Fresh vs Frosh

'Freshers 2k11' will forever hold a place close to my heart. When I first got to Warwick I was terrified about knowing nobody but after the first two weeks of spending night after night on the sticky-floors of the copper rooms, and hours chatting rubbish in the kitchen I realised that I needn't worry, and that G and H block 1st floor kitchens were the place to be.

Here, freshers is...different. I'm not sure how I would have found it had I been an American freshman but observing it from the point of view of a third year exchange student was pretty interesting to say the least...

(I originally wrote this post for the boar so will put a link in at the bottom)

Fresher’s Fortnight

Warwick: Paint parties, X-rated hypnotists (watch out for that one) and three-legged bar crawls. Taking the U1 to the mysterious depths of ‘Leam’ for a night out. Experiencing the horrors/wonders of Smack’s downstairs room for the first time.

USC: Free food. Room decoration workshops. Free food. Pyjama Parties. Free food. BYOB ice cream social, with the B standing for banana. Multiple church organised barbeques. Free food. I understand the repetitiveness of the food element here, but we managed to spend nothing on food for the first week and a half so it deserves multiple mentions.

Dancing (so different it needs its own section)

Warwick: Standard club dancing. Sharking. Only Evolve OR Smack being open therefore the dance floor being so rammedthat you don’t control your dancing, everyone else’s dancing controls you.

USC: Sex with clothes on. Boys politely ask for a dance then proceed to hard-core grind on the girl. Not unusual for the girl to be bent over with her hands on the floor (no exaggeration, this has been the most shocking thing about America so far).

Classes

Warwick: First two weeks are pretty light. You can usually get by in first year with minimal reading and maximum cramming.

USC: Ten classes a week. Reading for every class. Hundreds of dollars you thought you would be spending on Krispy Kremes and plane tickets being spent on books. Pop quizzes, multiple choice tests and midterms so no possibility of end-of-year overnight cramming sessions. On the plus side, attending university events (free food!) gets you extra credit.

Sports

Warwick: Apart from when it’s Varsity, sport matches areonly really relevant to you if you are the one playing in the match.

USC: Gamedays are the most important days of the year. American football is a way of life here in the South and everything at the university revolves around its football team, the Gamecocks. The stadium holds over 80,000 and is sold out for every home match. Games are an all-day event with families and students going to ‘tailgate’ (drink and have barbeques out the back of their giant SUVs) before the match .Giant inflatables of Cocky (the mascot – a big red chicken) are everywhere. Go Cocks!

Rooms

Warwick: Fairy lights. Band posters and photo prints. Shelves decorated with empty vodka bottles. Tidy for first two days and then never tidy again. Small.

USC: Roommate. Gamecocks memorabilia. A bed so high off the ground you have to run and jump to get onto it. Smaller.

Clothing

Warwick: Good days and bad days. Not unusual to see someone turn up to a lecture in a pretty dress, but jogging bottoms/hoodie combinations are equally common.

USC: Norts (Nike shorts). Fluorescent trainers. T-shirt professing your love for USC, my personal favourite of which simply says COCKS in big letters. Rucksack. This combination is the official uniform of USC. If you’re in a fraternity or a sorority then have your Greek letters on you somewhere at all times.

Food

Warwick: Begin with good intentions of cooking from the student cookbook your Gran bought you. Realise how far it is to hike to Tesco and how impossible it is to beat the magnetised trolley system. Give in to a life of cereal, frozen food and takeaways.

USC: Realise that the walk to Tesco was nothing. Walk for 40 minutes to the nearest supermarket in 30 degree heat. Buy way too much and almost perish on the walk back. Give in to a life of cereal, frozen food and eating out because it’s affordable to do that here. Probably return home next year obese.

Students

Warwick: From all over the world. A full spectrum of beliefs and opinions. Ambitious. Outgoing. Kind. Quite probably the people you are going to be friends with for the rest of your life.

USC: See above

Nothing like a good cheesy ending! This is the link to the boar version.

