I'd post more, but I have almost nothing new to say at the moment. I'm currently sick with what seems like a relapse of something I caught back in Oxford. I went to the doc's and he said my ears are infected so I get to take antibiotics for 10 days to kill it. I don't have strep, however, so I don't think the drugs will help the intense pain I feel in my throat that makes it ridiculously hard to swallow or even talk. I kinda just gave up on eating for a while because it's too much of a pain in the ass.
As before, my days have been spent mostly sitting around on my ass since I don't have a car. Got back to Boston for two nights this weekend which was a good time. Got in on Thursday and met up with BIll for his 23rd. We ended up drinking at the Pour House 'til past close (seems to be the only bar I ever go to in Boston). Saw some people I haven't in a while including Foxboro celebrities (no, not Jo Jo) and crashed out after a fairly uneventful night. Spent all of the next day with Ben and Missy til I went to a going away type party for Starbucks people. Sweet to catch up with a lot of my Bux coworkers and gettin in on an old fashioned work party. I know none of this is terribly interesting, but when your entire life is spent sitting around Foxboro on a computer all day, these little human interactions become pretty riveting, I swear.
I move back to Boston on Sunday. I'm very excited about this.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Holy Crap! Photos!
Finally got around to posting all of the photos I had left on my camera. They pretty much encompass everything post-Spain, except I was way less zealous about taking pics in general because I started to feel like everything was looking the same. Still, they are up on the Flickr page if you are interested. You can see pics of the kids I was in charge of in Oxford, among other things. I forgot to take pics of the kids in Cambridge... oops.
So I've been home for about a week now and I'm honestly not feeling any great amount of culture shock. Maybe a little, I suppose, but it could be something else. As originally predicted, England proved to be a really good buffer between Spain and America as it has many American-like qualities (insatiable appetite for junkfood and mindless reality television), yet still manages to be quite European (small houses, small cars, diversity). On the whole, however, I find England to be so much like America that I've found myself just comparing all the details between the two since I've been home. Sure there are some big differences, but when looking at the surface, it's mostly about the details. Some stuff I prefer in England, some stuff I prefer here. For example: I prefer pubs in England to bars in America. They are just a hundred times better, hands down.
When pressed to think about it, there are some things that I feel negative about that really do get my goat. Yet I'm not sure how much of this can attributed to culture shock, or a generally heightened awareness towards the quirks of American society as a result of getting a slightly fresh, quasi-objective view of it.
I forgot how much flag waving us Americans do. It's a little ridiculous how many I've seen since I've been home. That's been slightly annoying. What is everybody trying to prove? Yeah, I know it shows support for your country and promotes solidarity, etc., but what does hanging a flag on our porches really tell our neighbors? It seems like an overblown symbol that nobody actually knows the meaning of. Which sort of leads me sideways into my next idea:
Europe really is old and it's easy to forget sometimes that America isn't. I definitely got desensitized to all of the old beautiful architecture and the history connected to it while I was in Europe, but it's crazy being back here where absolutely everything is modern. It sorta feels like things have less individual character because so much was built in a shorter period of time (less diversity in style). Our lack of history in general seems more evident as so many facets of European life are derived in some way, shape, or form from something that happened hundreds upon hundreds of years ago (if not over a thousand). We have no old history, so to compensate we create thousands of symbols that we prescribe meaning to (many times forcefully). We haven't learned all of the same lessons our European predecessors have, yet we have so much military and economic might. Kinda scary, I suppose. Onward (and this might get ranty)...
Televised news, and indeed all journalism in general is truly horrendous in America. I mean it's abysmally terrible. It's totally impossible to overstate what a complete and utter shambles the Fourth Estate is here in the States. While I'm not saying European news is perfect, I would say any American who gets all of his or her world information from watching televised news (any network, doesn't matter) will be totally disconnected from reality. Almost to prove this, the BBC -later at night- will show a 15-20 minute clip of ABC World News Tonight from here in the States and it's absolutely appalling how huge the gap in professionalism between their reporting and ours is. American news constantly, inappropriately editorializes, rarely offers multiple relevant viewpoints surrounding an issue, distortedly/unevenly presents facts, and blatantly fearmongers to the point of driving a viewer insane. One could be excused for thinking the Lebanon/Israel conflict on English news television is an entirely different war than the one being shown in America. I really could go on about this for pages but I won't since it will get me off the point.
