Hey I'm back

I've been back in the US for almost a day now! W00t!

I had a decent trip -- I got home via a Virgin train to London, a long London Underground tube ride, and finally a Virgin Atlantic flight. I already made a bad joke to Gus about how I got home and it wasn't received well so I won't say it here.

Virgin Atlantic was excellent. It was my first time flying with them and I enjoyed all my dealings with them except for checking in my baggage -- they were a bit slow. Nice things about the flight:

• some of the bathrooms on the plane are as big as the ones on trains
• too many movies I wanted to watch and not a long enough flight (this sounds pathetic, I know)

As always, for posterity -- food consumed on flight:

• multiple cups of orange juice and regular water
  
• Virgin Atlantic cola (they have their own brand...)
• pasta salad
• "Puerto Rican Beef Stew"
• bread + butter
• tea with milk and sugar
• a Gü "pud"
  
• Harrogate Spa Water
• ice cream, in Virgin Atlantic labeling
  
• a Gü brownie

My flight landed at EWR on time. Surprisingly it didn't take long to go through Customs and claim my baggage. When I left the airport, I was hit with humidity. Ahhh America, but mostly.. ahhh New Jersey!

So yea, it feels nice to be home, sleeping in my bed and living in a nice house. I definitely miss the UK in some ways, but I like being in a land of single water taps too much. Overall, not to be bombarding with post-study abroad platitudes about how wonderful it is to experience a foreign culture (they're all true, btw), I had a good time. There were some things I liked more about the UK than I did the US, specifically how "relaxed" the people are compared to Americans -- they definitely know how to have a good time. Also, the UK is much more historically rich not only in terms of history-history but also traditions and customs. It's definitely something to be proud of, if I were British.

However I wasn't in love with the UK. Certainly it is my favorite European country out of all the ones I visited this semester, but it isn't perfect. Most of my grievances with the UK are mostly things that I grew accustomed to in the US. The US is a much more conservative environment, politically and even in everyday life. The UK, as I blogged about before, is quite liberal -- universal health care, heavily subsidized university tuitions, hefty unemployment benefits, just to name a few examples. Additionally, I got the feeling that the UK was slightly more open to things that would be deemed "improper" or send some Americans into cardiac arrest. I can't really put my finger on it or draw on compelling examples, other than a certain mechanical ride in a club I went to, naughtier-themed parties, bars on campus premises, 18 instead of 21 to drink, and a television show called Skins. Granted, some of these things do exist in America, but only in certain pockets of America and definitely not as prevalent and out in the open. It was strange at first, but I grew accustomed to it over the course of the semester (and after spending 3 weeks in a much more liberal mainland Europe, I no longer found the UK to be that liberal).

The CCTV cameras in the UK. Yea, they were weird to be around at first. Still weird now that I think about it. Though a couple weeks ago, campus police sent out an email about a sexual assault that occurred on one of the residential campuses. It described the physique of the attackers, which is what the CMU emails do too. However, it also described the people who were walking in the area a short time either before or after the incident and requested that they identify themselves as witnesses and provide information to help the police. Hmm.. interesting. I wonder how effective the CCTV cameras are -- in this case it comes down to how effective it was at eliciting the witnesses' help. Something to ponder. But I still think it is creepy that CCTV cameras are everywhere.

Anyway, CCTV cameras aside (I had been meaning to write a little something about it but I had no time and nowhere to put it but now and here), study abroad was fun! Relaxing, as anyone could've guessed. But I'm definitely looking forward to returning to CMU. I met some nice and friendly students at the University of Manchester and socially it's a more exciting university. However, I do miss the smaller size of CMU and right now I'm more interested in finishing my degree/being more marketable. Bottom line, I'm glad I spent the semester abroad. It gave me a lot of time and opportunities to experience new things and do a bit of self-reflection. I hope this blog wasn't a terrible read and thanks for reading!

Spring has arrived!

Daffodils in St. James's Park. London.

These past couple of weeks have been pretty great.

Spring comes a little earlier here in the UK than back in the states, though so far the weather's been so much milder anyway. Lovin' the sunshine (or cloudless days). It makes waking up and walking to class much more bearable.