 

 

 

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color me rad and why stereotyping is too easy

It pains me to type the title of this post using the word color not colour but when in Rome...

Yesterday we got up hideously early to go do a 5k fun run around columbia with the added element of paint powder chucked in (literally). I had been a little apprehensive as running is not my thing at the best of times and although I got into a bit of a gym routine when I first got here, for the last week (or maybe 2) this had failed dismally. However the stress was definitely on the fun rather than the run and people of all shapes, sizes and ages were running, including one lady pulling two fairly old children behind her in a cart, mental.

Along the route were areas filled with people lobbing paint at you and at the end of the run everyone just went crazy and used up all the left overs...

Eveie even managed to get a cheeky pic of us next to the state house with the confederacy flag flying loud and proud (still trying to get my head around the flag being up in such a prominent place and this supposedly being ok).

Speaking of southern pride, after the run we were headed to the farmers market in search of the infamous cronut (the mission was completed and I can confirm cronuts are well and truly worth the hype) and we ended up walking through the LGBT pride event that was on that day. Post-food we walked back the same way and I commented that I was a bit surprised about quite how liberal Columbia seemed that day and maybe it is more progressive here than I'd previously assumed. There was rainbow-printed stuff everywhere and flags up on all the street lamps as well as lots of people browsing the stalls and waiting for the parade that was happening later on.

However when we got to the end of Main Street, standing in front of the State House and therefore directly underneath the confederate flag was a fairly sizeable group of middle-aged, mostly bearded and overweight men, all wearing t shirts emblazoned with sayings about Jesus and holding placards protesting the pride event. Bearing in mind the fact that at this point we were three girls still covered in brightly coloured paint, leaving the street that the Pride Festival was taking place on; they didn't exactly give us friendly looks. Not everyone here is so backward though (obviously) and unfortunately it's only people like these, who represent the extremes of society, that get noticed, (or that people like me end up writing about in their blog....) and the stereotype is reinforced, even though it's not representative of the majority.

When we crossed the road toward the statehouse and the scary men we just kept our heads down. There was a group of four girls walking beside us, who all looked about fifteen. When they saw the protesters ahead of them they proudly coupled up, linked arms and walked right through the middle of them which I think disproves the assumption that everyone in the South is overbearingly right-wing and anti-progressive.

Before I came to South Carolina I believed in the popular stereotypes that often dominate views of the region and whilst a few people here have confirmed aspects of them, for the most part they haven't at all been true indications of Southerners. I've also learnt a lot about what is expected of a British person, apparently being boring, serious and sarcastic are all key, but also honesty and loyalty with regards to friendships. So it's not all bad (although they do think it rains every day in England and apparently all our food is brown stodge - people refuse to believe me when I argue that Fish and Chips are amazing or that English summers do exist).

I realise I've gone off on a bit of a tangent with this but yesterday was the first time I'd really seen anything that strongly reinforced my pre-assumed stereotype of South Carolina, and it was instantly reprimanded by the defiance of the four girls. I think I'm just trying to say that stereotypes are never representative of typicality and for the most part they are just oversimplified and outdated, which I think is something that really everyone knows, but we carry on believing them anyway! There's no where in the world where everyone can be shoved in one box when it comes to beliefs and values, and South Carolina is no exception to this.

Unfortunately It's now hideously late, I'm yet to begin my reading for the morning (I think I hate mondays even more here than I did at Warwick), and I cannot think of anything much else to say because this all got a bit deep for this time on a sunday evening.

Actually, I've also been told that a stereotype of the British is that the only time they are comfortable talking about 'deep' stuff is when they're drunk and as I'm STILL not 21 that's obviously not the case right now. So that explains the abrupt ending to this post.

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First day of fall and a weekend away

This weekend has been full of firsts...