While none of these ideas are terribly new to me, I was reminded of all of them going away and then coming back. At the very least, I do think American televised news has gotten much much worse since the last time I was in England (two years ago), since the difference in quality was so noticeable this time around.
Slight feelings of resentment can be thrown back towards Europe as well, however. I find it annoying that so many hold themselves to be morally superior to those in the US because they live in Europe. I won't try to argue that Americans aren't self-centered and ignorant, but it's ludicrous that this accusation should come from a European's mouth. Europe strikes me as being just as self-centered and high on itself as America is. While they aren't quite as ignorant as we tend to be (because of a functional newsmedia and the side effects of straight up geographical inevitability), they still have an equal share of racial intolerance and social injustice that is prevalent in the US. Spain is a particularly xenophobic country, I've found, being much less welcoming to outsiders (especially the ones with darker complexions) than I originally assumed it would be. I guess my bitterness relating to this subject stems from my being singled out as a verbal pin cushion for anybody who felt the need to voice their dissatisfaction with our administration's foreign policy. Regardless of how much I would try to nod, agree, and reassure them I didn't vote for this wreckless gang of psychopaths, they still felt the need to dump all of their ideas out on me, barely letting me get a word in edgewise. I mean, I'm American, so I deserve a good talking down to.
That's not to say this happened extremely often, but it easily came up at least a dozen times in my 7.5 months being abroad. I was told honestly by a good deal of Europeans that, despite our "elected" officials, they still held quite a high opinion of Americans based on the ones they had met personally. At least we make a good impression when we travel.
Well, I didn't mean for this post to be so vitriolic, but I guess I was in the mood to bitch. I think the moral of the story is, no matter where you go, there is plenty to be unhappy about.
I'm still happy to be home and excited to get on with life. I am also grateful and appreciative having been able to travel abroad for so long, see so many places, and have so many different experiences. The idea that I could have made it through college without doing what I did seems almost preposterous at this point. People always say that they know when they missed a huge oppotunity and then regretted it for the rest of their life, but I can say with certainty that I grabbed this one and am very happy I was able to take advantage of it.
Since I've been home I haven't done a whole lot really except start to tie some loose ends up. I cleaned a bunch of my room, although there is still more to go. I went into Boston last Friday and stayed the night. The point was to see as many friends as possible, which I did. Since then, I've been sorta hanging around the house all day (being without car and all). Most of my friends that are around Foxboro (and there aren't many) have day jobs, so I have to wait til night to do stuff. I've been chillin with Steve lately like the good ol' days which has been refreshing. Hoping I can see more of my friends in the coming weeks, especially the ones that don't live in the area anymore.
I'm supposing I'll keep this blog updated on a somewhat normal basis, although what I write about, I've yet to figure out. Hopefully interesting things will happen to me. I'm once again in need of a title change, so I'll take suggestions... or just think of one myself. The address will remain the same, despite my decidedly domestic setting.
Bye!
So I've been home for about a week now and I'm honestly not feeling any great amount of culture shock. Maybe a little, I suppose, but it could be something else. As originally predicted, England proved to be a really good buffer between Spain and America as it has many American-like qualities (insatiable appetite for junkfood and mindless reality television), yet still manages to be quite European (small houses, small cars, diversity). On the whole, however, I find England to be so much like America that I've found myself just comparing all the details between the two since I've been home. Sure there are some big differences, but when looking at the surface, it's mostly about the details. Some stuff I prefer in England, some stuff I prefer here. For example: I prefer pubs in England to bars in America. They are just a hundred times better, hands down.
When pressed to think about it, there are some things that I feel negative about that really do get my goat. Yet I'm not sure how much of this can attributed to culture shock, or a generally heightened awareness towards the quirks of American society as a result of getting a slightly fresh, quasi-objective view of it.
