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.

freedom package

I've had a bum week. For the last two mornings the cleaning lady has opened my door to a half-sleeping, certainly drooling specter of a person swaddled in a duvet and more blankets than the weather calls for. Upon emptying my bin she's regarded with a professionally blank face a half-empty tub of Phish food, a clean, cylindrical McVities chocolate digestives wrapper torn savagely in two, several Cadbury wrappers, a disposable plate stuck all over with the vestiges of basmati rice and soy sauce. Even halfway across the globe, my friends and I are managing to PMS at the same time, but the possibilities of sweets and chocolates to soothe hormonal aches and mild fevers in England are largely expanded from the already sizable array at home. Here Cadbury bars boast the £1 sign proudly and in yellow, so that when you compare that price to your Egg Mayonnaise and Cress sandwich at £1.89, it only seems logical to pick up one--for today, and another--for tonight.

Here are instructions on being me on a bum week: 

1. wake up each day at noon or later
2. sit in bed listening to audio books for five hours
3. eat a lot of chocolate and cookies while you're doing it
4. repeat

I'm starting to write in the voice of the man who narrates Bryson's audio books, which has leant my writing nothing but the experience of listening to that voice, American, probably New England-ish, slightly raspy, full of alluring, comedic charm and precision of pronunciation. But I'm not just writing to tell you that I've been slave to hormonal flux for a week now, nor that the weather's been gloomy so I've felt justified in staying inside most days except for a brief jaunt across the lawn and back to see some sun and get some circulation. I'm not just telling you that I'm now narrating my own writing in the voice of Ron McClarty as heard in Notes from a Small Island, although I think that's rather an accomplishment and an interesting bit of information.

I'm really writing because today, waking up near to noon, I realized that something I'd been recently informed--nay, two things!--were simply contrary to reason. This week I have been daunted by the task of figuring out the least painful way in which to part with the large sum of cash that makes up my accommodation fees. Yesterday, I recorded a half-hour slot of time in my never-used, often-useful pocket calendar as time in which I was to go visit the accommodation office about which methods to use to transfer my American dollars to their British institution. Before setting out into the mild rain and mist, I'd done my research online and was only seeking to confirm this information, plus ask about fees for bank-to-bank transfers, in person. Well, I made it to the accommodation office, which was bustling with students, was well-lit, and uncomfortably warm. I peeled off my jacket and waited to be seen.

“My questions,” I said, once a small woman had called me over to her desk, “are few and easy. My burden is light and my yoke shall give rest to the weary--”

I didn't really say this. I did explain that I'd done research online and just wanted to ask a couple, hopefully simple questions. She nodded as though she understood and was going to give me correct information. I asked her: “is it true that I can just transfer money from my bank account to the school's bank account to pay for my accommodation?”

This was a trick question. The answer is yes and it says so clearly online. But I could tell by the way this woman was watching me that I wasn't going to receive the confirmation that I wanted, or it wasn't going to be easy.

“Is your bank account--international?” she asked, being polite, on the slim chance that I am actually Canadian. 

“Yes, it's American,” I told her.

“Well, as far as bank transfers, we can only transfer from UK banks to ours. This service doesn't charge fees. However...” And she trailed off, explaining something about international debit cards and how you can use those and they don't charge fees either. After the extreme disappointment upon learning that all the information online is actually not directed to international students at all, the debit card seemed a grand idea. 

“I have an international debit card,” I said, and showed it to her. I'm unsure of whether or not she thought I wanted congratulations. “I'll use that, but I'll have to transfer funds onto it...” and I trailed off, too, thanking her warmly and walking out into the slight rain and cold, back to my room, back to my pyjamas and digestives.

It wasn't until this morning when I woke up that it occurred to me that this information was probably incorrect. Why would they link me, an international student, to a page with defunct information? I needed to ask someone else. So I did some other research online and found that the accommodation office isn't even in charge of collecting accommodation fees. I really should have gone to the office of "Finance Enquiry" at the Registry. I felt very stupid and very pleased at the same time--stupid for not having found out this information sooner and pleased that a U.S. to UK bank transfer was more than likely to be a concrete possibility. (Which should not be confused with discrete probability.)

