Tennis

For some reason people seem to actively follow tennis over here. The Australian Open was this last weekend, and people were actively discussing the tournament and I noticed numerous people checking online for updates. For tennis. And there weren't even any Brits in the finals. Why is this of particular interest to them? Do they enjoy watching tennis? I just don't quite understand the whole situation with sports of all kinds, really. There is some sort of giant rugby tournament sort of thing starting this weekend as well. And it is apparently interesting and warrants traveling to pubs to watch games with random strangers. And while all Americans secretly know this despite the protestations of game-time announcers, nobody over here seems to care that the Superbowl is this weekend. Despite having spent several minutes watching rugby, I still don't quite see its appeal. It has nothing on good football.

Speaking of the land down under, last Friday was 'Australia Day'. I don't know what exactly it celebrates, but it is basically the same idea as St Patricks day, only instead of going to Irish bars and drinking Guinness, people go to the token Australian bar, Walkabout, and drink Fosters. Why don't people celebrate Australia day in the US? You'd think Outback would be all over this. Or maybe they are and I'm just completely out of the loop.

Tomorrow is my last exam. And then I get to frantically calculate road noise and write about freight for the next week. Next Wednesday is going to be VERY exciting.

The Portland Tram

The English discovered a new and innovative way to irk me yesterday. All thanks to P-town. Upon being caught reading the Seattle Times article about the new tram in lieu of studying, the use of the word tram to describe the cable-strung aerial bubble device was immediatly dismissed as being utterly wrong and the American people were slighted as a whole as a result. Allegedly, as it is in the air, it's not a tram, but a ski-lift. Hellooo, you can't ski at OHSU, so it's not a ski lift. They claim that for something to be called a tram, it must run on rails. Basically, they think that MAX is a tram. I was able to make no progress in convincing anyone otherwise. It can be a tram, it's just an aerial tram. Quite frankly, if the people want to call it a tram, let them call it a tram. Europeans, what are you gonna do?

But on the bright side, I did figure out how to calculate the circulating flow of roundabouts, which was quite a breakthrough. Turns out it is not that difficult. I am also close to mastering optimaly cycle time calculations. AKA, the stuff that for some reason we have to learn for the final, but you will never actually need to know how to do in real life because it will either be in a handy manual or done by a computer program. Don't get me started on the engineering final, though, it is a heated subject for me. Two more days of studying to go, for which I best be off to the library.

Megabowl

I went bowling yesterday. It's hard to dive right into studying for an exam when you have just finished your previous one, so bowling seemed like a decent solution to this. There are at least two bowling alleys in Southampton, one of which is a bit sketch, the other not quite, so we went to the nicer one. It was seriously like someone had dug up an American bowling alley, flown it across the Atlantic, and plopped it down on some empty land (I'm assuming it was empty...). The shoes were the same. The bad food appeared to be the same (I wasn't willing to see if it tasted the same). And there is only so much you can do with the lanes and pins. The bowling balls were weighed in pounds, which while in many ways makes no sense, pleased me. I also bowled rather well for me, getting a 93 and then an 87. Not impressive, I know, but I am not a good bowler.

There is noticeable excitement (maybe not excitement, interest?) in the upcoming Oscars, primarily in the best actress category. I'm trying to get to see as many of the nominated films as possible, but am somewhat restricted by A) England, and B) Southampton movie theaters. I did finally see Last King of Scotland (which is in theaters despite having seen previews for it last September), so that's at least one down. I'm also quite pleased that Little Miss Sunshine is up for best picture.

Okay, enough procrastinating. Must go study!

Washington Red Delicious

On a brief outing from the library the other day I went down to Waitrose to buy some food. While in the apple section, contemplating my options, my eye was drawn to a litte saran-wrapped apple four-pack. What did this four-pack proclaim? Why, it was Washington Red Delicious apples, grown in Washington State. Mind you, these were the only non-euro apples the place had to offer. The label also proclaimed that Washington State was believed by many to produce the best examples of red delicious apples. Needless to say, despite the slightly higher price tag and the fact that I am not a big red delicious fan, those were the apples I bought. I'm sure chesty (reminder: passenger & frieght lecturer) would not have been pleased at the environmental costs required to get these apples to Southampton from Washington (British Airways is a somewhat safe assumption, apparently this is how the airlines make a bit of extra dough). Despite being flown from uber-far, the apples are relatively fresh tasting. I liken this to the fact that they are probably pumped with more pesticides than are safe for human consumption. Oh well, at least now I can show them to people and be like, look, Washington grown. I'll keep my eye out for some nice Oregon hazelnuts...