I forgot how much flag waving us Americans do. It's a little ridiculous how many I've seen since I've been home. That's been slightly annoying. What is everybody trying to prove? Yeah, I know it shows support for your country and promotes solidarity, etc., but what does hanging a flag on our porches really tell our neighbors? It seems like an overblown symbol that nobody actually knows the meaning of. Which sort of leads me sideways into my next idea:
Europe really is old and it's easy to forget sometimes that America isn't. I definitely got desensitized to all of the old beautiful architecture and the history connected to it while I was in Europe, but it's crazy being back here where absolutely everything is modern. It sorta feels like things have less individual character because so much was built in a shorter period of time (less diversity in style). Our lack of history in general seems more evident as so many facets of European life are derived in some way, shape, or form from something that happened hundreds upon hundreds of years ago (if not over a thousand). We have no old history, so to compensate we create thousands of symbols that we prescribe meaning to (many times forcefully). We haven't learned all of the same lessons our European predecessors have, yet we have so much military and economic might. Kinda scary, I suppose. Onward (and this might get ranty)...
Televised news, and indeed all journalism in general is truly horrendous in America. I mean it's abysmally terrible. It's totally impossible to overstate what a complete and utter shambles the Fourth Estate is here in the States. While I'm not saying European news is perfect, I would say any American who gets all of his or her world information from watching televised news (any network, doesn't matter) will be totally disconnected from reality. Almost to prove this, the BBC -later at night- will show a 15-20 minute clip of ABC World News Tonight from here in the States and it's absolutely appalling how huge the gap in professionalism between their reporting and ours is. American news constantly, inappropriately editorializes, rarely offers multiple relevant viewpoints surrounding an issue, distortedly/unevenly presents facts, and blatantly fearmongers to the point of driving a viewer insane. One could be excused for thinking the Lebanon/Israel conflict on English news television is an entirely different war than the one being shown in America. I really could go on about this for pages but I won't since it will get me off the point.
While none of these ideas are terribly new to me, I was reminded of all of them going away and then coming back. At the very least, I do think American televised news has gotten much much worse since the last time I was in England (two years ago), since the difference in quality was so noticeable this time around.
Slight feelings of resentment can be thrown back towards Europe as well, however. I find it annoying that so many hold themselves to be morally superior to those in the US because they live in Europe. I won't try to argue that Americans aren't self-centered and ignorant, but it's ludicrous that this accusation should come from a European's mouth. Europe strikes me as being just as self-centered and high on itself as America is. While they aren't quite as ignorant as we tend to be (because of a functional newsmedia and the side effects of straight up geographical inevitability), they still have an equal share of racial intolerance and social injustice that is prevalent in the US. Spain is a particularly xenophobic country, I've found, being much less welcoming to outsiders (especially the ones with darker complexions) than I originally assumed it would be. I guess my bitterness relating to this subject stems from my being singled out as a verbal pin cushion for anybody who felt the need to voice their dissatisfaction with our administration's foreign policy. Regardless of how much I would try to nod, agree, and reassure them I didn't vote for this wreckless gang of psychopaths, they still felt the need to dump all of their ideas out on me, barely letting me get a word in edgewise. I mean, I'm American, so I deserve a good talking down to.
That's not to say this happened extremely often, but it easily came up at least a dozen times in my 7.5 months being abroad. I was told honestly by a good deal of Europeans that, despite our "elected" officials, they still held quite a high opinion of Americans based on the ones they had met personally. At least we make a good impression when we travel.
Well, I didn't mean for this post to be so vitriolic, but I guess I was in the mood to bitch. I think the moral of the story is, no matter where you go, there is plenty to be unhappy about.
I'm still happy to be home and excited to get on with life. I am also grateful and appreciative having been able to travel abroad for so long, see so many places, and have so many different experiences. The idea that I could have made it through college without doing what I did seems almost preposterous at this point. People always say that they know when they missed a huge oppotunity and then regretted it for the rest of their life, but I can say with certainty that I grabbed this one and am very happy I was able to take advantage of it.
Since I've been home I haven't done a whole lot really except start to tie some loose ends up. I cleaned a bunch of my room, although there is still more to go. I went into Boston last Friday and stayed the night. The point was to see as many friends as possible, which I did. Since then, I've been sorta hanging around the house all day (being without car and all). Most of my friends that are around Foxboro (and there aren't many) have day jobs, so I have to wait til night to do stuff. I've been chillin with Steve lately like the good ol' days which has been refreshing. Hoping I can see more of my friends in the coming weeks, especially the ones that don't live in the area anymore.