My main problem now was that today's weather on my weather forecast widget in Dashboard only shows up as a smoke-like smudge across the calendar--wind. At home, I rejoice for rain, enjoy that atmosphere, I am even glad for mild coastal breeze and sunshine with scattering of clouds--actually, those are the best days California has to offer--but I have always, unfailingly complained of wind. And here--I am enchanted though mildly annoyed by rain and drizzle, brief spats of pouring rain fail to faze me, and even arctic temperature plunges when the sun falls fail to elicit whinges to the degree that wind at home ever has. And the wind at home is warm. It makes your hair stick to your face and other crevices you scarcely knew were wedged into your neck or behind your ear. All hope for lipstick is lost, one's eyebrows and eyelashes become dangerous thickets, the body builds up unseemly muscle simply attempting to walk in the direction of one's own choosing. Trees fall over. Leaves spawn as though reproduction is going out of style. Car alarms ring in the early morning hours, and every other hour, especially when you're trying to watch TV or sleep or talk to someone. Dogs bark and howl, ducks quack, cows low, coyotes probably stay underground, or cower under copses on brown dusty hills, because I don't have memories of their howls on windy days.

Wind here is different. It isn't warm--instead it's cold and disregards the fact that you've got any layers on at all, cutting to skin and probably to bone. Car alarms don't go off because I don't hear them on university grounds. The reeds around the university broad go nearly horizontal. Lipstick and eyelashes are still unsafe. But most of all, the wind makes it hard to breathe. You develop a certain way of tilting your head so that the peak of your nose receives the worst of it and your nostrils are still able to draw a normal amount of air and your lungs are safe from overinflation. If you drop out of cadence or take an irregularly long or short draw, you're doomed until a reprieve from the icy gales and you can take in your momentary oxygen. If the wind's blowing from behind, make sure you're wearing a thick jacket or coat and don't let boys walk behind you, either. If it's blowing from the front or the sides, you should wear sunglasses so you can open your eyes, shield them from wind or hair. And you might as well give up on your fringe for the day, it's sticking up straight in the air.

I realized, sitting up in bed, that the sounds I had previously mistaken for thunder were actually wind ripping through the tall concrete buildings and, more importantly, through the crack I leave open on my window. And I wanted to get down to it--can I transfer from my U.S. bank account or can't I? But the specter of the wind and the howl of it through the campus were not, what one might call, alluring. 

There were other reasons to get up, though. First, I hadn't checked my pigeonhole for mail in a few days, and second, my dad had told me that my package had been delivered but I still hadn't received an email from the guy who said he emailed people when they got in packages. So I realized that I'd been, again, misinformed! He doesn't email you! What a liar! 

The thought of tea-cozy-crocheting material and a usb mouse in a package from home was enough to get me out of bed, into a shower and a semi-decent state. It would all be mussed by the wind, at any rate. So I pulled on my books caked with the dried mud and grass of the University of Sussex countryside, a shirt and a jumper, and carried a jacket with me over my arm, as the temperature wasn't to be too cold and the sun was out, unobscured by clouds or mist or trees. You can feel the wind! But you cannot see the wind...

I made my way hesitantly and with moderate difficulty to the registrar, where I queue'd for about three minutes and found out that I can transfer from a U.S. bank without a problem, plus, they'll convert it to pounds without me having to do it, in about one minute. I walked out of the Registry with a paper in hand with the bank's information and feeling triumphant. 

My next job would be slightly more confusing, because how was I supposed to convince someone I had a package in and hadn't had an email when he clearly believed very earnestly that he emailed people when their packages came? I walked with determination down to the ground floor and straight up to the “hole in the wall” where this Gary figure sat hunched over some writing in front of a computer monitor. I stood quietly and meekly. He looked up and said, “oh, hi!” when he realized I'd been waiting for a few moments and that his comportment was not up to the English standard of utmost politeness. Not that I cared. 

I began timorously--“I've talked to you before...and I know you said you send out emails when there's supposed to be a package in, but I know there's a package for me--”

“Did you get my email?” he asked, looking hopeful that this would, in fact, be easier than it was to be.

“Well--no, that's the thing, but my parents--well, the tracking on the package said it had arrived, but I didn't get an email from you...”

By now he is clearly processing what I've said very closely since it's entirely contrary to his world view. 

“Well,” he said, and then, his face clearing, “well, what's your name? I can check to see if something came in...”

I told him. “Lily ____.”

After a moment of muttering that there's nothing here for a Lily ____, his finger pauses in its scan of a chart upon a “David _____.” The abbreviation for my enrolled school--AMS--is in the column next to it. I nearly laugh out loud. 

“There's one for--” and he reads off the name. I hesitate--there could be another student enrolled in American Studies with my last name and my dad's first name, and I mention this falteringly, but I think Gary is stunned by the vague possibility that my name is David and I just wasn't telling.