Sunday was officially the first day of fall. The weather here is beginning to cool off a little and the days are slowly getting shorter. On Saturday it was grey and rainy and for the first time in weeks if you squinted a bit at the very american-looking houses and ignored the accent of everyone around you it felt quite a lot like England. Usually I can't stand rain and overcast days but this time it just felt comfortingly familiar. 

We spent the weekend with our friend Paige at her home in Greenville, about an hour or so away from usc, so it was also our first time there. Greenville is a really pretty town with a downtown area full of restaurants, shops and a beautiful waterfall. It was very different to Columbia because the town centre was really compact and bustling, whereas here everything is much more spread out.

Another first was seeing Hallowe'en decorations out on someone's house even though its not even October yet! Hallowe'en things have been in shops here for a while now and I think in general the lead up to it and the night itself are much bigger here than at home. Still, I think the people we saw were just super keen, although we have been told that as soon as hallowe'en is over, as in the very next day, Christmas stuff goes up so maybe that's just how it is here!

I think the weirdest first of the weekend was the food we tried for sunday lunch - alligator! We went for food at an amazing Cajun restaurant and shared some 'gator bites' at the start...so good! They were kind of like calamari. Food ended up being a major theme of the weekend involving chickfila, multiple cookies, a delicious home cooked shepherds pie, bagels and toaster strudels which was effectively apple pie with icing for breakfast, why not.

I also felt that for the first time we really got to see what the surrounding area was like as we didnt spend the whole time on the motorways which was so interesting. We drove through alot of countryside and I realised how beautiful South Carolina is! Lots of rolling hills and open grass fields with little woods and pretty wooden cottages dotted around, all of them with porches and swinging chairs. It looked like something out of a film and was such a nice change to the built up area around Columbia. 

We also visited a World food shop which was pretty fun as it had shelves of European food, including marmite, chocolate fingers, bisto gravy granules and a packet mix for scones! However it unfortunately lacked real dairy milk which was a bit of a disappointment. And my quest to find a bottle of squash in this country continues, I have no idea how that isn't a thing here? Seems like everyone just drinks juice or Gatorade but right now I would kill for some robinsons apple and blackcurrant!

All in all it was such a lovely weekend, mainly because we were lucky enough to stay with Paige's family, including an array of legendary pets which made it feel really homely and a proper break from campus and uni work. The only downside being that I now have a mountain of reading to crack on with so I will leave it there with this post!

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month one: done

Warning: this post is really long, and while it is informative, it's not that interesting. Soz in advance.

I have now been in South Carolina for just over a month. If this was Warwick today I would be going home for reading week. What I would give to have a reading week right now! I think I was a bit spoilt by Warwick where we had 5 weeks of lectures, a week off, 4 weeks of lectures and then 5 weeks off for Christmas/Easter. By comparison the term here is beginning to look rather long! USC is not big on breaks; having been here since mid-August I will only get two or three long weekends to see me through until thanksgiving which is at the end of November, and the whole term is 17 weeks rather than the 10 I've got used to.

However it really doesn't feel very long ago that we arrived and I think it's mainly because I have classes everyday so I've definitely slipped into a routine and the weeks are becoming a bit of a blur. The reading here is quite ridiculous. We have each class two or three times a week and there is reading for every lesson so as soon as you're finished for one day you have to start on the next lot. Again, a big difference from Warwick's weekly seminars! 

The actual class structure is also different , much more like A-levels or even high school in that we all have individual desks with the teacher at the front very much teaching rather than initiating discussion. Tests are different too. I had my first exam last week and it was 20 multiple choice questions and two small open questions at the end which was a nice change to just having massive essay questions.

The content of my classes is actually really good (for the most part) which helps with the quantity of the reading, although old habits die hard so I'm definitely still way too reliant on good old wiki. A lot of what I'm studying is about South Carolina or places nearby and in one of my modules we are finishing up the semester by studying Kendrick Lamar's album so it's all pretty interesting!