I'm supposing I'll keep this blog updated on a somewhat normal basis, although what I write about, I've yet to figure out. Hopefully interesting things will happen to me. I'm once again in need of a title change, so I'll take suggestions... or just think of one myself. The address will remain the same, despite my decidedly domestic setting.
Bye!
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Homecoming
I'm home.
And, I guess that's that. So ends my journey.
Spent some time at Matt's place in Southampton taking in the last bits of England I could, seeing people, bowling, eating curry, and drinking ale. I've mentioned how awesomely incredible Matt has been to me over the course of my blog, but it bears repeating at least one more time. He put me up for about a total of 2 months since I've been abroad, never asking for shit in return. He's been really enthusiastic about finding me employment and has just been a generally kickass friend. My ability to stay overseas for so long has been made possible by his generosity (and that of his housemates and family). I am very indebted to him at this point but will hopefully find the opportunity to repay him eventually. So in general, I feel I had a good sending off. Then there was the trip home...
Airport security at Heathrow was predictably excessive. I had to take my shoes off twice as well as be frisked twice (along with all the other typical song and dance). Also the no liquids on the plane and a reduced size carry on, blah blah blah. Just more shit to deal with before getting on the plane, but nothing too harrowing. Basically BAA had their act together, everything just took a bit longer with the added measures. On the plane I had the pleasure of sitting next to a spastic 10 yr. old British girl that had never been in an airplane before. Did I mention she was spastic? She had no sense of other people's personal space (and fidgeted more than a meth addict), which translated into me getting elbowed 5 dozen times, her poking and prodding my belongings and generally sticking her face right up next to mine for god know's what reason, her screaming and jumping up and down on the seat AND she felt the need to get out of her seat to walk up and down the aisles no less than 20 times over the course of the flight. Even more reasons to move forward with my Youth Genocide Movement.
Homecoming was great, with the family plus Scott (sister's b-friend) waiting at home with some of my favorite foods and a belated birthday cake. It's nice to feel welcome. Kept it lowkey, and now I just been getting used to having my computer again which is strange as hell. I never would have denied how wired in I am before I left, but having been away for so long from my personal portal to the internets I feel oddly empowered to be sitting infront of these monitors again.
Not to cut this sort or anything, but my body thinks it's 4am at the moment and I don't care much to argue with it, so I think I'm gonna hit the pillow. I'm sure I'll be experiencing all sorts of culture shock in the coming days, which I'll report on. I'll be spending some time with family on Thursday, but I wanna see as many people as I can in the coming weeks, so get in touch and lemme know what you're up to. I might be planning a journey into Boston as early as this weekend, so definitely drop a line if you're in the city. My phone number is the same as it was before I left.
I love and miss you people. Let us be re-united in Peace and Harmony.
And, I guess that's that. So ends my journey.
Spent some time at Matt's place in Southampton taking in the last bits of England I could, seeing people, bowling, eating curry, and drinking ale. I've mentioned how awesomely incredible Matt has been to me over the course of my blog, but it bears repeating at least one more time. He put me up for about a total of 2 months since I've been abroad, never asking for shit in return. He's been really enthusiastic about finding me employment and has just been a generally kickass friend. My ability to stay overseas for so long has been made possible by his generosity (and that of his housemates and family). I am very indebted to him at this point but will hopefully find the opportunity to repay him eventually. So in general, I feel I had a good sending off. Then there was the trip home...
Airport security at Heathrow was predictably excessive. I had to take my shoes off twice as well as be frisked twice (along with all the other typical song and dance). Also the no liquids on the plane and a reduced size carry on, blah blah blah. Just more shit to deal with before getting on the plane, but nothing too harrowing. Basically BAA had their act together, everything just took a bit longer with the added measures. On the plane I had the pleasure of sitting next to a spastic 10 yr. old British girl that had never been in an airplane before. Did I mention she was spastic? She had no sense of other people's personal space (and fidgeted more than a meth addict), which translated into me getting elbowed 5 dozen times, her poking and prodding my belongings and generally sticking her face right up next to mine for god know's what reason, her screaming and jumping up and down on the seat AND she felt the need to get out of her seat to walk up and down the aisles no less than 20 times over the course of the flight. Even more reasons to move forward with my Youth Genocide Movement.
