Comparing

The UK is a lot like America in the sense that there are different accents all over the country. Apparently the north has a certain accent, that actually sounds a bit like an American accent, and the south has a completely different one. Same with London, they seem to sound much more “posh” over there and have the more traditional accent from ages ago unlike that in cities surrounding the city. 

I met a few new girls in one of my classes today that were from all different parts of the UK. They were commenting on each other’s accents and asked me if I could tell the difference. Unless I really listened carefully I felt it was nearly impossible to notice. They said that they can’t really tell the difference between American accents either, unless it’s a southern accent, then they said it is pretty obvious.

Thank goodness I am in classes with all brits, and possibly some other foreign exchange students mixed in, but I am the only American in my two Oxford Brookes classes. And every time I speak up in class I get about 30 pairs of eyes on me as if there’s some sort of alien in the room. Everyone is really nice in my classes, but I am especially grateful that I am the only Yankee because it is the only real way that I am going to meet any brits. I live with all Americans and I love it because we’re all friends, but sometimes I wish they threw in at least one or two brits to mix things up and allow us to experience the true culture of the brits first hand. 

I also got my first grade back on a paper that I wrote for my Communications, Culture, and Organisations class and I got a B on it! I was pretty proud of myself because when I was writing that paper, I was very confused about what the assignment was and I was actually a little scared that I was going to fail the entire assignment. I talked to my teacher after class to see if I could get some help on the next paper that we write in her class and she said that she would be more than happy to help me. Just like teachers in America, most teachers here are ready and willing to always be at your service and help the students out with anything they need. It’s definitely reassuring to experience that because in one of my other classes, I have a teacher that is very much all about “learn from yourself and/or your classmates” and personally, I think that that makes them a horrible teacher. What are they there for? Oh yeah to HELP us. 

Ever since I got back from Italy, I have had a different outlook on this experience. I am so much happier here and have realized that the time really is flying by, and I haven’t done half of the things that I want to yet! It’s a little too cold to go punting now, but I still want to visit the castle in Oxford, attend a mass at the church, go on a date with a cute British man, and try all of those pubs that I pass everyday on the way to class but haven’t gotten around to trying yet. I know that I have blogged about this before, but I can’t express it enough how much more I want to learn and experience from the Brits. 

This is a bit of a scattered blog because nothing very specific has happened to me recently that I have enough to blog about. I did lose my jacket out at a club the other night...and I had to throw out my favorite pair of boots because the England weather got to them faster than I expected. And when I say they got to them, I mean there were holes in the sides of them and they looked as if I had fallen off a motorcycle and scraped them all up. Oh, and they smelled, TERRIBLE. I know shoes are usually supposed to smell, but these were just awful, so I had to throw them out when I was in Florence. There are some days here in Oxford that I cannot think of anything to write about because not much has happened to me that day, or I just had a day that was like any other; I went to class, I went into the city, I did some shopping, my feet hurt, and I am exhausted. Yet still, almost everyday here flies by as if I’m on a vacation. 

There is one big change that my roommates and I decided to all make a big change on, and that is our diet. We all have realized that we have taken advantage of this whole “being in a new country so eat whatever you want ordeal”. We have come to the realization that we actually are living here now and we need to get back to the healthy habits that we had back in the United States. Not only is this for how we all feel we look, but it’s for how we feel. I know that, personally, I always feel so much better when I eat good and exercise. I always have so much more energy and want to do so much more with my time. Hopefully I can keep on reminding myself about this whenever I want to slip up and have some sort of unhealthy snack. But, like I said, this is a life changing experience, so maybe it’s going to change more about me than I ever would have expected.