When I left my second year house in the summer I was pretty sure I had packed absolutely everything however I still managed to leave ALL my kitchen utensils and plates etc and didn't even realise until weeks later when my friend went to pick her stuff up and found it all still in the cupboards. I think this shows that cooking is not really my area of expertise; I was fairly reliant on frozen food last year but also, as a veggie, bought fresh fruit and veg two or three times a week. This is absolutely impossible here as the nearest supermarket is about 40 minutes walk away so I can only really justify going once a week, and even then carrying back a huge amount of shopping is hard because of the heat. We've rented a car once so far to go and get food which is a lot better but it's still very different to just hopping off the U1 and nipping into Tesco on my way home.

Eating out here is pretty good though. The service has been so nice at every place we've been so far; the staff at restaurants are in no hurry to take your order and will get you everything you need. Also most places do free refills for drinks and provide free starters. The food price on the menu always looks cheap but I keep forgetting about tax (why don't they just include this on the menu?!) and also tipping, which is much higher than in England (usually about 20%). But the food so far has been good! I even liked grits which are a traditional southern food but one which I had heard mixed opinions about before trying!

We haven't really been out of Columbia much yet except to Asheville but this weekend we are going to Greenville which should be good. The campus here is very much like Warwick in terms of it being a bit like a bubble because it has everything you need (except fresh food but most of the students here are on a meal plan so it's not a big deal) so after a while it can feel like you haven't been in contact with anyone who isn't part of USC. In first year at Warwick I didn't spend much time in leamington during the day so going home for Christmas and Easter was always a bit of a change in that you remembered old people and children actually exist and everything does not revolve around Uni, and it's a bit like that here as well.

A big difference to Warwick cropped up this week when we attended a reception for international students at the Presidents house. Here at USC the President lives slap bang in the middle of campus which is contrast número uno. I haven't got the slightest idea where Nigel Thrift lives. In fact I don't think I know anything about Nigel, other than his annual pay packet and that's only because of all the attention it got for its increase last year, which is the second major difference. At the reception the President gave a speech, and then stayed the whole evening to talk to the students individually. He shook our hands, got all our names and chatted at length about our time here so far and seemed genuinely interested. Another international student mentioned to the presidents wife that a bike would be really helpful and the next day she had an email from the First Lady offering her the use of her own bike. I cannot imagine something like this happening at home!

Even though I've only been here a month, living somewhere like Columbia which is not really very touristy, especially not for international visitors to America, has enabled me to see aspects of the culture and to see America from a view that I think would be very hard to achieve if you were just here on holiday, or even if you were spending longer in a larger, more metropolitan area. Although England and America have a lot of similarities, the longer I'm here, the more subtle differences keep popping up; in opinions, speech, beliefs, and just generally how things are done here.

Overall the first month here has been a good one. I really didn't know what to expect so I can't say it's exceeded my expectations which sounds negative but it's not meant to be. In the scheme of things I haven't been here long at all but I already feel like we've squeezed a lot in. People here have been, for the most part, overwhelmingly friendly and helpful and for me that has been the best part about it so far. The stereotype of Southern Charm really does exist and while it has taken me a bit of time to get used to it, I am so glad that its a true stereotype.

If you actually read down to here you are craaaaaazy as I realise this post is not all that interesting! But I wanted to have a record of how things are going after a month and I'm currently waiting for my washing to finish so this seemed the best way to spend the time!

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Gamecocks vs Commodores

This week we struck lucky and managed to get tickets to the USC vs Vanderbilt game! When I say struck lucky I mean we spent the most stressful hour and a half trying to get tickets online, admitted defeat, and then suddenly half an hour later realised that some were still available! It made trying to get Beyonce tickets a positively enjoyable experience.....

Before the match starts everyone tailgates at the stadium which is pretty cool. Having a massive pick up truck is standard here, there are absolutely no small cars! Anyway everyone brings their SUVs down to the car parking lots near the stadium, as well as copious amounts of food and drink. They go all out. I didn't get any good pictures but everyone has proper barbecues, and often a wide screen TV to watch the match on!

