Carolina News.
Sadness in Sport. 

So, we're out. 

We smashed through into the Sweet Sixteen, even made it to the Elite 8, but Sunday saw the Tarheels out of the game...

We did, however, beat Duke. 

I was so so hoping that we'd get to rush Franklin if we won. I hear that it just goes crazy, I've actually seen pictures from the last time we won... people start fires, get very drunk, dance around in the street, sing...people throw mattresses out of windows. I feel it would have been a carolina experience to have remembered. humph. I think if we get into the championships next year there will be a lot of excited englishies flying back over to NC..... we wish .....

The Weather

With true pathetic fallacy, the Carolina Sun has really let us down this week...Its gone from the 80's to full blown English-style windy rainy big puddles sopping wet days. And unfortunately, as an exchange student, I have no rain boots. (wellies to the English folk). So I get wet walking everywhere I walk; it's been the sort of rain that the wind blows all over you even if you have a brolly or a waterproof jacket, where your toes get wet even if you avoid every single puddle or stream of water on the way to class...

Sunshine, please return.

DTH
This week I wrote about a dutch dance company: The Nederlands Dans Theatre. They came to UNC to perform, and the Dutch ambassador came to watch. It was a pretty cool thing to cover, except for my editor sent my shell (the outline of my story and the contacts) to someone else, so I had to do it all in a mad panic. That's fine really, I didn't mind, but at that point no-one would talk to me or return my calls. I prefer to e-mail people and set up interview dates, because then you know people are free and will want to talk. The 2 men I spoke to on Monday told me they were busy and would call me back. One said 20 minutes. This was 3pm. He called me at 6ish literally as I was leaving my room to go over to the office and write. The other one didn't call me back.And didn't answer his phone again. Another lady just had an answer phone. Another replied to my email the next day.. Another did reply in time but said she was the wrong person to talk to. The lady she suggested me to speak to was Julie Walters. SO exciting. Except for it wasn't that Julie Walters. I was still excited when she called me said her name... Anyway, that lady didn't have much to do with the UNC performance, she had seen the dance theatre years ago, used to dance with one of the old choreographers, and now works at Duke.
So, it was a bit hectic. But hey, another one in the paper :)
http://www.dailytarheel.com/index.php/article/2011/03/dutch_dance_group_to_perform_at_memorial_hall

All Homo's go to Hell.

Yep, Gary's been back. I stopped by the quad for a little while yesterday, to hear him giving his views on gay sex and doing some demonstrations that to be quite honest made me feel a little uncomfortable, standing in the middle of campus and all. He also gave a spiel about who is going to heaven, (only the pure and Godly people), and had the audacity to point to a black girl watching and tell her she wouldn't get to heaven. "Why?"someone asked.

"Because she's black".

Just like that.

Plain and simple.

Just because.

Where has he been the past 50 years of his life whilst people have dies for the color of thier skin, children bullied, harassed, children like Emmett Till mutated beyond recognition. Since the 1950's we have come a long way regarding racism and civil rights, I know America has made huge leaps -- but why does religion excuse people like this to go around still saying things like this? Why, through everything that causes conflict in the world, does someone believe that their reading of the bible makes them superior to those around them. How can people bring themselves to a student campus and openly discriminate against the students because they are not all white... Why is it acceptable for someone to walk into a campus and tell one girl that she is unable to be holy, the descendant of Cain, or not going to heaven...? Luckily she took it better than I think I would have done. I suppose we grow up in a culture with an extreme sense of the politics of language, ever fearing the mark of speaking out of turn, or "politically incorrect". If someone came to the strand campus at kings and started saying such things, I feel like they'd be removed, for sure.

Here, its a history that people still engage with, a scary amount of people who invest their beliefs in such discriminatory ideologies, a place where I might honestly be wary to travel in certain areas alone if the colour of my skin were different...

~

Planning 

 So, as much as I hate to admit, I've been here a long time. 

The time has passed where I can say i'm 'new' and still acclimatising to southern culture; 

I can truly say I'm a Tarheel;

I know what grits are;

I've eaten a philly cheese steak; 

I know my Washington from my DC, my Houston from my Austin, my Miami from my Malibu...

What is exciting about the end of semester though, is the prospect of what comes next. TRAVELLING. woo. I have got a couple of friends who I'm sticking with, and then we'll meet up with some others on the way if we bump into them... So far we're utilising one of the only decent forms of transport in the whole of the US -- Amtrack. Going south from here, possibly to Alabama, to New Orleans, Texas, up to Denver, Salt Lake City, San Fransisco, down California to L.A. and then flying to DC and back down to Chapel Hill for a dollar in the megabus -- by that time I think i'll need all the $1 rides I can get.... 

I am starting to get so excited. Its a bit like coming out here, that I don't think it will really hit until we leave...

~x~