First Rugby Match

Hey all,

I'll do a catch-up post sometime after my big essay is completed. There was a lot that went on in the first couple of weeks and since I have a ton of pictures as well, it's going to take up several lengthy posts which I can't really justify before I turn in my paper on Monday. Next week, however, is when I hope to catch up with all of that.

I don't want to get too terribly behind, however, so I figured I could do a quick post about tonight's authentic British experience. So there's a big European sporting event going on right now called Six Nations. I believe the six countries involved are England, Wales, Scotland, France, Italy, and Ireland. Basically, these countries send their best competitors out and play each other. Tonight was a rugby match between England and Wales--a rivalry which is close to home for many of the people here given that there's a significant number of both Welsh and English students at Swansea. Since this is an important cultural event, I went with some of my flatmates to the bar here in the student village to watch the game and meet up with a couple of my American friends. I've never really gone to a bar before to watch any big sporting event--partly because I normally have my own TV and partly because my favorite sport is baseball which mostly takes place in the summer when I'm at home. Given that bit of background, I won't try to compare the American and British bar atmospheres because for all I know, it's exactly the same back home. Here, however, they really get into the game. We arrived at a little past seven because the game itself started at around eight. I probably should have gotten a beer to complete the picture but I've never actually had a beer before because it always smells so nasty so I ended up getting a tropical breeze which looked embarrassingly out of place but was quite tasty. All the seats were filled already so we ended up just finding a post to stand next to. Nicole and Rachael arrived about twenty minutes after my flatmates and I had gotten there. As we were waiting, a flood of students was pouring into the bar, dressed from head to toe in their team's colors. If anyone from U of I knows the Green Guy who shows up to the football games in a head-covering green bodysuit, then they can probably picture what I mean when I say there was a similar guy dressed in a full bodysuit with the English flag on it. There were spontaneous chants of "Wa-les, Wa-les" interspersed with what I believe was snippets of "God Save the Queen."

Rugby itself is a lot like American football. They have a similarly-shaped ball and a similar general gameplay. From what I understand (which, granted, is sketchy at best), there are fifteen players on each team. Each team's goal, like in football, is to get the ball into the end-zone for a "try" which is worth five points. They run down the field and pass the ball to someone running behind him. If he gets tackled, the ball-carrier must pass the ball to another teammate behind him who will continue to run down the field. Getting tackled does nothing to change possession of the ball or pause the clock. The other team can steal the ball during any of this. If you score a "try," you then kick a field goal for an extra two points. If you can't make it all the way down the field, you can also kick a field goal for three points. At some point, they form a scrum to determine which team possesses the ball. It's almost as physical as football and yet they wear a t-shirt and shorts with no helmet or padding. It seems pretty brutal. There was a close-up of one player on England's team, and his nose was practically pointing to the edge of his lips because it was so crooked from getting broken so often.

The bar was packed; I had to stand in almost the exact same position the entire time so as not to elbow anyone else or block someone's view. No one could hear the announcers on the broadcast because of the general bar din accompanied by spontaneous national chants supporting both teams. The game was being played at Millennium Stadium in Cardiff which was neat to see because that's where I'll be going at the end of March for Varsity which is a series of sporting events between Swansea and Cardiff--a rivalry which is apparently only beaten by that between Oxford and Cambridge in the U.K. Throughout the game, I was struggling to pick a team to root for. My flatmates were rooting for England because they're British so it felt like I should join their side. On the other hand though, I'm not living in England but in Wales so I felt like I should show loyalty to my current home. Wales's status as the underdog mostly won me over, and I felt myself instinctively rooting on the boys in red. Apparently that didn't do any good however because they lost to England but it was certainly a competitive game. The bar went in an uproar near the end when Jonny Wilkinson came in for England's team. I guess this guy had basically won them the championship last year and was a national sporting hero. The cheers and boos from both fanbases were fighting to drown each other out. Overall, it was an exciting experience. It was intriguing to see the passion the English and Welsh fans have for their respective countries and to witness arguments between strangers over a game. It felt like something I would probably find in a bar back home if a big football game was on with the pitchers of beer, the slew of jerseys, and people standing up to cheer whenever something big happened. While I still don't understand the appeal of soccer, I can understand the excitement of rugby, and I can definitely see myself going to a game in the future.

