some things: late october

Contrary to what my last post--and the comments that certain family members made on it--might lead one to believe, I am not in the habit of calling people blockheads. 

Now that I have cleared that up, I would like to say some other things:

The last few days I’ve been severely stressed about the paper that I’m currently taking a break from writing. I’m in a class called SHAKESPEARE: ADAPTATIONS ON STAGE AND SCREEN which, unsurprisingly, studies Shakespeare and certain adaptations of some of his major works: Richard III, Henry V, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, and King Lear. I’ve read all of these plays in other contexts: Richard III and Twelfth Night in seventh and eighth grade for optional book reports, Romeo and Juliet in ninth grade--I actually had a good portion of this memorized at a certain point and still find myself referencing parting is such sweet sorrow on occasion--Macbeth in tenth grade, King Lear twelfth, The Tempest first year at UCI for E28B, and Henry V after watching Laurence Olivier’s version of it in seventh grade and being highly disturbed by the “wooing of Catherine” in scene V.

Usually prior knowledge is somewhat comforting, but as I was twelve when I read three of these plays and most--if not all--of the nuance in plot and structure was lost on me then. Similarly, the class asks us to consider adaptation, which requires a sound understanding of the elements of the original and a careful consideration of the changes made and the effects these changes have on the original, as well as the contemporary audiences.

I’m writing on two adaptations of Henry V currently: Olivier’s famous 1944 version up against Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 adaptation. I’m finding this really interesting research, but I haven’t written on film before and it’s wildly different to writing about literature; it’s art and literature merged, in a way, as well as music and fashion. It’s immensely interesting, and I’ve always enjoyed analyzing anything, everything, but it’s also really intimidating not to know what I’m doing. In the UK, at least, at UEA, I’m finding the structure of the classes confusing: there’s a massive amount of reading and very little class time. For example, we go through a play a week in this class, as well as the adaptations, plus any extra research we choose to do on the side. We have about two hours of class to discuss both a play and a film.

I had the brilliant idea on Saturday after I’d rolled around on the floor in angst about this paper. I’d take the class for P/NP credit! It isn’t a part of my major, I won’t get any school requirement credit nor university credit for it, since I’ve already fulfilled all humanities requirements, and I’m allowed to take up to 1/3 of my classes for P/NP. I got the grade change done yesterday and was extremely relieved for about two hours, and then I remembered that I still have to write the paper and I still have to do reasonably well. Of course, I want to get a really excellent grade, but I’m afraid that even with all my research--I’ve been researching for a week, compiling sources and reading books on how to analyze film--the other students have the upper hand because most of them are drama students and have written on this media before.

I wrote my research paper for Hum Core on the strategies used in Cold War propaganda to elicit sympathy for one side over the other to the strategies employed by Dial M for Murder to elicit sympathy for a known murderer. I scored reasonably well on it--very well, actually--but I’m unsure of how much of that comes down to luck and to the movie itself. I’ve been looking back at that paper for analysis I did and that’s made me feel slightly better. Anyway, it’s due at 3 PM tomorrow and I’ve only gotten about half of it written. I’m having trouble organizing all the things I want to say within 1500 words. Here we’re severely penalized for going over 10% over the word limit. I always go over limits. At home we use page limits instead of word counts, but here you have to provide a word count at the end of your paper. 

SHLFKAHLDKJFAHLSKJWAIEURIAUFKASDLKAJFHSDLKFIWYERIWE

In other news, it’s gotten really cold in Norwich. People talked to me about Norwich before I came here and told me 1) it’s hick-town, 2) it doesn’t get as cold here, and 3) it doesn’t rain here.

I can’t judge an English hick when I see one, and I’m unsure I’ve seen one. Here I’m having a hard time distinguishing what’s crude slang and what are actual terms for types of people, so I’ll refrain from describing the types of people I’ve encountered in British terms. 

I went to high school in San Clemente, CA, which is home of the “bro” and home of the athlete, and sometimes both in one. I think surfers fall into a different category altogether. Most people are blond. A lot are tall and somehow everyone is beautiful. I felt extremely out of place amongst my peerage there, but found a place with the “nerds.” There was a huge division between white students and the Hispanic population in SC, and I think everyone was aware of their standing and did little to move outside of it. A lot of that is just how high school operates. I was okay with IB and softball/golf in the same way other people were okay with being prom queen or whatever. I don’t really understand what that’s like.

There aren’t really cliques of social status at UCI--I think because it’s so ethnically diverse there people sometimes cluster with others similar to them in that respect, but mostly I think frats/sororities and academic subjects or other clubs formulate groups. It feels like people just being themselves all kind of get along, or don’t, with other people just being themselves. 