Homecoming was great, with the family plus Scott (sister's b-friend) waiting at home with some of my favorite foods and a belated birthday cake. It's nice to feel welcome. Kept it lowkey, and now I just been getting used to having my computer again which is strange as hell. I never would have denied how wired in I am before I left, but having been away for so long from my personal portal to the internets I feel oddly empowered to be sitting infront of these monitors again.
Not to cut this sort or anything, but my body thinks it's 4am at the moment and I don't care much to argue with it, so I think I'm gonna hit the pillow. I'm sure I'll be experiencing all sorts of culture shock in the coming days, which I'll report on. I'll be spending some time with family on Thursday, but I wanna see as many people as I can in the coming weeks, so get in touch and lemme know what you're up to. I might be planning a journey into Boston as early as this weekend, so definitely drop a line if you're in the city. My phone number is the same as it was before I left.
I love and miss you people. Let us be re-united in Peace and Harmony.
Monday, August 07, 2006
On keeping your chin up...
To counteract some of the negativity from my last post, I'll mention some good things that have been going on lately in the program:
- I've read a handful of good books in the last two weeks including In Cold Blood and Catch-22. Both are highly recommended. Gonna try to knock off two more before I leave on Sunday.
- One of the kids that already left took me out and bought me an expensive Chinese food lunch.
- Got to play mini-golf for the first time in years when we were in Yarmouth. I did poorly, but had a lot of fun anyway.
- The Sunday excursion got cancelled because it was finally understood how ridiculous it was to drag the kids to another historic building they wouldn't want to see or try to appreciate. As a result I got to sleep in late, and didn't have much to do all day. Kind of like a free day off.
- There's a good amount of early departures. Less kids means less annoyances.
- The program director has been much cooler to staff lately, probably in response to us bitching and moaning about everything. He bought us an expensive dinner after the Norwich/Yarmouth trip on Saturday. Also, he's offering to subsidize any activities we wanted to do while in the area (and being less stingy with money in general). He said he would pay for my transportation back to Matt's place in Southampton after the program has ended too. Sweet.
- The program ends in less than a week.
More on Yarmouth: It looked exactly like a northeast US coastal town. You know the ones with all the arcades, fried food, sketchy roller coasters and white trash galore. It kind of made me think of home, even if it was a seedier side of it.
I feel bad about not having bought a lot of souvenirs for people, but I literally have no room in my luggage for anything else, and am already way over the weight (and baggage number) limit for my flight back. I'm probably going to have to pay an assload of money just to get my stuff on the plane. I'm going to try to throw away things before I head home. And there I go getting all negative again.
Hoping the last week will go smoothly with a minimum of incidents, but I'm not expecting to be so lucky. Hope for the best, plan for the worst as they say.
I'm hungry, time to eat.
- I've read a handful of good books in the last two weeks including In Cold Blood and Catch-22. Both are highly recommended. Gonna try to knock off two more before I leave on Sunday.
- One of the kids that already left took me out and bought me an expensive Chinese food lunch.
- Got to play mini-golf for the first time in years when we were in Yarmouth. I did poorly, but had a lot of fun anyway.
- The Sunday excursion got cancelled because it was finally understood how ridiculous it was to drag the kids to another historic building they wouldn't want to see or try to appreciate. As a result I got to sleep in late, and didn't have much to do all day. Kind of like a free day off.
- There's a good amount of early departures. Less kids means less annoyances.
- The program director has been much cooler to staff lately, probably in response to us bitching and moaning about everything. He bought us an expensive dinner after the Norwich/Yarmouth trip on Saturday. Also, he's offering to subsidize any activities we wanted to do while in the area (and being less stingy with money in general). He said he would pay for my transportation back to Matt's place in Southampton after the program has ended too. Sweet.
- The program ends in less than a week.
More on Yarmouth: It looked exactly like a northeast US coastal town. You know the ones with all the arcades, fried food, sketchy roller coasters and white trash galore. It kind of made me think of home, even if it was a seedier side of it.
I feel bad about not having bought a lot of souvenirs for people, but I literally have no room in my luggage for anything else, and am already way over the weight (and baggage number) limit for my flight back. I'm probably going to have to pay an assload of money just to get my stuff on the plane. I'm going to try to throw away things before I head home. And there I go getting all negative again.