That's the basic gist of my British experience of the day. I figured it'd be better to get it out now while it's fresh on my mind. The next time I go to one of these, I'll definitely bring my camera to paint a better picture of the scene. I hope you all have a great weekend! =)

Feeling mostly better! Catch up blog.

Hey all,

After being sick for over a week, including losing my voice for several days, I am finally nearly better. I still have a cough but that's been clearing up bit by bit, and it isn't stopping me from socializing anymore.

So I think I left you all on a cliffhanger: just arriving at my flat. Well, as I've not been homeless for the past two weeks, that bit worked out. I was pretty exhausted when I first arrived. A few different people in the building came over to greet me and introduce themselves as I started to unpack and figure out what in the world a duvet was. (They stuff their comforters here inside a sheet. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure this out.) I was so jet-lagged and overwhelmed that I almost instantly forgot the names of everyone who introduced themselves to me in that first hour or so. It wouldn't be until after they would leave that I'd think to myself, "I'm going to be seeing them for the next five months. It'd probably be a good idea to try harder to remember names." After halfway unpacking and setting up the bed, I pretty much just crashed for several hours. Seeing as though I didn't have Internet access at that point anyway, I didn't have a whole lot of options. When I finally got up, I had some sponge cake as my first official meal in Wales. I got to know the people in the building a bit better that night when we started off by playing a drinking game with a roulette wheel in one of the other flats. I didn't want to get drunk--especially my first night here--so I just watched after a few rounds. I got my first official "going out" experience that night when the group went pubbing and clubbing. I learned that there are plenty of old, randy men in pubs, especially at night, and that night clubs here are so loud and full of smoke and flashing lights that it's incredibly difficult to gather your bearings. Despite the fact that everything was thrown at me so quickly, I instantly liked the people in my building. Everyone was really welcoming and friendly and have gone out of their way to make sure I was taken care of. After worrying that I'd be encountering excessive American prejudices, and probably not positive ones at that, it was a huge weight off of my shoulders to feel at ease so quickly.

Home sweet home. =)

The next day was a fairly busy one. After not going to town to get a phone right away like I had originally intended, Sunday was the day I needed to buy things like food. Unfortunately, I had slept in rather late and things in town close rather early. Will and George took me into town in the afternoon, and I got my first taste of the city that Dylan Thomas called an "ugly, lovely town." The city itself is quite pretty and rather interestingly designed in that you enter from the bottom of the hill and can see the buildings spread out along the hill above. It kind of reminds me of how I think San Francisco is laid out. We first went into a store called Vodafone so I could get a pay-as-you-go phone. The hardest part about not having a phone is probably not being able to know what time it is. I've long since given up on watches and am used to just pulling my phone out of my pocket to check the time. My phone also doubles as an alarm which was going to be an issue for getting up in the morning to get to class which was why it was pretty urgent that I have something. I didn't trust the absolute cheapest phone they had and got a slightly higher-priced one in the hope that it would be durable. Also, it was purple. In hindsight, however, I wish I had gotten a different phone as mine is a keypad touch screen with no T9 option which makes texting an arduous endeavor. We barely got to Tesco, the local grocery store, before it closed so the following 20 minutes or so consisted of hastily gathering various foods to at least tide me over for a while. I believe it was after we got back that I finally got Internet access when Josh very kindly signed me on under his name. As the rest of the Americans didn't get the Internet for several more days, this was certainly a welcome relief. 

View of part of Swansea. I'll try to get better pictures the next time I'm in town.

I think that just about covers my first weekend in Swansea. I have a paper due next Monday, but I will try to catch up to where I am throughout the week when I'm not busy with all that. Apparently I can't save blogs to finish later (as I found out when I had this blog half-written a few days ago) so I'm going to have to do this piecemeal. As they say over here, cheers!