Here--I don’t know, I live with freshers and it feels like the school is divided into freshers v. the world. They run in packs, they’re loud and excited about everything, they like to take shots of gin and they party every Thursday night. The third-years and post-grads are the ones having a beer quietly and earnestly with others of their kind at the campus bar at 11:00 AM, their laptops open and abandoned on nearby tables. I don’t know what second-years do. I think they’re like freshers about to graduate into some realm of upper maturity. They know a lot in classes and question outsiders. In class I’ve often felt I’ve had to earn a place amongst their ranks by saying something smart or somewhat insightful. I think in two classes out of three, I may have succeeded. People look at me now more when I speak--though they’re probably trying to hear what I’m saying. In addition to having an “accent,” I also have an extremely difficult time raising my voice--it sometimes hurts my throat to speak loudly or I feel like I’m shouting, so there’s that going for me. I suppose what I’m saying is the second-years feel like they’re all part of a club that you want to join but aren’t sure how and are never sure you’re in once you’re in it, unless you’re one of them already.

Off campus, in the city--in the real world, I guess--the social divides are more apparent. Something that struck me immediately about the UK is that there are a lot of young parents. You’ll see someone who you think is probably around your age pushing a baby in a buggy (stroller) with a husband or a boyfriend in tow. I watch them struggle with their baby bags or do so gracefully. Either sight is completely boggling. 

People here are also really well-dressed on the whole. In southern California--where I’m from--it’s not unusual to see people in sweats or swim trunks or pullovers and sandals year-round, looking generally scruffy--but there’s little of that here. I think that might partly be in my conception of style: what people have to wear here (jackets, boots, trousers) because of the weather is something I associate with making an effort at home because the weather’s so mild there. I’d read some testimonies from other UCEAP study-abroad participants from UK programs who’d said that the British had a very “interesting” style. I suppose if you’re from California anyone who puts on more than a couple layers at a time looks automatically fancy; but I really identify with the way people present themselves here, besides the fact that women dress very--femininely, I guess. It’s mostly dresses, tights, flats and a jumper with a lot of jewelry. I really like it, but I’d expected a bit more androgyny, I guess. I think I think of most places outside of America as more androgynous. Maybe it’s mainland Europe, or maybe it’s just not Norwich.

I’m not sure where I was going with that. I think I mean mostly that I identify social groups by their type of dress. There’s the typical English student with a quilted jacket, ankle-boots, tights, hair pulled-back or down in waves, and jumper, always with a collared shirt layered underneath; and the boys tend to be well-dressed, too, but I think I’ve mostly noticed their haircuts. I’d describe them here but I feel that I sound a bit too enthusiastic about them. I just very much appreciate the way boys style their hair here.

There’s a group of kids really prevalent in town around the waterfront where all the clubs are who’re unique to England, as far as I can tell, who’re brash in manner, often wear designer or rip-off designer jeans, roll up their t-shirts to show off their biceps, and gel their hair back or shave it all off. There’s a term I’d rather not use for them that I’ve heard often here. I think--they may be the reason that Norwich is identified as a “hick-town.” Other than this and all the young couples, and the few women I’ve seen wearing only leggings and camisoles with ugg boots, it seems a normal place. 

The idea that it doesn’t get as cold in Norwich as in other places might be true enough, but I’ve been comparing the weather forecasts to that of London and some nearby places and it’s either colder here or the same temperatures. I don’t know about up north, but that shouldn’t count, because it’s obviously going to get colder the farther north you go. We are by the ocean in Norwich, but not close enough to benefit from the kind of climate I usually associate with a beach town like...San Clemente. 

And that it doesn’t rain as much? It’s rained at least once every week since I’ve been here and some weeks it’s rained or drizzled every day. I don’t mind the rain, usually, but it gets a bit annoying every day: it’s hard to know how many layers to put on and if there’s wind using your umbrella becomes a struggle. You really just have to pull up a hood and hunch into the cold. It’s worse in the classrooms, though, because outside is all grey and wet and you can’t really see any of it because the windows have fogged up and if you’re like me you’re sitting at your place staring very determinedly into the desk or the book in front of you so as not to gag at the thought of what’s doing that to the glass.

For as much complaining as I’ve just done, I’ve learned to, lately, look at this experience as something new, different, and distinctly English. I didn’t come across the country and oceans that I did to be comfortable and familiar: I came to drink more tea than ever before, to bundle up in 4 degree cold, to walk in countryside, through forests, to ride a double-decker bus in London, to see the hills and castles of Scotland, to drink Irish beer, and to have the freedom to incorporate this experience into the person I am, will be, when I go back home. I came to take creative writing courses from one of the top-tier British creative writing programs. I came to learn about myself without the pressure of wanting answers. At every moment that I’m here I feel myself at the forefront of my life, forging new paths. Every future is available to me. I sometimes catch myself determined to remember a moment as mundane as pushing down the knob on my electric kettle to make my fourth cup of tea, walking through a quiet library and running away from a corner where a couple has comfortably installed themselves, shaking up a can of hairspray to plaster my bun into shape in front of a half-length mirror on the third floor of this building, across from an art museum where a Picasso sketch hangs simply on a grey wall.