Everything is garnet or black, and it seems like a big family day out. It's actually really nice and makes a good change from the slightly more laddish atmosphere at English football games. Another thing that takes place at the tailgate is playing 'cornhole'. This game is so popular, it's crazy. I'd say every other family tailgating had a set. The aim of the game is, essentially, take it in turns to chuck a beanbag in the hole. However, having played it I can now confirm it's not as easy as it sounds and there's all sorts of tactics. Although I still think that it looks like someone's nicked it from the local village fete.

Me and Helly didn't manage to get tickets in the student section which is lower down so we were high up, in fact about as high up as you could go! We still had a great view though and the atmosphere was amazing. People are very openly passionate about the game here and everytime points are scored fireworks go off, the song sandstorm gets blasted out, and everyone whips out their game teatowels (they almost definitely are not teatowels and probably have an official name but I have no idea what) and waves them around like mad. I didn't realise until very recently that Norwich City was unusual in having a goal celebration song (the best celebration song ever) but it's definitely something all teams should take on, makes scoring so much more exciting for those of us who don't know any of the rules of the game.

We stayed until the half-time show, which was the school band, the cheerleaders, the dancers and one (very good) baton-twirler. We've watched the band practice before but I still have no idea how they all know where to go, they are constantly moving into different formations and do it all perfectly, it's really impressive.

I was pretty sure that the commodore was a type of bird and was going to make some sort of lame joke about a chicken taking on a commodore but I just googled it and it turns out in fact that it's a naval officer of high rank. Anywaaay USC won 35-25 so a good first game for us to go to! woo go cocks.

 

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mind your manners

Even though it's been about 30° every day for the last two weeks, I have managed to catch myself a cold. In England this would be no big deal, and it's no different here except for when you sneeze in class. I had my first in-class sneeze today and I would estimate 5-10 people swung round and shouted BLESS YOU in my face. No exaggeration. It was as if they had some sort of reflex reaction to my sneezing or that there was a prize for whoever could say it quickest and loudest. It was hard not to laugh as it was so unexpected but I did somehow hold it together. In my next class I sneezed twice and this happened both times, so it's definitely a thing here. Which brings me to the point that, from what I've seen so far, English manners and American manners are very different.
South Carolina has actually been voted the most polite state in the USA so maybe I'm experiencing extreme levels of it, but people here really are polite, sometimes overwhelmingly so. I've definitely questioned the genuineness of some people's 'southern charm' but that's probably just my inner British cynicism.

I'm not sure why the stereotype exists about British people loving to queue, as unsurprisingly I've found that Americans do also have the ability to stand in an ordered line and wait to be served. However, in England, it's kind of an unwritten rule that you don't talk to other people in the queue, unless it's a necessity. About a year ago I was waiting to pay in Topshop and the girl in front of me suddenly projectile vomited everywhere and admittedly on that occasion I turned to the person behind and suggested we get out the way, but that was an exception. Here on the other hand, it is totally normal for the person next to you in the line to strike up conversation. The worst thing about this is that because the weather is always nice you can't use it as your default discussion topic and instead have to actually engage in real life conversation with a total stranger. Not very english at all.
Another thing, and this one I'm not complaining about, is the somewhat chivalrous nature of most of the guys here. You will always have the door held open for you, and I'm still getting used to the fact that people call me ma'am!
Staff in shops and restaurants are also unreservedly chatty; last week when we went out for a meal our waiter invited us to go and see him perform in Hamlet that evening. However, tipping here is very different, and you're expected to tip between 15 and 20 percent, and even tip bartenders. At first this was a big shock, as a tapwater-ordering vouchercode-hoarding student, voluntarily giving this much extra just didn't feel right. However, they do go all out on the service, and the food itself is a lot cheaper so I'm slowly getting used to it.
Perhaps as a contrast to American manners, I've noticed now how much I automatically apologise, just out of habit. Although repeatedly saying sorry, oh thanks, sorry etc is inherent to most exchanges in England, here it's not and I am constantly getting told by shop assistants that, 'it's ok, you haven't done anything wrong'.