Sick. =(

Hi all. I know I said I would have another entry out soon but it seems as though the change of environment is boding ill as I've not been feeling all that great over the past couple of days. I slept for 15 hours last night which helped to an extent though all of my symptoms seemed to have some back, namely, a terrible sore throat, mild headache, a weird croaking in the back of my throat, chills, and feeling a little shaky/sensitive. So, I'm sorry I haven't updated when I said I would. I will do what I can to get something out in the next few days. I usually get over these quicker than normal (or quicker than Heather at least) so keep your fingers crossed this'll be over in the morning. Night everyone!

Departure and Arrival at Swansea!

Hey all,

Sorry this has taken a while to get up. As you can probably imagine, it takes a little while to adjust and find a proper balance when going anywhere new--even if it was just from the suburbs to Champaign.

My flight was at around 5pm on Friday which left me the day to do some last minute errands: namely, getting another CD case to hold some DVDs, picking up a check from work to deposit, and last minute packing/redistribution. I got a little tripped up in this however. When I went to the ATM at Jewel, I decided I should print out a mini-statement from there to be able to provide the Immigration Officer with the most up-to-date financial information I could. Funny thing happened while I was there though. Just as I told the machine to print the statement, it released my card and the power went out--and not just at the machine, but the entire Jewel and the immediate area. While I fortunately had my card, my statement had been in the middle of printing. Worried that someone else could find a way to abuse that information once the power was restored, I decided to wander around so I could be there to snatch the printout. I walked around for about 20 minutes, and then decided I needed to leave since I had a flight to catch. I haven't experienced anything nasty with my card as of yet so fingers crossed that that turns out well.

I've never had to fly by myself before. The first time I had been on a plane at all was actually when LZHS band went to Disney my freshman year with the only other time being the trip to London my senior year with the band. My mom and my aunt dropped me off at the terminal and left. Facing complete isolation (I had to leave my cell phone in the States as it's better to just get a pay-as-you-go over here. By the way, don't call or text me until June 20th, or you might awkwardly end up talking to my mom instead.), I figured I would just suck it up and be the ignorant traveler that asks people for help. Luckily, I didn't really need to make too much of a fool of myself. I checked in my baggage almost immediately when I entered the airport and security was right next to it. Fortunately, I had printed out my boarding pass the day before which made everything even smoother. The security line was surprisingly quick for a Friday afternoon, and upon entering the airport, it only took about 15-20 to reach my terminal which was an absolute miracle. I now had two hours to kill and no cell phone or Internet: a scarier prospect to my generation than flying solo across the Atlantic, I'm sure. After an incredibly tedious wait, I finally boarded. I was quite pleased to discover that I would be spending the next eight hours sitting with a well-mannered college-aged guy instead of the shady, rude older man behind us who was still on his phone 20 minutes after electronics were supposed to be turned off. I finally saw The Social Network on the plane and was impressed with how the script interwove the different plot lines to create suspense out of something which could have been quite mundane. I also learned something during the flight: There is possibly nothing scarier than experiencing turbulence while flying over the ocean in the middle of the night in January. The pre-flight safety video has got to be one of the most useless precautions. If a plane crashed into the Atlantic, I'm pretty sure my floating seat cushion isn't going to save my life.

