Mountain Recluses.

Exam time. Paper time. Presentation time. Performance time. Project time. Stupid tasks when you really don't have the time to be doing stupid tasks and want to be writing, time. Last weeks of being an exchange student, time. 


It's heating up, all of a sudden. I have many many papers and things to do. The American system is kicking in with studded football boots on, and I'm feeling the blow.


After loosely planning my time around writing the many papers I have to do, I thought I was doing okay. Until I realised that on top of these papers, for every class, I'm supposed to be doing research projects, a drama performance, a community project proposal, exam revision and a poetry recital. With nothing but two long weekends in the middle of the deadlines, to prepare for it all. No month for easter to plan properly and write and think, just a headlong dive into this huge weedy pond before before the new shores of a new start and a new journey and  a new set of memories and a new lot of people to miss a new set of places, come into view. 


But, I have possibly the best location one could possibly ask for in order to tackle the dive and prepare for the pond... A house up in Blowing Rock, with my laptop, hundreds of books, and incredible views of Grandfather mountain. Now that, is why I love North Carolina. Just a couple of hours from the bubble town I live in, a few more from the beach, are the mountains. Despite the incredible tendency of the Americans to be satisfied with the one state they were born and brought up in, and have no desires to see much else (I always find mind boggling when I realise that this isn't just an inaccurate stereotype), I can partly understand their reasonings if they are from here. It does have, it seems, everything. Mountain, beach/coast, plains, rural, urban, trees, city...


I'm here with Jodie and her friend, Chip. It's his house. And the house its self is like a work of art, its just incredible. His 'mom' should have been an interior designer fo sho! It's foggy today, but hopefully tomorrow we'll have some fantastic views to do our work to. I'll put up some photos.   


The last few weeks of class are going ok, expectedly stressful but also sad. It's all coming to a close so quickly! I think I will miss the discussion side of the classes here, and the courses, I have really enjoyed the classes even though they take a lot of getting used to.... 


My medieval lecturer, [the little retired very funny lecturer from West Virginia], had a clipping from the New York times last week, it was an advert for the new film: "Camelot"

The caption below the picture of two young attractive actors clasping each other was: "Swords. Sex. Sorcery. As sexy as it is adventurous"


He was chuckling about the advert in comparison to the texts we are studying, before casually adding: "That's what they put on my course description."


That man has the whole class giggling every week.


We had our last arts desk meeting this week for the DTH! Quite sad, really. There are only a couple more papers left, but I'm going to write just as it will be my last ever article. It's not as pressured as the rest of the year, I don't think. Not that many people have the time to scrutinise the paper at this point of the year!

I had a bit of a disastrous week with the DTH before going away. My story was really hard to write on, primarily as noone would call me back, again. But this time I couldn't scrape by with 2 sources because I only had one source. And that was the girl who had written the play... See my problem? She was lovely, as most people usually have been, and seemed excited to be in the paper, so I felt bad that this only went on the blog. But out of the 5 sources she gave me, none replied to my emails. And even after extending the story a day into the next paper, still noone would speak to me. I didn't have any numbers to call, either. It was supposed to be a profile of 2 people, who I was told knew each other, but Lori said she didn't even know the name of the other guy's piece, so... the Q&A went on the blog though, so some of my efforts weren't wasted.
http://www.dailytarheel.com/index.php/blog/canvas/2011/04/a_qampa_with_lori_baldwin

Imani and I 

I also forgot to say before spring break (long time ago now...), that I ticked off one more of the quintessential American experiences that had been missing from my list: A baseball game. I went along with my mentor, and as soon as I walked into the stadium I was thrown into American movie-land once again. The games are quite long but the sun was out and we got hot dogs and stayed a while.


Anyway, back to the mountains, and the papers, 
Hope y'all are doing okay, and those at Kings are coming along well with essays! (boo)
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First day of "class"

