Half - A - Semester Later....

SORRY FOR THE WAIT LOVELY READERS!!!

This is brought to you from MIAMI. But it has NOTHING to do with Spring Break.

It's been a crazy half a semester complete with all the highs and lows of this study-abroad programme. In many ways, this semester has been a lot easier - I'm relaxing more because I've finally taken to heart that it's the experience and not the grades that matter here (I mean... it's pass/fail right?) and there's also the small fact that I don't need to strive with all my punitive might to make friends. No, the hard part, the settling in and finding you feet, the geography and the schematics... that's all done. The Safety Net and the Ways That Be, that's all figured out. 

Of course, some things have been very different from first semester. I'm attending entirely different classes, I've fallen in love with the cutest dog ever and my local haunt seems to have been overrun by new exchange types. I do love those new exchanges though - they're all real characters, especially the Aussies and the new Weegies.... and I've finally met the renown Aiden, befriending the plethora of Irish as we go. Furthermore, things are constantly metamorphosing. Fiona and John have both moved rooms, I'm down a room mate (yup, Andrea has gone home to bonnie auld England) and Alex is shacking up with a pretty Southern Belle.

I'm only just beginning to wrap my head around some of the stuff that's happened. It feels like the only reason I'm able to step back and think is because, right now, I'm sitting in Miami, sipping a hard lemonade, the 'Allner-glow' about my pinkish skin and loving the fact that whilst some people are being strange and evasive, this holiday is looking like a wonderful time to make new friends and reacquainting myself with others.  Not only are some of the Godstowe Girls here (namely Nnesochi and Jackie Mocatta) and tonnes of girls from ADPi Miami/Florida bound - but I met the author of Eve of the Gods yesterday! It was rather wonderful, though since then I've had an interesting time with 'the voices in my head' aka nom de plume M.

Thinking about it, I almost don't want to note down the banal, day-to-day activities of Chapel Hill. I've said it once and I've said it a hundred times: UNC is a tiny, blinking light on a billboard, or maybe just a photon floating along the light pathways given off by said billboard or... I don't know - the giant bowl of Mojito is going to my head. But yes - UNC is infinitesimally puny. I miss the city. I miss big, busy, pollution-filled streets, complete with high street shops and bizarre fashionistas and the muddling crowds. I like being one in a big ocean of people, where everyone makes an effort with how they look and yet people won't comment if you're having a frizz-off with a jew-fro; where everyone acknowledges each other with glances rather than with drawn out small-talk conversations; where dinner is had with a glass of wine and no one looks askance when you buy Ben&Jerry's alongside Pinot Grigio. Chapel Hill is sweet, friendly, you could sleep in the park without fear of lunatics there - in fact, some passerby is more likely to check you into a hotel than to steal your purse - but my god, it's wonderful to be out of the rhythms that harken back to the GCSEs and IBs. What a sweet, strange, nostalgia accompanies the international student at Chapel Hill. 

So instead I'll update you on.... something else. People maybe. Spring break, certainly. But for now, I can promise I'll be back writing in the next few days.

LOVE TO YOU ALL.

Je serai poète et toi poésie,
SCRIBBLER

Living with People

Living with People

My apartment was robbed and everything was replaced with exact replicas...I told my roommate and he said 'Do I know you?' - Steven Wright

When I first started writing this entry I was sitting in the quad curled up under a tree in the shade, the flag pole behind me, the preparations for tomorrows game going up around me and the sound of ten people sitting outside the library playing ukuleles. You may think I'm making this up but I'm not - as I basked with my toes in the midday sun and my face in the shadows - nine boys and one token girl strummed through the chords, singing along together to disney songs, to that inglorious version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow etc. And what's more they were in harmony. This was no mediocre ukulele showdown, it must have been rehearsed.

It was rather wonderful - if I see them again then I'll take a photo. 