I've found that the attitude amongst students here is much more relaxed. Of course, I'm comparing it to CMU's. But it's really nice and refreshing to be around people who aren't completely stressed by their studies. Instead they take time out to enjoy life's finer things, or just to take a break. When asking my friends what they did over the weekend, or even since last class, I don't get replies along the lines of "Oh I was working all night on my Algebra problem set" or "I was revising for my Algebra midterm exam." Instead I get replies like "I was out drinking with my mates for St. Patty's" (mind you, St. Patty's fell on a Tuesday this year) or "I was out clubbing." I'm impressed by how laidback British students are, but I think the education system lends itself very well to letting students discover themselves on their own time, and pretty much just grow up with their true passions as their guide. Students at the most competitive colleges in the US are drowning in problem sets in classes they don't even like, in a major they also don't even like but would get them a decent job after graduation. Yes, those things are important, but it's important to pay attention to the self and what makes it happy. If you required every British and American student at a top university to keep a twitter and aggregated the tags, the most popular tag for the British would be "fun" whereas the American one would be "fml."

These were posted in the Maths building. This made me smile and love this school/study abroad experience slightly more. If you ignored the paragraph before this, this pretty much sums it up:


School aside, I've been doing some light traveling on some weekends. Last weekend I went to Cardiff, Wales. I have mixed feelings about Cardiff since it was just like any other British city I had visited already, but at least it had a very picturesque bay that we were lucky to visit on a sunny day.


All in all, Cardiff Bay reminded me very much of the Jersey Shore. In fact, there were so many swanky boutiques, small chocolate shops, and restaurants that I thought I was at Pier Village. Alas, it was still very relaxing to be near the water. I do quite miss the beach.

As if the spring-y weather and general laid back attitude here weren't enough to make my time here so much more enjoyable than if I were back at CMU, my two friends from high school decided to spend their spring break in the UK! I had a blast seeing them and I was quite flattered that they came to visit/go to the Dr. Who museum but that's irrelevant :P.

As a result I returned to London to hang out with them after classes finished on Wednesday (at 11am btw :) )

London Eye, as seen from St. James's Park. Disappointed that they drained the river/lake and the trees haven't regained their leaves yet, but still pretty.

Obligatory Big Ben picture.
Tower of London! Unfortunately it was closed by the time we arrived there.
The Tower Bridge. Even though it was twilight, there were still a ton of tourists snapping pictures on the bridge.
I'm currently less than a week from spring break ("Easter holiday" as they call it here), which also means I'm less than a week away from the crazy backpacking trip through Europe for 3 weeks. It's going to be intense and frankly it hasn't quite hit me yet. Of course, I have to get through two midterm exams before I leave. Boo. But the one nice thing about CMU is it has more than prepared me for the academic challenges here.

On Education and Meeting People in Academia

The British academic system differs significantly from the American system.

This was emphasized several times during various orientations. Mostly the fact that the British system expects students to figure out how to study independently instead of issuing homework to force them to learn. I was kind of scared by this. Also, this means that the semester final grade entirely rides on the midterm and the final exams. Mmm. OK, that's it for boring details.

I'm taking 4 math classes here. They each meet twice a week for lecture, and once a week for tutorial. Tutorial is the equivalent of recitation in the US, except they're run more like office hours in the US. Basically, you work on math problems in the classroom and if you're stuck, you raise your hand and either the professor (yes, the professor is present at tutorials!) or one of his TA-like grad students comes over to help you. Because of the nature of tutorials, they're sometimes referred to as examples classes. This is how the math courses roll here. Or should I say "modules"? Yea. Other notes:

• Module = Class/Course
• Course = Major
• Faculty = Department
  

I didn't know what to expect during my first few examples classes. I did not print out the handouts containing the problems, so I showed up to class unprepared (gasp!). I asked the grad student on duty what I should do, and she suggested I could review my notes or leave and go do something else. I then asked, "How about I look on with another [prepared] student?" She looked at me funny but then said OK. Odd. It would've been the first thing I suggested if I were her. So I looked on with another student. Some inferences from this experience: groupwork not explicitly encouraged in the UK.

This actually goes along with another observation: all the students in university housing have single bedrooms(!). Supposedly, this is standard across all universities in the UK. Another American student remarked that this is either the cause or effect of British students not knowing how to deal with other people in their space. I don't recall which, but both are plausible.

So everyone seems to be on their own. Funny, this goes against their beloved John Donne's saying "No man is an island."

Which leads me to the main point of this. It has been a challenge for me to meet British people in my math classes.

Of course, I can't blame it all on the ~(No man is an island) -ism of the British students. Most/all of my reader(s) are aware of my general personality. Therefore, double whammy. Of course, I had to start changing things about my SOP, because that's easier. Besides, I have a wonderful excuse if they look at me funny for striking up conversation during examples classes -- I'm an American, therefore I don't know better. Disturbingly, this increases my confidence. But hey, whatever works.

In case you're wondering, I've made a small handful of friends here, the vast majority of whom are American. As for non-Americans, they are Asians and also study abroad students. So really, I haven't been getting a British perspective on things, unless you count my British flatmates, though I don't see them very often.