Hoping the last week will go smoothly with a minimum of incidents, but I'm not expecting to be so lucky. Hope for the best, plan for the worst as they say.
I'm hungry, time to eat.
Friday, August 04, 2006
I h8 teenagers
After last night, I think I'm officially tired of this job.
I had my 2nd of 3 days off on Wednesday and the lovely Samantha came to visit. I worked with Sam first session at Oxford and she was gracious enough to ride 3 hours to come see me and Kim (and then ride 3 hours to get back). Although I had fun on my first day off (last Friday), I can truly say it was a candidate for one of the more ridiculous nights of my life. I think I was slightly insane that day, which the other RAs that saw and hung out with me can attest to. Anyway, this 2nd day off went much better. We decided to shake things up and go play BINGO. Never in my life have I experienced anything so hopelessly depressing yet riotously amusing at the same time. Thank god they served beer. Sam and I were the youngest ones there, although, somewhat surprisingly, not by much. Then again, the only other people there that may have been in or near their 20s were with elderly parents. Whatever. The people there were friendly and taught us how to play (there is a learning curve) as British bingo is, in fact, different than American bingo. Afterwards, we drank more at a pub and talked about life, love, and all that junk, or whatever it is you banter about when you're drinking. It was all great fun, but sucked pretty hard when we had to wake up at 5am so Sam could hop a bus back to Oxford so she could be in time for her staff meeting.
I was afforded the luxury of sleeping for another 5 hours before I needed to wake up for a (yipee) mid-week excursion. We took the kiddies to Warwick Castle, which from personal experience along with my powers of deduction, was probably the biggest castle-related tourist trap in all of the United Kingdom. The castle seemed to have been renovated in the 19th century so it just looked like a mansion on the inside, despite being a 12th century castle on the outside. They also had a fake jousting performance, a trebuchet demonstration (which I unfortunately missed), archery, plenty of ice cream, and tons of other stuff to keep your snot-nosed 8 year old cackling maniacally for the afternoon. Not really the greatest for a group of 30 American teenagers. Maybe the 1 or 2 history buffs in the group enjoyed it, who knows.
After that, we hopped back on the bus and moved along to Stratford upon Avon, the birthplace of Billy Shakespeare. We walked by his supposed house, although it was too late to take a tour (not that I would have). You can imagine the anti-climactiveness of it all. It's a cute town that contains practically nothing. I don't understand how there are so many of those in England. After dinner, we caught a performance of The Tempest put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Patrick Stewart was the leading role, Prospero, which was sorta cool, but the play was hopelessly weird and hard to follow. My general deal with Shakespeare is if I haven't read it, I probably can't follow a performance of it, which proved once again to be true.
I got into this quiet murderous rage on the 1.5 hour bus ride home as the kids were being impossibly loud and abominable. I've never been so inexplicably angry at everyone and everything around me in my entire life. I tried to put on my headphones and just close my eyes, but there always seemed to be something to distract me and remind me of how much I hated the world at that moment (hence the title of this post). When we FINALLY got home, I just went straight up to my room and crashed out, but I'm now quite afraid of what'll happen on the last 4 excursions we have in the next 8 days (!!!). I might actually hurt someone if I manage to get into one of those funks again.
There's maybe 4 or 5 kids I genuinely like talking to in the program at this point, 2 or 3 that I can't stand to even look at, and the rest which seem to be alright when on their own, but manage to be odious little hellspawn when in groups of 4 or more. The program director is getting on my nerves in a big way, at this point, and really makes me miss the way the Oxford program was run so smoothly. There's so little professionalism going on here. Staff will talk about other staff and students behind their backs in front of other students, there's lots of open criticism about every aspect of ASA, and rules are enforced so rarely, I think some of the students don't remember there are any. Earlier last week, the program director was teaching kids the "real way" to roll cigarettes. wtf?
I was thinking at first that all of these ill-feelings were stemming from my innate readiness to return home, but sentiments are pretty much uniform across the board with the entire staff. The kids mostly seem to be having a good time, at least.