“That's...my dad....” I say after a moment.

We stare at each other for a second, he in utter bewilderment and me with an idea of what's happened that I already thoroughly understand. My dad's name was on the package as the sender, and whoever took down the name of the recipient accidentally put down his name as mine, because we both have the same last name and it's a relatively easy mistake to make if you are a blockhead. 

“Would he have sent you something in his name?” he asks me after a moment of strenuous mental activity.

“Well--um--I don't think so, but it could be that his name was listed as the sender and--”

but he asks if I want him to check anyway since I know there should be a package for me, so I ask him to yes, please, check, and he pulls up one for Lily _____, saying that it “just came in, actually.” I look around on it for a part that says my dad's name and it's there, and I show it to Gary, who still asks if I want him to "pull up" the thing that came for David, convinced that they're two different packages.

“Sure,” I say, and then because he's looking so determinedly I'm almost fooled into thinking there's another package there--for my dad. 

“Well, there's nothing here, so...” and he noncommittally repeats something that sounds an awful lot like what I've already explained to him. “So, will you just sign here for him?” he asks, thrusting the chart gently in my direction, and I take it up, trying not to grin at the thought that he’s still talking as though the package actually did come for a “David” and that there wasn’t just some mistake. I thank him several times and exit as quickly as I can with my rightful boon.

Well, that explains the emails, I think, pattering down the stairs.

My friends Megan and Kelsey and Angela and I all went shopping during the summer on a certain occasion, and found ourselves in a store that stocked several things plastered with the American flag or picturesque eagles who stare out into the poetic middle distance, looking fierce and free. Megan and I tried on denim shorts on which one of the legs was covered with a screen print of the star-spangled banner. At some point in the conversation as to how pale I really was and “if they were just a different shade of blue...” we'd consider really buying them, Megan called them “freedom shorts,” and immediately, like some kind of forest fire, the term “freedom ____” for any item with anything loosely American about it caught on. We'd see a shirt with our flag on it--”freedom shirt!”--and once I saw a tie in the pattern of the flag and impulsively shouted “freedom tie!” whilst with my family at some modest venue. I even got my sister to start saying it, as when we'd go to the mall we'd point out “freedom socks,” “freedom backpack,” “freedom hats,” “freedom lipstick,” and everything else. 

So when I got my package today--liberated it, say, from a cruel and lonely fate, forever waiting for a David ____ who lives in California and was never the intended recipient to answer his non-existent email by calling on it--and after I'd carried it the quarter of a mile up and down stairs and over slippery surfaces, plopped it on the bed and shed my jumper as it is unusually hot on the upper floor of this house when the sun's shining on the drapes, and then rolled it onto the floor to open it up and saw the words “UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE” underneath the declarations of “royal mail” and other British things, the phrase floated up into my conscious mind without effort: “freedom package.”

And its contents have liberated me from many things: the dense, bored afternoons which shall now be filled with crocheting tea-cozies; the lack of good peanut butter with a can of good, American Jif; the consequential lack of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups with two packages of these; the iron reign of Colman's mustard with a bottle of beautiful, mild, French's Yellow; the blandness of vegetarian dining options with a bottle of McCormick's fake “Bac'n Pieces”; and the terror of my errant trackpad with a hefty usb mouse, complete with the world's smallest scrolling device.

I am already planning to go down to the kitchen to stow away my precious American goods in the larder; I am sprawling regally as I sprint smoothly over the contents of this screen with my usb mouse; and I am looking forward to an afternoon of audiobooks and the double-vision I associate only with the joy of crocheting. Thanks, parents! And Molly, for your letter! Perhaps today I will redeem myself from the veggie-sausage-burning wretch that I became merely last night as I filled the kitchen with the noxious fumes of yellow smoke and scattered bits of carbonized soy proteins.

in transit: london to norwich part one

It seemed a fortuitous time to write of the adventures I’ve already had in Norwich, sitting at a small coffee shop in the railway station about to depart since arriving. As I hope to keep up better with this blog hereto-forward, my excursion back to London to visit Kelsey, Megan and Angela this weekend should be fairly well-represented on this page in time; so I won’t tell you about it now. If not for any other reason than that I haven’t yet been or done anything there to possibly write about.

Right.