First exam is tomorrow. I think I will be able to do alright, but it's always tough to know. Tuesday's exam on the other hand, scares me like no other. I really should be spending today learning for that exam, buy you can't study for an exam other than the one you have the next morning. That's just not how it works. Anyways, back to learning. I can't hide at the library computer station all day.

Competitive studying

With finals right around the corner, the library has become just not a hip place to be, it's become the only place to be. Yesterday, mind you, was Saturday. I got here at 9:30 (I say here because I am once again in the library), and it was already quite crowded and I was a little worried but able to find a group of empty chairs in order to save seats. By lunch time the place was so crowded that not an empty chair was to be found in the whole building and people were sitting on the floor in the lobby to do their studying. And it was sunny outside. I'm sure things will only get worse over the next week or so, meaning that even if I don't want to get up and study right away, I basically have to just in order to get a place to sit. And for some reason I am also the person who has to save seats for those who do like to sleep in.

The first exam is on Thursday. I'm beginning to get a decent grasp of the course material, but the whole English exam process has me a little worried. Apparently you can only take in a clear pencil case. You can only use a special, dolphin-stamped calculator that you purchase from the campus shop. And if you are caught with a cell phone, even if you accidentally leave it in your pocket, it's all over. The exam is not held in the lecture room, it is held in some random third party location in a building you've never heard of to maximize the probability that you will be wandering around lost when the exam is going to start and you can't call anyone for help because no one is allowed to have their phone on them. I might need to do a practice run.

I've given in to intense, intense pressure and joined facebook. The tally for the week is 70. This has exceeded all predictions. But please, join facebook and be my friend. Or if you know people on facebook, please ask them to add me as a friend.

Northern Europe swept by storms

Apparently this included me. Let's just say it was really windy yesterday. And sideways raining. As I was walking to class along a certain building where it is always unnaturally windy (I feel like there was some sort of tunnel effect created there, because it's is seriously always unnaturally windy in this particular area), but yesterday it was so windy that I started to feel like I wasn't moving forward when I put one foot in front of the other. Like, there was a considerable amount of effort required to walk without falling over. The wind was howling all day long, causing minor disruptions during lectures. Does this warrant top headline on BBC news? No. It's more of a 'say a couple words about the weather while you're waiting for the elevator' situation. But then again, I wasn't on one of the 5 flights cancelled going out of the local airport. Or one of the 100,000 people in Godalming without power. After what has been going on in Seattle this winter, I'm sure this all seems laughable. And I'm just saying that indeed it is.

We've still been doing the quiz every week. There was a 4 week gap over Christmas, but other than that it is still a weekly event. What has changed however, is that we aren't any good. For some reason the pub is making the quiz progressively more difficult (they manage to come up with utterly ridiculous questions). Last night it reached a new level of impossibility when not a single group got the final killer round question right. The question was 'how many jumps are there in the grand national?'. This is apparently a horse race with 16 jumps, 14 of which are jumped twice, meaning the correct answer is 30. There were also questions about snooker, association croquet, and some kind of league rugby. It was not American oriented, to say the least.

Portland cometh

Why get on a plane for ten hours to go to Portland when a little chunk of it is just a ten minute walk away? For some random reason, the Decembrists are playing a show next month not just in Southampton, but on campus in the student union. Needless to say, I've gotten tickets and convinced a couple locals that its a good idea as well, because only good things come out of good ol' P-town. Or something along those lines.

Speaking of next month, there is quite a bit of excitement around here for its arrival. The general expectation is that, as it will be the first month of the new semester, there will be a nice grace period before the coursework starts to flow like water, so February is going to be a fun month. There are technically two assignements due the first week of the 2nd semester, but once those are in, its Decembrists, then first visitors (Kelly!!! MA!!!) for a weekend, and the weekend after that will be my first European style mini-break to Amsterdam for a weekend. After that I will most likely have some sort of minor freakout about homework and lock myself back into the library, but only for a couple weeks because then its Easter break and more travels and more visitors.

Facebook count is up to 15, but there have been no more man capris (although there was a close call with some board shorts yesterday), and no more cracks (but numerous close calls there as well).