So it's a comedy show tonight and a trip to Norwich and Yarmouth (the beach) tomorrow. It'll probably be too cold to go in the water, but the way excursions are run here, they aren't generally high stress when we're not on the bus. Too bad there's lots of bus time tomorrow.
Gotta get to that show. I'll try to be more positive next post.
I had my 2nd of 3 days off on Wednesday and the lovely Samantha came to visit. I worked with Sam first session at Oxford and she was gracious enough to ride 3 hours to come see me and Kim (and then ride 3 hours to get back). Although I had fun on my first day off (last Friday), I can truly say it was a candidate for one of the more ridiculous nights of my life. I think I was slightly insane that day, which the other RAs that saw and hung out with me can attest to. Anyway, this 2nd day off went much better. We decided to shake things up and go play BINGO. Never in my life have I experienced anything so hopelessly depressing yet riotously amusing at the same time. Thank god they served beer. Sam and I were the youngest ones there, although, somewhat surprisingly, not by much. Then again, the only other people there that may have been in or near their 20s were with elderly parents. Whatever. The people there were friendly and taught us how to play (there is a learning curve) as British bingo is, in fact, different than American bingo. Afterwards, we drank more at a pub and talked about life, love, and all that junk, or whatever it is you banter about when you're drinking. It was all great fun, but sucked pretty hard when we had to wake up at 5am so Sam could hop a bus back to Oxford so she could be in time for her staff meeting.
I was afforded the luxury of sleeping for another 5 hours before I needed to wake up for a (yipee) mid-week excursion. We took the kiddies to Warwick Castle, which from personal experience along with my powers of deduction, was probably the biggest castle-related tourist trap in all of the United Kingdom. The castle seemed to have been renovated in the 19th century so it just looked like a mansion on the inside, despite being a 12th century castle on the outside. They also had a fake jousting performance, a trebuchet demonstration (which I unfortunately missed), archery, plenty of ice cream, and tons of other stuff to keep your snot-nosed 8 year old cackling maniacally for the afternoon. Not really the greatest for a group of 30 American teenagers. Maybe the 1 or 2 history buffs in the group enjoyed it, who knows.
After that, we hopped back on the bus and moved along to Stratford upon Avon, the birthplace of Billy Shakespeare. We walked by his supposed house, although it was too late to take a tour (not that I would have). You can imagine the anti-climactiveness of it all. It's a cute town that contains practically nothing. I don't understand how there are so many of those in England. After dinner, we caught a performance of The Tempest put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Patrick Stewart was the leading role, Prospero, which was sorta cool, but the play was hopelessly weird and hard to follow. My general deal with Shakespeare is if I haven't read it, I probably can't follow a performance of it, which proved once again to be true.
I got into this quiet murderous rage on the 1.5 hour bus ride home as the kids were being impossibly loud and abominable. I've never been so inexplicably angry at everyone and everything around me in my entire life. I tried to put on my headphones and just close my eyes, but there always seemed to be something to distract me and remind me of how much I hated the world at that moment (hence the title of this post). When we FINALLY got home, I just went straight up to my room and crashed out, but I'm now quite afraid of what'll happen on the last 4 excursions we have in the next 8 days (!!!). I might actually hurt someone if I manage to get into one of those funks again.
There's maybe 4 or 5 kids I genuinely like talking to in the program at this point, 2 or 3 that I can't stand to even look at, and the rest which seem to be alright when on their own, but manage to be odious little hellspawn when in groups of 4 or more. The program director is getting on my nerves in a big way, at this point, and really makes me miss the way the Oxford program was run so smoothly. There's so little professionalism going on here. Staff will talk about other staff and students behind their backs in front of other students, there's lots of open criticism about every aspect of ASA, and rules are enforced so rarely, I think some of the students don't remember there are any. Earlier last week, the program director was teaching kids the "real way" to roll cigarettes. wtf?
I was thinking at first that all of these ill-feelings were stemming from my innate readiness to return home, but sentiments are pretty much uniform across the board with the entire staff. The kids mostly seem to be having a good time, at least.
So it's a comedy show tonight and a trip to Norwich and Yarmouth (the beach) tomorrow. It'll probably be too cold to go in the water, but the way excursions are run here, they aren't generally high stress when we're not on the bus. Too bad there's lots of bus time tomorrow.
Gotta get to that show. I'll try to be more positive next post.
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