My last morning in London for EAP orientation went more smoothly than other times, probably because I’m a creature capable of adaptation and I had--well--sort of adapted. I’d packed my things back up the night before and made a point to get up a little later for breakfast so I’d meet others there that I knew and avoid rush hour, which I’d encountered the morning before. 

By this time I’d figured out how to operate my hair dryer by sheer luck and a small amount of credit is due to my memory, and here is why: when I couldn’t get it to work initially, I assumed that I’d broken it somehow, but then I saw there was a small dial to turn at the base of the handle to change the voltage, which was still set on American input. Then, I couldn’t figure out how to turn it because it’s like a screw that you’ve got to turn with a screwdriver and I didn’t have anything that would fit in the slot to turn it. But when I went back, determined, with plans to press and hold the test button for five seconds and press it ten times in rapid succession if the first plan failed--so on and so forth--I realized that I could use the prongs on the plug itself, as American plugs have thin enough prongs to work for this purpose. 

Point of this story: I remembered vaguely from other electronic devices that you had to press/hold the test button and I figured out that one can use American socket plugs as a screwdriver, if hard-pressed. 

Moral of the story: Never throw away the instructions for something you don’t know how to use and/or not bring them with you on a trip if you’re going to fly to another country. Specifically if you’re flying across the continental U.S. and the Atlantic ocean.

~end flashback~

My hair didn’t look like a wet cat, basically, and I’d mastered the shower, I’d stolen teabags from the suite’s small kitchen, I had packed, and I was going down to have another chocolate croissant. More importantly, I’d gotten along well with the others yesterday--day two of orientation--and wasn’t feeling so desolate. 

I’d been right in thinking that waiting until later would be a good idea for breakfast--while it was still busy I was able to fit in at a table with Matt and Marina and we talked about going to buy chocolate before our taxis came, as we’d seen a Cadbury shop nearby. However, it was about 9.30 at this point and our taxis were coming at 10.15, so we didn’t end up going. Brittany joined us towards the end of breakfast and then I went back up to bring my things down to the lobby and check out. I was very much looking forward to getting to Norwich but not excited about what was between here and there--that is, navigating, by ourselves, the taxis and trains, and getting to UEA generally unharmed. 

Monika had put me in charge of the money for the taxis, and a three-person taxi was booked under my name. When all of us had come down to the lobby and checked out, it was only a matter of minutes before someone came to the door and we had to let him in because he didn’t have a key. He turned out to be my taxi driver, so Brittany, Julian and I grabbed our luggage and followed the driver out to his taxi, leaving Matt and Marina behind.

Things went pretty smoothly from there. The taxi driver helped us with our luggage and it was very spacious inside the mini-van taxi. Julian talked to the taxi driver about crime rates and whether or not the UK supported capital punishment, and we talked about how different London was to the areas our schools are in--Irvine, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz--and I’m sure the taxi driver was either quite annoyed by Julian’s completely, unquestionably southern-Californian-bro accent and tone--his manner is completely dorky and he’ll say anything he thinks, but he’s also entertaining for much the same reason. 

About half-way to Liverpool Street Station, our taxi gets a call--by now it’s around 10.35 and our train departs at 11.00--and it’s the other taxi driver, wondering where Matt and Marina are. Apparently, the other driver wasn’t told to go into the hostel to collect M&M, so he waited outside on the street and by now M&M were twenty minutes late for the booking. He asked us to give him their number and while Brittany and Julian got it for him, I was texting Marina telling her their taxi was outside the hostel--I get a text back asking me where it is exactly--and of course, I don’t know, but I’m trying to be nice and by now the other taxi driver’s hung up with us, and I can’t remember exactly what happened, but I do remember a text that asked us to let them know exactly what to do when they got to the station so they could get to the train quicker and to see if we could ask the train to wait.

When we got to the street station, of course we didn’t know who to ask to make the train wait, and we got there with only about seven or ten minutes to spare ourselves--so after Brittany and I made Julian put our luggage in the luggage racks for us, because we couldn’t lift them, and after we got situated in our seats, the train pulled out, and M&M still weren’t at the station. 

I got a text from Marina a bit later, telling us they’d gotten their ticket times changed for free and were going to be able to catch the next bus. For a while I sat at my window seat being extremely relieved. And then I began to take pictures shamelessly because going out of London had been something I’d been waiting for since--well, since I’d alighted from the airport days before.