So, my first day of classes over and done with!  
Today started off on a funny note, I went down to breakfast in the Agora --the halls restaurant-- and got some tea and cereal, then thought I'd get an omelette seeing as this meal was going to have to last me the day. So, I go and ask for one with cheese and tomato. 
   'Cheese and wharrrt?' 
cheese and tomato.    Oh, tu-may-to
    'Yeys I know what you said I just wanted to hear it agayne'.  LOL. 
Then the cook guy was like, 'I've been having English lessons and that's haw I knew you were from there when I heard the 'tomarto'.' 
hehehehe. oh deary me. Yesterday some people found out that my friend was Australian and they were just like, ohmygawd, SAY something! What was he supposed to say? It's like being the new species in a zoo.
School...
So. Class was excellent. The way they do things over here is so different! They don't really differentiate between seminars and lectures [[from what I've had]] and its like a school classroom set-up where everyone participates all the time but there's always a teacher too. We had to introduce ourselves and the moment I begin to speak I can sense the US brains registering my weird accent and becoming immediately....'interested'.  There's so much assessment all the time here, but that's amazing  in a way as I always feel I have no indication of where I'm at at home where we only hand in something at the end of the terms work. However, it takes a WHOPPING 90% to get an A here. And 60% is a fail. Literally. - At home a 60 is GOOD. actually its pretty good and you only need 70 to get a 1st class. I e-mailed my study abroad guy though and he said that the conversion makes it weigh out which is reassuring, apparently its pretty easy to get an A over here so I'm not complaining! Its so much like English senior school in that you just have to put in the effort consistently and your basically there. 
My drama class looks awesome. We get credit for going to the theatre and bringing back the ticket stub!! The 2 classes I had today were drama and American authors which is looking at a lot African american texts and civil war stuff. The drama one sweeps from Greek all the way through renaissance to Ibsen and the lady seems heaps nice.[Auzzie influences coming through here :p] 
Partying...
Last night my room mate ginger took Nick and I to the frat and sorority house parties. OH. MY WORD. it was like something straight out of a frickin movie. 
  Its rush at the mo. so all the girls and guys are trying really hard to get in to the houses, and they're really stingy with letting in guys that aren't on their 'lists' to rush. Kind of like how girls are let into mayfair/posh LDN clubs and guys have to pay £20... Ever seen Mean Girls? Well that's how these kids act. Like animals at a watering hole, scrambling to get in, be cool, get their feed of the exclusive life. We went to a sorority house first which was absolutely amazing, what I never realised was the functional normality of these houses too. They look so posh from the outside but I kind of just assumed they were wreckages on the inside, just party places. But the girls ones are LOVELY. They even have their own chefs and huge kitchens. And they have all their pictures up on the walls. And they're huge, like 50 girls to a house. Its seriously like another world. The frat houses weren't too special inside but still the one had a live band which was really good. There's also free alcohol all over the place. In the first house we went to it was basically a pub-crawl but in-between the different rooms, so each one had tables of shots in them. Then the other one just had a hatch where guys were making drinks for you. We had jungle juice, which is basically made up from the most sugary stuff ever in the world which is a kids' drink, mixed with a lot of goodness-knows-what alcohol. Which you can't even taste. So anyone who knows me will understand how dangerous that is! Anyway, it was an interesting experience, and good fun,- it's so cool to finally meet Ginger after having e-mailed for so long. 
Home
I finally have internet in my room! Which is awesome. I haven't been able to skype anyone at home yet which sucks, but hopefully tomorrow I will! It's already half way through the night there. At about 4pm every day here I always get sooo tired and ready for bed. The guy who picked me up from the airport took Nick and I to get him a laptop today and I just fell asleep in the back of the car...nice one. I spoke to my parents though on the phone. My mum sounded so surprised to hear me which made me giggle. And then Dad called a bit later. I used up all my credit on my American phone but hey ho, I don't really mind if it means some home-communication.  I tell you what, I miss being able to get a simple cup of tea. The water tastes a bit funny and my milk is in my friends room right now as he has a fridge (and my room is SO warm that when I had a bowl of cereal yesterday the milk left in the bowl had curdled by the time I got back a few hours later!) Tea bags are also horribly expensive. For a basic necessity. We met a girl from Bristol yesterday though and she seems Lovely! Her name's Issy. She gave me her kettle as she never really uses it, everyone here is like that though. Just incredibly nice and friendly. There are lots of nice people down the other end of the hall, who I'm getting to know, alongside the girls up my end. Whether it's false southern charm or genuine friendliness though, its better than English severity and the must-keep-to-ourselves culture. Seriously I don't know how anyone manages to cope with the rudeness of the English, and Londoners in particular! No wonder my friend from L.A., Ashley, used to complain about customer service in London..

Weather [It has to be done I'm English!]

It snowed today!! It is absolutely freezing here . I can't wait for this infamous sunshine the students keep talking about because it sure ain't warm right now. It's lovely when it snows but I think we have had enough snow in the U.K to tide me over till next winter... Anyway classes were cancelled between 5pm today and 11am tomorrow so that's ok! They were super prepared here, the grit was down on the paths before the snow had even left its clouds [its green here too! hehe]. They are just so much more organised that us. England gets snow; Puts a bit of grit down over the next 3 days; Realises there isn't enough to cover one village so people are sliding about and abandoning their cars everywhere; and then puts it all on the news like its all a massive calamity. 

Anyway, I'd better go do some reading and get some sleep! Trying to pump up with energy to counter the ridiculous amount of new stuff my brain and memory are currently absorbing.

Bonne nuit! 

xxx