Bacon & Facebook

English bacon and American bacon are not the same. English bacon is thick, has most of the fat cut off, and is not generally crispy. Oh, and much like America, it is seemingly on everything (as is corn, but let's not go there). I've gotten some all-day breakfast meals a few times that come with bacon, and it is so thick and meaty that you eat it with a knife and fork, so it's almost like ham. And the English think there is something wrong with are fatty, crisp bacon. Personally, I think there is an argument to be made for both kinds of bacon. Sometimes you want meaty bacon, for example, they make quite good BLTs. But sometimes you want to be able to pick up your bacon and have it not move and be crispy. Because that is what bacon does. But I have to agree with the English approach of cutting off all the fat. It doesn't exactly bring anything to the table.

Totally different topic, but being in the library all day you can't help but notice that everyone here is obsessed with facebook. I realize this is essentially true in America as well, but here I am confronted with it everyday. Basically whenever you see someone looking at something on their computer that is not the essay they are writing, it is facebook. They all check it constantly. Several times a day. To see what's gone on. And what is equally remarkable is that things do seem to go on to warrant it being checked ten times a day. Normally I just shake my head in disbelief, but this morning when I was printing my essay about the Stansted airport noise assessment, and saw yet another girl looking at facebook, I decided that I would tally how many times facebook came up between now and my last exam on the 30th. At first I was only going to keep track of how many times I saw people looking at the website, but after hearing three oral references to it as well (within an hour), I decided that those should count as well. And then I decided I would keep track of 'cracks' as well, because people often do not realize how low rise their jeans really are. Oh, and in the afternoon I saw someone wearing man capri's (in January, I don't know either), so a third tally was added. And then to make things interesting, I've started a pool. I guess 50 facebooks (which now seems low, there were 6 today), 2 man capris (currently at 1), and 15 cracks.

I know this is sad. But I need a hobby to keep me occupied for all the long library hours. And only sightings at the library count.

Denim

I went shopping for some new jeans yesterday. Well, perhaps shopping isn't quite the right word. As I had received a lovely gift card to top shop for Christmas (thanks again, parents), I went in there determined to find a pair. There are good things and bad things when it comes to top shop and jeans. One seriously good thing they have going for them is that all of their jeans come in three different lengths, and they have several different styles as well. The bad thing is that top shop tends to be rather trendy, so this means skinny leg, skinny flare, straight leg, or boy fit jeans. Oh, and to make things slightly difficult, the jean sizes are all in inches like man jeans. So trying to hedge my bets, I decided to try the straight leg and the flares. Now, the flares were ridiculous, because, well, they were ridiculous. The straight leg technically had a slight bootcut, so they seemed like the way to go. However, while the jeans I had tried on technically fit correctly, to my American senses they still seemed a little much, so I decided to get a pair one size bigger because I figured they would at least look somewhat normal. Now, I got the bigger size, and they manage to be both too big and yet spindly at the same time. I have to keep pulling them up, but the limited width of the leg is still a bit shocking to me (although I must admit, more of what I had in mind than the original pair I tried on). Don't worry, I have no intention of walking around with these jeans tucked into boots. Oh, and when I got back and was cutting off the tags, I found that the jeans came with a guitar pick. Why, I have no clue.

Speaking of boots, I don't understand how everyone here seems to think those flat, slouchy, just above the ankle 80s boots are a good idea. I am also a bit awed by the people you see walking around seemingly wearing ten shirts, a denim mini skirt, a giant belt, tights, and either ballet flats or said boots. It seems like putting such a montage together would be very time consuming. Not to mention the accessorizing.

I also finished looking through British Vogue and was a bit disappointed. It lacked the insightful articles that you find in American Vogue. The only article seemingly worth reading at all was about society's relatively new-found obsession with handbags, because I felt I could somewhat relate. After that there was just an unnaturally large section about property. So not worth nearly 4 pounds. I had wanted to buy Vanity Fair but I couldn't find it at the train station. No deal.

More London...

So I was back in London for part of the day yesterday, tending to what is technically business. It was quite interesting, being an American having legitimate, non-tourist reasons to be galivanting about London. I just kept thinking to myself 'I bet everyonne thinks I'm English'. As a part of the quest, I found myself walking around the central business district (aka, 'the square mile' or 'the city'), right at 5 o'clock, when a lot of people were heading home from work for the day. There was quite a hustle and bustle going on in the streets, and despite not knowing exactly where I was going, I opted out pulling out a map and just tried to head in the general direction of Waterloo because I didn't want to blow my facade. But I did blow it a few times to take pictures, but none of them turned out particularly well.