We loped by the Greenwich arena where many of the Olympic events took place, and the Aquatic center, and whatever that weird tall building with the red bars twisting all around it is. After this we crossed into patchy grass fields punctuated by communities of very tall apartment complexes--houses are generally tall and thin, here, and I suppose that’s how most cities are--and car parks. The cars in England are one of the things that makes it feel the most different to me; they’re all thin and tall, too, perhaps to accommodate driving on the small, thin, twisting, uneven roads. I do see Fiats--and every time I saw one for the first few days, I’d lean after them and say I want a Fiat...I want one. Because I do.

Brittany and I talked a lot on the train. It was nice to, for a moment, feel as though there weren’t any people around judging us for our accents--lack thereof, I’d assert--because not all of London is tourist friendly. And it was true, what we’d heard--that London is almost a satellite city, that it’s not like the rest of England. This became apparent soon after we departed London--I was glad for a window seat, from whence I observed rolling green hills lined with trees, and sprinklings of sheep. 

Julian made friends with the man sitting across from him at the table seat in front of us; the man was Scottish and very friendly and told us a lot about Norwich, such as that it’s not as expensive to live there as London. The train ride was almost two hours long, and Julian and this man talked the entire time. Mostly Julian was talking and asking questions, and when Brittany and I fell silent in patches, we’d listen to their conversation. They’d both been to Taiwan and talked about it; Julian asked about the distinction between Celtic and Gaelic; Julian complained and asked more questions. 

Something I’ve noticed since I’ve been here is how much I do rely on Californian “slang,” though I prefer to think of this as colloquial speech. Because I’m not overtly social, when I appreciate something someone says, or some bit of information, I usually say “that’s cool!” And I haven’t heard any locals say “cool” once. Or I’ll pad my sentences with “like,” which is obviously not uncommon if you’ve ever been to California or other American places, which I assume those of you reading probably have. If you haven’t, if you’ve been in contact with me at all, you still understand what it’s like, and just know that it’s not just me! On the train, I wasn’t particularly aware of this quirk, but once we got into Norwich, where there aren’t as many Americans around, I noticed it right away. 

I bring this up because even though I use colloquialisms often, I’m not half as bad as Julian. 

It’s also been a bit hard not to mirror certain British pronunciations. We talked about James Joyce in my seminar for Modernism today, and they pronounce “Ulysses” as “YOU-lis-ees,” instead of how I’d say it: “you-LISS-ees.” There are a million things like this: today I said “yeah” to someone with a British accent and felt immediately stupid. Many of my thoughts have taken up an accent, too. 

But what’s more strange is that in some classes when I speak I now sound crystal clear and actually enjoy the sound of my own voice. Which isn’t something I’ve said before in any seriousness.

I understand everything I say!

* * *

Julian’s friend got off the train at Norwich station, too. When I noticed that we were pulling into the station and a sign said “Norwich,” I stood up and said “is this our stop? Is this our stop?” because neither Julian nor Brittany seemed too concerned, and finally, Julian’s friend nodded at me and I tried not to look too apologetic. 

Stepping off the train onto the platform required Julian to do more work because Brittany and I, again, couldn’t lift our suitcases. I’m sure I could have, I just couldn’t since Julian was there to do it for me. He asked us for “man points,” and I don’t really know what that is but we gave him a few, about five each, which didn’t seem to please him much.

My first impression was that it was overcast and sprinkling. It was different to London, more English, and the station is small and almost quaint. We took a while to figure out how to navigate our suitcases through the gates that let you off the platform and then walked out into the cold, cold British air, where there were other people with suitcases queue’d up for taxis. A girl came to greet us with a UEA sign and helped us get into a taxi; it wasn’t a black cab and it was quite small, so we got in with our luggage and had to hold it all the way to school so we wouldn’t be squashed. 

The cab driver didn’t know we wanted to talk to him, so he didn’t have his speaker system on at first, or whatever they use or turn on to hear us when we speak from the back. I noticed a small red light turn on when he noticed we were trying to catch his attention. We asked him where to eat and what were cheap places to do shopping, if there was good Indian food--to which he laughed at us tourists and said “it’s England, mate!”--and then he told us the first thing to do in Norwich was to never use his taxi service, as it was too expensive for students. I only had ten pounds with me to pay him with because that’s all Monika gave us to use, and it ended up costing ten pound sixty, so I pulled out some change and then felt really horrible that I didn’t have a tip for him. But he seemed nice enough on the outside and at least refrained from being grumpy while we could see him. 