I finally arrived at Heathrow at around 6:15 am (London time) and followed the pack to collect my baggage and proceed through customs. Immigration probably could have gone better. I do sympathize for the workers there. They don't really get any lulls to chill out and socialize, they have to deal with people who might not speak English or be familiar with their customs, they're in an enclosed and dreary building on the 6 am shift. I get it. It's not the best job. But why make it worse with being unpleasant? Crack a smile. If your surroundings don't exude cheer, then it's going to be more pleasant to take of that yourself and be amiable. Instead, they were impatient, abrupt, and rude which I didn't warm to, snidely criticizing my choice of transportation to Swansea from Heathrow. On the advice of the Immigration Officer, I chose to ride the coach bus instead of grabbing a train from Paddington. After a brief spout of panic when the ticket machine rejected both of my cards (later to be fixed by a security guard who claimed he had a magic touch), I settled down to wait for my bus. Oddly enough, as I was waiting, I saw someone who looked uncannily similar to Natalie [omitting last name as a precaution], a girl I went to high school with. It was a few moments until she looked over at me that I realized it actually was her. The last thing I expected to happen 3,000 miles from home was to run into someone I hadn't seen in 3 years. It was bizarre. We chatted while I waited for my bus, and after about 15 minutes, my bus arrived, and I headed out. It was not a very pleasant bus ride. It took about four and a half hours. I can be somewhat prone to motion sickness so when I had to wear a seat belt and smell some other passenger's food for half the ride, I chose to try to sleep instead of taking pictures of the gorgeous countryside.

Once I arrived, I took a taxi from the bus terminal to the student village: the final leg of my journey. That was officially my first time taking a taxi for the record. I'm pretty sure I tipped him too much. I'll need to look up the protocol on that. I arrived at my flat at around 1:30 in the afternoon--over 12 hours since I had left Chicago. The part of this experience I had been the most stressed about, the traveling bit, had gone much smoother than I had expected. When people describe character traits about themselves, I'm always a little uncertain as to their accuracy. Sure, you might think of yourself as hard-working or creative or supportive, but how often do your actions necessarily reflect these traits? I like to think of myself as a fairly driven and independent person, and after successfully navigating international travel, I feel a little more self-assured in that assessment.

Alright, that's going to be about it for now. I don't have a whole lot going on in terms of class tomorrow so I'll do my best to get in another entry and catch up to the present. As a writer, I'm usually wordier than is convenient for conserving my time although once I start classes, I hope to find a more regular writing schedule. I hope you're all doing well, and the snow isn't getting the best of you. I'm changing the Christmas fish to Bears colors in reference to the big game this weekend. I can hardly imagine the tense atmosphere that must be going on back home. Best of luck to Chicago!

(Also, no promises but I will try to insert pictures into the text next time. Woo visual aids!)

General Updates - Last Days in the U.S.

Hey all,

Sorry I haven't been posting more. I don't have the Internet at my mom's which makes all of my online excursions over break sitting in a chair in the back of the library. As such, I try to somewhat limit my Internet activity because I feel kind of awkward. Anyway, I leave on Friday! Ahh, craziness. I'm actually pretty much ready to go besides the packing part. I've said most of my goodbyes and have just about everything I need. And without the Internet, time is moving pretty slowly so I'm kind of ready to go now. Partly because I miss wasting my time watching Youtube videos. And I'm getting pretty far behind a few of my TV shows so I need to catch up with that too. I never really realized how much I love going online until it was 10:30 at night, and I could either watch Leno or read. Don't get me wrong--I obviously love to read but I just get too restless at night to sit still for very long with that.

Anyway, I'm just kind of biding my time until I leave which is why I'm going to cut this short. I found a button on here that says "insert image" so I'm thinking I'm going to actually be able to make this a lovely picture blog once I figure out how to function it properly. And once I actually find the long-unused cord which connects my camera to my computer. I'll try to figure out something worthwhile to talk about before I leave. Probably have one more U.S. entry. Also, I apparently don't get notified if someone comments or "follows" this so if I don't reply to something right away, I apologize; I just haven't found the proper way to adjust the settings yet. I hope you've all had a lovely holiday season. =)

Look, I have a place to live!

I just signed my housing agreement today so I thought I'd post my new address starting in January (as much for my own benefit as for yours because I'm going to forget how to look it up). So, something like this:



Um, right. I don't understand how that's an address. I have no idea what some of that refers to. So if anyone sends me anything, I hope this will get it to arrive in the right place, but that's really up in the air. I also realized that I really need to let my bank know that I will be going abroad as they almost shut down my debit card when I made a down payment on the rent, and I had to call their fraud services number. Yeah, something else to do over winter break... Anyway, I just had a 3 hour final this morning at 8 a.m. and have been a bit of an insomniac the past few nights so I'm going to attempt a nap before working on my take-home final. Back to the suburbs tomorrow, Christmas next week, Houston in two weeks, 15 days until my 21st. Busy busy break.