How does one do as the Britons do?

I would like to take this time to address the question that is the very title of this blog.

What does it mean to live like a Briton, as an American?

So far, not much. Sure I've been here for a wee bit more than a month now, but I don't feel like I'm living in a different country. The superficial signs are there -- British accents, cars driving on the opposite sides of the road, dates being represented as day/month/year, the general preference to use military time instead of regular time, and the currency. Beyond that are less obvious signs like slight differences in cuisine (they LOVE potatoes here) and whatnot. But beyond even that, there's nothing markedly different about England compared to the US, as far as everyday life goes.

So I wonder, am I getting anything out of being in this country? I buy my groceries from Asda, which is owned by Walmart (yes, the same Walmart). I go to a puny Chinatown every couple of weeks to buy sweet breads and Chinese vegetables (something, I admit, I couldn't do in Pittsburgh, but I could easily do back in NJ).

I go clubbing about once a week on average, dancing to the lovely mainstream hip hop that I hear all the time in the US. Aside from the nicer facilities and lighting, and the occasional mechanical penis ride, it felt no different than going to an AEPi or Sig Tau party. I was surprised by the proportion of people who weren't getting into it at all -- hey that sounds a lot like a High Tech dance (and those were the most unspirited social functions ever)! Most people at the club can be categorized into two categories: too trashed and unable make complicated simple movements without risk of physical injury or not trashed enough and thus too self-conscious to make any complicated movements either. End result: lots of people just loitering on the dance floor, screaming things into each other's ears or adjusting their strapless dresses (at least people dress up nicely for these things). Such a pity, really. And it costs £4-5 to get in. A clubbing experience entirely depends on what one makes of it, but I have the feeling that I'm among the people in there getting the most bang for the buck (or sterling?), most shine for the sterling? most shit for the sterling? most ... ok you get the idea. Anyways, final verdict on clubs: swanky frat dance party.

So clubbing's not an exotic experience. I have a feeling raves are a different story, but I don't particularly want to go to those.

Back to the matter at hand. What exactly do the Britons do differently? Everyday life.. not much different, being a first world country in the western hemisphere. People get up every morning, drive or ride public transit to work/school, etc. College kids are the same everywhere, with an insatiable appetite for social events, like parties on weekends (weekends start on Thursday here, btw), and means of procrastination. People here do dress a little differently, a lot less jeans and t-shirt and a lot more black peacoat+black trousers for the guys and peacoat+skirts for the ladies. Should I rewrite that as (black peacoat)(black trousers + skirts)? Yea I think that works. It's all about compactness -- I'll let the distributive property take care of that.

In an effort to remedy this appalling lack of uniqueness in everyday culture, I figured I needed to get involved somehow and meet British people. Perhaps my problem is hanging out with Americans all the time? Perhaps. In any case, it'd be a good idea to make friends with some natives since I came all the way over here. Thus, I joined the university's radio station. Sorry, I don't have a radio show nor even a deejay name. I'm actually writing album and single reviews. As far as an avenue for meeting people, it's not terribly great since meetings are only once a week with the sole purpose of doling out CDs. However, I might get involved with other aspects of the station once I get more comfortable.

During orientations (CMU's and Arcadia's), the presenters discussed the progressive stages of culture shock. The talks were identical, which leads me to believe that they were pulling material off the same websites, but I digress. The stages go something like this:

1. enthusiastic ("OMG I LOVE THIS PLACE! I CAN'T IMAGINE LEAVING!")
   
2. slightly annoyed and homesick ("I can't understand their stupid accent.")
3. really annoyed and extremely homesick ("I hate the food here, I hate my classes. I miss my mom!)
   
4. slightly accepting ("Bangers and mash ain't bad.")
5. fully accepting ("OK, I got a lot out of this.")

Everyone knows that these talks are mostly BS, but I went ahead and wondered if I would be miserable. And if so, I thought about ways to prevent/prepare for it. However, since the culture here is PRETTY MUCH THE SAME as back in the US, I haven't felt any of these stages of culture shock. Sure, I'm having fun in England, but I also had fun in Pittsburgh the first few weeks (that's kind of generous) and eventually I neither felt enthusiastic nor miserable -- just indifferent. Sure everyone complains about Pittsburgh, but no one is actually miserable. So far the trajectory of my attitude towards Manchester resembles Pittsburgh's, so I'm not too worried. Slightly disappointed because it'll probably result in me not fully immersing in a different culture, but it's not a huge deal for me. I'm here to have fun.

It's only been one month though. It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the semester plays out. Hey, at least I can say I'm here during England's worst economic situation in 20 years? That should count for something.