When we got to school, it was partially sunny, but still quite cold. I was wearing a thin jumper over a dress and I could feel the wind as though I weren’t wearing any sleeves at all. If by nothing else, I’m sure people could tell I was not from around by the rate at which I shivered. Others--locals--were in short-sleeves and jeans and were completely comfortable. (Over a week later, I still haven’t acclimated to the cold or wind, but I do have clothes more suitable for it.) 

After leaving our luggage in a “luggage drop” we went through many booths and had our passports scanned, registered with our schools, got our keys and accommodation agreements. On the far corner of the room we were in, called the “LCR” as an acronym for the “Lower Common Room,” there were tables set up with information about the union. At this point I was feeling rather shaky, not quite ever knowing if I was doing the right thing in the right order; one slip up, I felt, and I could be here illegally! I could garner a criminal record! That could ruin plans for graduate school! And future employment! But mostly graduate school!

After I gathered things from the Union of Students, I asked one of the people standing around, whom I actually recognized from his picture on the Union of Students Blog, if there was anything “over here” I needed to do to finish registration. He said no, that this was just “fun stuff” and then I nearly turned away in relief, but remembered to say, “oh, cool,” and smile like I meant it. I felt bad for it afterwards, wondered what I looked like: the American girl completely uninterested in “fun stuff.” 

When I’d finished with what I needed, I went to ask someone how to get to Constable Terrace, which is where I live, because I didn’t have any idea. The lady at the desk I’d stopped at told me there were shuttles that could take us to the accommodation and that she thought she might be able to squeeze me into the “terrace” shuttle. (There’s also Norfolk Terrace and Suffolk Terrace on campus.) The girl she asked to help me looked very displeased and I felt bad for allowing her to lug around my luggage, but I didn’t have the energy or other resources to pull it myself, and besides, she’d volunteered so she should have counted on having to help a couple lame, weak people with their things. To be fair, my luggage isn’t even that heavy in comparison to a lot of the others’ around.

I squeezed into the shuttle awkwardly with my large backpack--there was very little space. By this time I’d lost Brittany in the LCR, but Julian was in this shuttle; going to Suffolk Terrace. We were mostly silent; he was probably tired from carrying my luggage around and I was just tired because I was tired.

We stopped at Constable Terrace first because there was someone there from Italy, I think, judging by the outside of his passport, who had a TV, microwave, and probably also a dishwasher with him. His boxes took up almost half the space in the shuttle. They helped him out with his things while I squeezed out the back door with my “rucksack” and then the Italian boy and an Australian girl lowered my trunk out of the car and I thanked them more times than is probably polite. One of the boys who was volunteering hopped out of the shuttle and offered to take my luggage. I nearly refused because now I could roll it--but he seemed happy to help and I realized quickly that I shouldn’t ever say no to someone who offered that kind of thing. He took it and zoomed off in the direction of my flat, talking to me the whole time in an accent markedly different to London’s but which I couldn’t place anyway--you know, being American and everything.

He asked me what I was studying while we walked, and I told him “literature and creative writing,” and he said, “so...English” and then I told him about the lady who sassed me at customs and how I assumed that that meant I couldn’t call it “English” here. It was probably a less-than-enlightening conversation on his end, but I blame being tired for whatever came out of my mouth. 

When we got to the flat he had to show me how to open the door--I am notoriously challenged when it comes to opening doors with keys, but apparently these are strange anyway, because you have to hold the key in place while you open the door itself. I won’t go into more detail because I don’t know who’s reading this.

And then, he carried my luggage all the way up to the top floor without stopping for breath and without ceasing in his stream of orated information. I think it was probably a combination of odd circumstances, but I was decidedly in love with him once he left me to settle in.

* * *

Having my own bathroom and shower was immediately apparent as the best feature of Constable Terrace, despite everything else about it that’s nice.

* * *

I texted Brittany a bit later asking her if she wanted to go on the tour of Norwich at six that day. I was very tired but I wanted to see the city, and I realize now that I was probably still running on the vestiges of adrenaline that travelling alone and for so long had pumped into me. We met up at the LCR for the tour and had to figure out how to grapple with British change to pay for bus fare. Busses are a bit expensive here--it’s four quid for a return ticket, whereas in Brighton, according to Angela and Megan, it’s only two quid for a return. It could be that the Norwich city centre is farther away from campus than Brighton’s city centre is from theirs. Either way, I gladly parted with my money and boarded the bus, all the way to the upper level.