Update: Hi everyone. I've made a change to this post and deleted the address on here. I was just feeling uncomfortable having my address up for everyone to see. If you need it for whatever reason, please send me an email or Facebook message, and I'd be happy to give it to you. 

English Stuffs, Yo

Hi,

So this really doesn't have a whole lot to do with Swansea preparations or anything but about English things. Not that English is completely unrelated since that is my major, and studying abroad is primarily about education, partly inside the classroom.

When I left high school with the intent of getting an English undergraduate degree, I figured I had the format of my classes down. I would read a book, discuss it in class, write a paper, and be done with it. And for the most part, that's how the curriculum is structured, including some deviations into other genres. What I hadn't anticipated, however, is the sheer size of the literary field. (Foolish, I know.) I've gone from shuddering at writing inside my 7th grade edition of Out of the Dust to annotating every piece of text I can get a hold of. I've grown to appreciate, if not even enjoy, poetry (*gasp of shock*), reveling in the cleverness of the poet's use of vowel sounds, line lengths, and form to convey a specifically, condensed meaning. One of my biggest fears upon entering college is that I would choose the wrong major, forever damning myself to a career I would end up hating. I can barely afford to go through college once, let alone worrying about going back to fix a bad decision. I've been incredibly fortunate to pick a major, after much debate (Journalism, Veterinary Sciences, and Medicine were all viable options.), and become increasingly confident that I made the right decision. As my literary foundation expands, I'm able to compare themes in works, charting the evolution of a genre or a movement. Even an old classic can be examined in a new light, creating a boundless depth, ready to be dissected ad infinitum, never reaching a conclusion. It is this unattainability of truth, whether within a text or in real life, that makes literature endlessly fascinating for me. There is no right or wrong, just an exploration of whatever lies in between.

The source of my adoration of literature? I took a critical theory class this semester. It was probably one of the most challenging, and ultimately, most rewarding classes I've taken at U of I. In it, my class charted the evolution of literary analysis, from Cleanth Brooks's ideas on formalism to Ngugi Thiong'o's postcolonial theories. To prepare for each class, we would read a few articles which expanded on a particular theorists views regarding textual analysis and discuss the legitimacy of his or her claims as well as how it relates to the spectrum of literary analysis. It wasn't until I was studying for the final that it all really clicked and felt like I had a handle on this new dimension to my understanding of literature. Just before writing up this blog post, I was working on one of my essays for an online final. As I was planning out the structure of my argument, I realized a way in which I could parallel the evolution of the texts to the evolution from structuralist to deconstruction/poststructuralist theories. This class has seemingly transformed me into a pretentious English douchebag. And I'm kind of digging it. I feel like I'm getting my money's worth out of my education, and that my time as an undergraduate has been worthwhile. My writing, my analysis, and my appreciation for literature have all grown exponentially during my time here, and I'm proud to feel like an educated member of the public. So while I hope to have fewer pretentious revelations like I had a few weeks ago, like how the success of the Marching Illini's alternate system is probably rooted in the self-disciplinary aspect of Foucault's panopticon, I'm trying to look at it as a positive: I'm getting an education; this is what's supposed to happen. While the focus of my education abroad is probably going to be on a personal and cultural level, and that's likely what you'll read about on here, I love my major and everything I'm getting out of it. I hope to enjoy the academic side of my education as much as any other part of the experience.

So I've found a new obsession during finals week (good timing) that I want to share. If you haven't seen A Very Potter Musical on Youtube, go see it now. It's simultaneously hilarious and heartwarming. I'll put a link to the first part below. Seriously, go watch it. (Thanks Heather for reminding me to revisit it.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmwM_AKeMCk

Happy finals week!