve discovered within the past…wow, it’s nearly been a month. Most of it’s about food, because I have to actually buy food for myself instead of relying on a meal plan.

Prawns=shrimp. I already knew that, but I didn’t realize how popular the shrimp flavor is here. They have shrimp flavored chips (which they call crisps), shrimp sandwiches, shrimp…everything really. I tried a shrimp sandwich. It was okay, nothing special.

Indian food is huge here as well. I’m curious as to why. Maybe there is no reason and I’m just looking too deeply into it.

They have this stuff called squash, which is a highly concentrated fruit drink. You pour a little into a glass and then fill the rest of the glass with water. I guess it’s kind of like those powders you mix into water bottles, except it’s liquid and comes in huge bottles.

The packaging here is smaller. I thought maybe it was just here on campus that the juice cartons and food packages were small. I thought it was because it’s more convenient for college students to fit small things into our shared fridges. Turns out, no. I went to a real grocery store and everything was the same size. I saw a “family size” carton of orange juice that is only slightly bigger than a regular orange juice carton in the U.S. No wonder Americans are so fat: the food is cheaper (compared to the pound), AND you get more of it.

Eggs don’t have to be refrigerated! This blows my mind. They stock them on regular shelves. Turns out refrigerating them makes them last longer (obviously) but it’s okay to keep them out for a few days. Weird.

Sprite tastes sweeter here.

Okay, it turns out all of that was about food. You can see where my mind has been this past month.

Guess I'm done for now. I’ll write again soon when something exciting happens :)

Edit: I didn't mention anything about the history of Stonehenge. That's because I don't know it. So when we were walking toward the stones there were these little audio tour things that you were supposed to pick up (they had them at the Roman Baths too) but our leader/guide person didn't tell us that, so we just walked right on by, which is why I pretty much know nothing of the history. Shame, but I can't do anything about it now.