Due to this excursion, I saw quite a few newspapers yesterday. I didn't read any, mind you (I bought Vogue to read on the train ride back instead), I did see quite a few headlines. And Beckham's new deal was indeed a big deal. It was generally mentioned at the top of the front page of every paper, with a number of articles featured inside. In general, most people here don't seem to particularly like David Beckham, so the story of his leaving is one of bizarre curiousity more so than personal loss. What intrigues me is that the money he'll earn from endorsements is included in the overall price tag of the deal, and as this is half his earnings, seems to overly inflate the magnitude of the deal. As the token American, I just volunteered that I didn't think the LA scene would be as welcoming to the pair as they may be expecting.

Of additional interest to all of you may be that I was told the other day that the English tend to find individual Americans 'endearing', in much the same way we find the English countryside cute and quaint. While I suppose this is a good thing, I have no comprehension of what it actually means.

Oh dear

Do you ever wake up and realize you haven't updated your blog in 4 days? Yeah, that's me. I feel a bit bad about that. No excuses really, I've just been at the library all day every day. And speaking of library, it has become THE place to be on campus this week. Like every seat full, people looking around in desparation. No one moving for hours on end. Desparate attempts of seat-saving.

So it seems like a good portion of Americans are particularly intrigued by British/European candy (myself included). In England this includes a disproportionate supply of Cadbury bars, and since Christmas, I have noticed, Cadbury creme eggs. Imagine my surprise when I heard that Cadbury is not considered to be the best kind of English chocolate bar. Hard to fathom, I know, but the English seem to regard Galaxy bars of being a higher calibar chocolate, which perhaps is reflected in the fact that their bars are pretty much just chocolate, no fillers needed. From the makers of Galaxy you have this interesting concept known as Revels. Not known as, that's just what they are called. It is a bag of six-different kinds of chocolate items. You have what are essentially M&M sized pieces of galaxy, Maltesers (Whoppers), and then chocolate covered caramel, orange, raisins, and coffee. The stinger is that you cannot tell all of the flavors apart, so it's a bit of a surpise when you bite down. It's an interesting experience.

Additionally, there are the Yorkie bars (not for girls!), Lion bars (I don't really know what their deal is), and they have of course the Kit Kats, Snickers, Twix, but instead of Milky Way they seem quite concentrated on Mars bars, which seem to be exactly the same. Something else that I have seen and quite enjoyed are Freddys (at least I think that is what they were called), which are made by Cadbury and are essentially just a minituare, frog-shaped piece of chocolate for when you wouldn't mind a bit of chocolate but don't want a full bar. I'm sure some of the other bars are technically European, but I really don't know.

The treats/snacks aisle also tends to include what they call flapjacks but are in no way related to pancakes. They are seemingly the result of combining oats with massive amounts of butter, rolling them out into a baking pan, and then cutting it up into bars. They can be quite good, but I had an overly greasy one that wasn't so great. They come in flavors as well, like rasberry, toffee, chocolate, etc.

I am a little concerned by the fact that it is 8 am, still pretty much completely dark outside, and violently windy. It's going to be a rough walk to class.

Units

This country is having quite an identity crisis when it comes to a system of units. It's almost sad. Technically I believe they are transitioning slowly to using metric, but in the mean time this makes things a bit messy.

For example, distances on roadways are generally in Imperial units. Miles per hour, 2 miles until the next exit, no hard shoulder for 500 yards, etc. Sometimes you will get lucky and find a sign mentioning a height restriction in meters ('metres'). In one lecture this semester the lecturer (BO Dereg, and he's crazy and doesn't make sense at the best of times) made references to kilometers, miles, and hectares. I was looking at a table today regarding the calculation of road noise, and in one column it talked of speed limits in terms of miles per hour, and in another column it was in kilometers per hour. Apparently authorities will put signs at seemingly random distances from things, like 1 and a bit miles, so that if they make the switch to metric, they will be nice round numbers. Quite frankly I don't know how they take themselves seriously. At the gym there is a scale that is in kilograms. Above it on the wall they have a conversion chart so people can figure out what this works out to in stones and/or pounds. Don't get me started on this stone business.