I'm still not sure how much detail I'm meant to go into when the lady at the bagel shop asks me how my day's going, and I don't think I'm ever going to be the one who initiates conversation when waiting to pay, but maybe when I'm back at Warwick and someone sneezes mid-lecture I'll yell my blessing at them and see how it goes down. (or maybe not)


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ps. having just googled the origins of saying 'bless you' when someone sneezes, the wisdom of wiki has told me that it likely comes from one of three things.
1) when you have the plague a key symptom is sneezing so you are literally being blessed in the hope you will survive
2) when you sneeze your soul can be thrown out of your nose, or the devil can sneak in and saying bless you acts as a shield against this evil
3) when you sneeze your heart stops and people saying bless you gets it going again

so maybe it's not politeness but just that people here are more wary of the plague/the devil/sudden cardiac arrest than in england, who knows?

I haven't been very organised with this blog so am yet to write a post about the first few weeks here but hopefully I will get round to that some point soon. Anyway, today was Labour day and this meant a 3 day weekend so three of us from warwick decided to venture off into North Carolina and spent a few days in the mountain town of Asheville!

Getting to Asheville was my first experience aboard an infamous greyhound bus and it did not fail to impress. Having almost acquired heatstroke walking to the greyhound station we picked up our tickets and began to wait until our bus arrived. Looking round the decidedly dodgy station, I couldn't help but notice a large number of weird net bags placed on random chairs. They were like fishing nets with various objects in; usually some letters and some clothing. There was also an absolute abundance of slightly rough looking men in blue shirts and beige trousers. After pondering the situation for a while I concluded that 1) the men were bus drivers and there was just a lot of buses that day and 2) net bags were all the fashion in South Carolina. Feeling glad to have worked out these mysteries I told Helly, rather loudly, about what (I assumed) was going on. It wasn't until I was boarding the bus, along with about 25 of the blue shirt men that someone in front of me mentioned the words 'release day' and the penny dropped. Not bus drivers at all but freshly freed prisoners! What fun. And so our four-hour journey was spent on a coach with a convict-citizen ratio of about 5 to 1. Good times.

Anyway Asheville itself was really good and I would definitely recommend it if you are in the area. The town is nestled at the foot of the blue ridge mountains and has a completely different feel to Columbia even though its only around 3 hours drive away. It's a pretty hippie town with lots of kooky gift and clothes shops and some amaaaaazing places for food. We got to experience our first 'biscuit' which does not look like this....

But in fact like this!

Which may seem a bit underwhelming for such a popular food thing of the south but once you get some blueberry jam on it, it is actually lush. Though still not quite a hobnob.

We spent the first day wandering around downtown including spending an inordinate amount of time in urban outfitters (but it was nice to have some familiarity!) and on the second day were kindly given a lift by some other people staying at the hostel up into the blue ridge mountains. 

We walked up the 'Craggy Gardens' trail.

This was amazing and the views were insane. The photos don't do it justice...

The blue ridge parkway is pretty famous round here (and I think in North America in general) for being a really scenic drive and we saw tonnes of motorcyclists and also lots of mental cyclists - the inclines were massive. As well as the road itself, there's trails everywhere and we spent a few hours surrounded by bees and butterflies hiking through the woods which was a nice change to the traffic and humidity of Columbia.

Asheville is a pretty cool town and prides itself on being the beer capital of North America. There are breweries everywhere, lots of good places to eat, and lots of cool murals on many of the street corners.

There was also a lot of street musicians around the town, including this absolute ledge of a spoon player...

After three nights in our hostel (it had a dream diary for guests to write in and a paper mâché giraffe as the centre piece of the lounge, so not sure we quite qualified as alternative enough to stay there but hey ho) we said goodbye to Asheville (for now) and boarded the greyhound home (no felons this time).

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