I realized later that in deciding to take the tour--though I’d come dangerously close to not going once I’d seen how nice it was to be in my room, alone, in the relative quiet--I’d done one of the best things for my budding social life that I could have possibly done. On the bus, Brittany and I met several other international students with whom we’d do things and hang out for the next few days almost all the time. I got a text from Matt around this time asking what we were doing for dinner and had to tell him we’d gone into the city. We ate--one Australian, five Americans, and one Belgian--at a restaurant called “Giraffe” which apparently local students dislike but which served really good mashed pea soup. 

While we were out, I got a blanket for the bed--I had preordered a bedding pack that UEA put into the room so it’d be there when I arrived, but the duvet cover/sheet/pillow case were a bit waxy and stiff, so I realized I’d need other softer things. I also got a pack of pillowcases and a few other things that weren’t worth bringing on the plane--towel, shower gel, and the very magical hair accessory called a “hair donut.” You can (and should!) look it up if you haven’t heard of it because it’s changed my entire opinion on putting my hair up. 

My memories of this first night fade and reduce to taking up defence against an American fourth-year student from Philadelphia on the way back to UEA. I recognised him immediately as someone who needed to feel included and did this by tempering our stories and conversation with versions of said stories/conversation, only substituting himself for the main characters. I said I was a vegetarian over dinner because I didn’t order the chicken barbecue quesadillas nor fish and chips, and this boy--I will call him “R”--proceeds to tell a story about how he was a vegetarian for four months--no, it must have been five, or five point two-seven-three months--and then one night had a tiny, tiny bit of chicken stock and was sick for hours in the bathroom hunched up and gross.

As a vegetarian who’s gotten sick from eating fish after years of not having it and as someone with this experience who did not spend hours throwing up and who is a weak-bodied, delicate-to-the-point-of-patheticness person, I began to suspect the truth of his stories. I understand--truth and stories aren’t often synonymous--but sometimes truth just happens. 

On the way back to UEA, on the bus, in the strange fluorescent beams, tired and bent, “R” asks if anyone else is doing creative writing or if it’s just him--and I raise my hand tentatively because I know this will mean talking to him, and he asks me what classes I’m taking and I tell him, and then he proceeds to tell a story about how he couldn’t get into any of the c.w. classes and he doesn’t know why, and I don’t either, and then he asks me what I write. I take a small amount of time to deliberate over my answer: I can’t say poetry, I can’t say poetry. What I say is “prose poetry,” which is the worst possible answer, and then I proceed with “and micro fiction----you know, mostly.”

Somebody asks what prose poetry is. I almost have a chance to answer before “R” is spewing rainbows out of his mouth and “It’s poems that are written without line breaks, and, it’s all about every. single. word. Like, man, every word counts.”

As if each word doesn’t in regular prose? As if each word doesn’t, ever? As if it’s easier to write novels or non-prose-poetry, as if we can sometimes string words together in a way so that each is not playing a part in a sentence or phrase? And; let’s not start on punctuation! But he does. And he says something I philosophically disagree with about poetry; that it’s lyrical and mostly beautiful. That in prose-poetry, punctuation is more vital than in other forms of writing. And I wonder what the others must think of us; how small words and phrases and periods must seem and how pointless our struggles to understand, our wants and needs to react, and how this must conflate with our own ideas of the importance of our “work,” that we are not only readers and writers but readers and writers of life, that we are the harbingers of renewal and creation, and upon us, nothing is lost. 

early october

this is a two-fold promise and warning: I'm going to update this blog in a non-consecutive order beginning now. It's hard to catch up, but posts are coming that will cover some of the time I've skipped.

sorry for updating so infrequently. I'm still settling into life here, and figuring out how to spend my time.

whale whale whale

I landed in England about three-four days ago, depending on where you live. I'm still writing posts to cover the gap, and I'll post them as soon as I can. We didn't have wifi nor internet of any sort at the hostel in London, but I have ethernet now, so it shouldn't be a problem to make posts :)

early september

Well, it's been a few days since I last updated and that's mostly because I haven't done much in the last couple days related directly to my leaving, but I've got some news today, so.

A few days ago I received an email from UEA asking me to fill out online registration, which is the first half of the registration process. There are meetings once I'm there that will complete it. It was just regular, boring informational stuff so I won't go into detail about it. I did have a little trouble uploading the picture for my campus card because the last step told me to read something that wasn't there and then click a button that wasn't there...so I emailed the technical team and we'll see what happens, I guess.