Tomorrow is the official start of the new term, which means its just the start-up of classes again. I've been at the library all weekend and for some reason every single food and beverage source on campus has been closed, despite the coffee shop in the library having been open last week. It means getting your afternoon caffeine fix takes much longer than it should. It's also a little sad when you realize you are a little bit excited to have a campus-made sandwich for lunch.

Oh, and sometimes the English like to give things French names. A French press is a cafetiere. A zuchinni is a corgiette (or however you spell it). An eggplant is an aubergine (as is the shade of purple).

Jay-walking

Being in this country has a way of often making me feel like an uptight American. At first I just thought it was me, and then after a while it sort of sunk in that it is just us as a nation.

I don't know if this is a good example, but let's take jaywalking. Jaywalking is illegal in the US. Plus Seattle has the reputation for actually giving out tickets for offenses. While I know everyone still does it, you tend to be at least somewhat covert about it and never do it in front of a police officer (at least one that you see). In this country, jaywalking is perfectly legal. Mind you, common sense prevails and if you step out in front of a car I'm pretty sure they have less qualms about running you down than in the US, but you are indeed free to make your way across the road at your own leisure. I'm starting to get the hang of this, but I was standing waiting for a pedestrian signal on an empty road the other day, and there was a police van opposite me and there was no way I was going to cross under such circumstances.

One of the side effects of this is that there are often separate pedestrian crossing phases that go unused because everyone walked against the signal. This has led to the creation of an additional type of ped crossing that I don't see getting implemented soon in the US. First off, they are weird here with naming ped crossings. Your most basic is the zebra crossing, which is just painted white lines with no signal, and cars have to yield to you while you are in the road. Next you have the pelican crossing, which is sort of your basic signal with a green man and a red man telling you when to walk and when not to walk. The third kind is a puffin crossing, which is the special one. With a puffin crossing, there are actually sensors in the sidewalk to tell if someone is waiting to cross the road (there is also a button you push), as well as sensors in the road to see if you have made it to the other side yet. The green and red lights are on the near side of the road, so you can't see them while you are crossing so you can theoretically keep an eye on approaching traffic or some non-sense, and you just need to have faith that the sensors are working and the light won't turn until you've made it across. There are also toucan crossings, by the way, and they are for shared use with cyclists.

And the English seem to find the naming schemes bizarre are well.

Grey's Anatomy

In this country, Grey's Anatomy is shown on a channel called 'living tv'. It's not a normal channel and I don't know if everyone even gets it. Do the major networks not realize its greatness? Why bury the best show out there on a network with such a cheesy name? Luckily I have started a one person campaign to get the show to catch on. I have two people hooked so far and am working on a third. If they in turn can get two more people hooked, then hopefully the ball will keep rolling until, like Seattle, it's all people can talk about. The season of X-Factor (which used to be Pop Idol, don't remember what happened) just ended, so it seems like they are in need.

Speaking of American tv, the seasons that started in September in the US will be starting here this month, and then I think they just steamroll through them without the long hiatuses that we are cursed with in the US (I have been waiting for a new Grey's for over a month!!).

Speaking of Americans, if an English person tells you that they have a headache and you say that you are sorry, they find you strange. It seems that "Sorry" in England means "I apologize", while I take it to mean "I feel bad about that, no really, I do".

Someone asked me my name the other day and when I told them they asked if that was English. I said yes, but they didn't believe me. Other people here have claimed that they have never heard of a person called Margo before. I find this quite odd, but, along with my constant mis-use of the word pants, gives me some amount of novelty value.

New Years

Happy New Years! 2007. Freaky. What will they come up with next? 2008?

After a quiet Christmas, I was rather relieved to actually have something to do for new years eve. Most of the night venues in town had some sort of special gathering for the holiday, and a good many of them were themed. Most sold tickets in advance, and they ranged in price from around 5 pounds to upwards of 30 pounds. The place I went to was 10 pounds and had a superhero/villain themed party. There were awards given for best male and female costume. So basically about a quarter of the people looked ridiculous and everyone else was dressed normally. I was dressed normally.

For the most part, its all the same as the US. The biggest difference is that the bars do not have to close at a certain time any longer (a relatively recent change), so most bars were apparently open until 3 am, with some closing earlier and some later. I suppose this is good because then not everyone is put out in the street at the same time looking for a taxi.

While it seems like I have been in England for a long time, and the first semester is almost over, I realized the other day that I'll be here for 9 more months, and have been here for only 3. That's quite a lot of time.