I was thinking though (whilst Madame Bovary lay listlessly by my bag, spine cracked on the same page I've been stuck on for the last few days, whilst the ukuleles thrummed in the back of my head and a territorial squirrel began hurling acorns at the girl under the next tree) that having a room mate is probably one of the hardest things that any of us Brits have had to go through since we arrived here. I know that it's certainly one of the hardest things that I've ever done. 

Where this idea came from I suppose is probably the fact that we've all been talking about breaking the contract and trying to find a house for five or something so that we can all live together - with our own rooms, own kitchen etc. It would be such a perfect situation because we'd be able to eat better food, sleep when we need to sleep, stay up when we want to stay up and everyone would have their own space to retreat to at the end of a day when all you really want is to be on your own and mope or something. Because, you all know (if you've read: Tar-Heel Born, Tar-Heel Bred.) that my room mate is Andrea - one of the most hilarious girls I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. Yet even if you get along 90% of the time, there are always those moments when you can't help but scowl right?

I mean, mornings. OH those mornings. My family will be smirking to themselves as they remember trying to wake me up for school - it was rather a challenge - and that's not really changed too much with age. Mrs G (my old house mistress from school) definitely saw me at my worst. Andrea has to put up with me - the morning nightmare - everyday. And then she has to put up with me through out it too (at least everyone else was able to push me out the door and off to school). Not only that, I've managed to make it a really bad habit (one that Zoe knows all too well) of being at least 5-10minutes behind so that you have to SPEED walk to class. 

Perhaps I should take this moment to say: ANDREA , I am so so sorry about this terrible ritual I'm in and I promise to try and reduce it to 2-7 minutes from now on!!!

An extended example would probably be music. After  all, I love Andrea's music, I want to steal it (but I have no room on my iPod) because it's all the music that I don't have. But then in the same way that I'm sure mine does  for her, there are times when I'm like URGH TURN IT OFF. 

The good thing is with us, we pretty much can tell each other when that's how we're feeling. If we want quiet, quiet it shall be. But for those brief moments the frustration bubbles and it's because you have a room mate and you just can't help it. Especially for us poor girls. 

So if that's what you're like with your friends then what happens when you're not? I suppose you can just fold into passive roles where it's like a meet-and-greet and you just barely acknowledge each others presence. But that seems so sad. I love coming home and seeing Andrea's face peer up from beneath her lofted bed and to hear her music splash out across the too-quiet-too-white-corridor and then swapping stories about our days. I love our stupidly deep conversations in the middle of the night when we both have 10ams the next day but we feel like arguing about God. I love the fact that we can talk about boys (Guinness eeeehhh) and home and dairy milk and parents and so on. I love that we can be silent and it doesn't feel awkward and that she'll just laugh at my inability to dress myself without procrastinating. I love that I can laugh at her when she wriggles up onto her bed. I love that when we go to boxing we laugh at each other and how incompetent we are (and hopefully later about how incompetent we were). I love our Diet of Love and our Mirror of Happiness. 

How sad would it be not to have any of that? And yet, so many people are sharing with people that drive them more insane than the Crazy Frog song. Alex's room mate couldn't be more of an antithesis for him - where our Limey Abroad  is the guy that'll one day be driving tanks (because that's actually what he wants to do) Keown (aka Gun) is the guy that doesn't leave his chair - in favour of playing the role of a tank in Age of Empires or... Star Quest or whatever it is that he plays 24/7. Poor Fiona, stuck with the 18 year old, binge-drinking tween, has over heard certain gossiping Suite-mates. At least they could have the courtesy of saying things to her face. And John. Well. That's a whole other drama (apparently I should insert a winkie face here). 

So I guess that's all I really have to say - I feel incredibly lucky that I have Andy - even though I know I must drive her insane sometimes. Living in a shared space with someone is HARD, people should bear that in mind when they travel abroad. 

For now though... I suggest we all start looking for a flat though for next semester. Could be massively worth it. 

Je serai poète et toi poésie,
 SCRIBBLER