The reason I'm writing is because I've found out what classes I'm taking! I sent in a module enrollment form which had the classes I was interested in and then a second and third choice for each. My first choices, of course, were the creative writing classes for poetry and fiction, and then a third-year module for children's literature, but I was warned several times that classes fill up quickly in creative writing and it's more than possible I'd be placed in my second- or third-choice modules.

I didn't know we'd even know what modules we were enrolled in until we got there and talked to a counselor because I'd read something like that on the website, but when I finished registration I saw a tab called "student" up in the corner and clicked on it, and it took me to a page that contained some information about my student information. There was a link at the bottom that said it was my timetable; without much thought of classes at all, and more thought of registration and orientation information, I clicked through, and found neither registration nor orientation information, but rather my module timetable.

I immediately noticed that I only have class on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. As I wish to travel on the weekends, this was highly welcome information. All the class information is in a sort of code that I can't read, though, so at first glance I couldn't tell what classes I'd been assigned.

I brought up the course catalogue and found that I've been placed in "Eighteenth-Century Writing," "Modernism," and "Creative Writing: Prose Fiction."

I'm slightly exasperated that it seems to me that I'm rather bent on doing poetry in an academic setting and most of the feedback I am receiving is working against that. However, I'm thrilled to have made it into the fiction course, as that will complete my emphasis in creative writing in fiction once I get back to UCI, and then I'll just have two classes left for poetry. That and, the main reason I chose to attend UEA without much thought about other options is because of their creative writing program, which is highly successful and well-regarded.

Taken directly from the Course Catalogue for the school of Literature, Drama and Creative writing:


2012/3 - LDCE2Y11 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WRITING

This module reads major British fiction and some poetry of the eighteenth century in terms of its relation to the development of society which is recognisably modern. We will examine such writers as Defoe, Swift, Pope, Richardson, Fielding and Sterne, and exploring the ‘rise of the novel’, the coming dominance of prose representation in journalism and fiction, the rise of the middle class, the move to an urban cash- nexus society governed by reason and contractual economic exchange, and the construction of new kinds of subjectivities for men and women according to the needs of middle-class patriarchy. In many ways, this module studies the development of the ‘modern mind’.

&


2012/3 - LDCE2Z15 MODERNISM

The purpose of this module is to study the literature of the early decades of the twentieth century - very roughly 1900-1930 - in particular the work of those authors who attempted to break with received norms of literary style and content. The module is organised as a series of thematic explorations - poetic experiment, memory and desire, myth and innovation, and so on - and thus does not follow a chronological structure. The sequence of guiding lectures focuses its deliberations on a set of specific texts, with their contexts, and these are taken up for discussion in the accompanying seminars. 'Modernism' is this constructed gradually over the semester as a mosaic of closely related issues, each one reflecting on the others. As well as providing an overview of defining textual features, in prose and poetry, the module is concerned also with the interrelation of text and context, offering a range of ways of conceiving of modernist literature as both of, and self-consciously ahead of, its historical moment.



I'm least excited for Eighteenth-Century Writing, though I'm sure that I'll enjoy it once I'm actually in the class. I've read all the aforementioned writers save Sterne, and I even really enjoy Defoe, so at the least, there's that. As for Modernism--it sounds a lot like we'll be studying some history as well, which sounds interesting but I hope it's more interesting than the course description. (i.e. that is only possible if we study Virginia Woolf. Have I told you, I'm naming a daughter Adeline?)

I have an appointment with STA travel tomorrow to book a return ticket and I have to go by financial aid and call the bank and then research on the international student ID card to see if I can use it for transactions abroad instead of the account I just set up with nameless banker at nameless bank. Feeling slightly--er--stressed, but I have time to pull last-minute things together before I leave.

uea mailing address

you will need my last name for this, but odds are you know it if you're interested in sending me mail.

Lily ____
Visiting Student
School of American Studies
University of East Anglia
Norwich Research Park
Norwich
NR4 7TJ
UK

late august

It is now edging into September. I've decided it's high time to live up to the promise and establish a blog through which I hope those of you interested in my travels to England this autumn will be able to keep in touch with my activities.

I am not a person highly regulated by routine, but I mean to make a special effort to keep this updated as both a way to stay sane through this completely, completely new event in my life and an effort to let you all know that, well, I am alive each time I update.

Here are the facts about this blog:

1) I have created it because I am going to use it to keep a record of my trip to study abroad at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK: a record which will ideally include pictures and stories.

Here are answers to potential questions you might have about these facts:

1) Yes, really.

Wish me luck; cheers, ta, and everything else the British say.

((please send peanut butter in advance!))