Every English person that tries to imitate an American accent sounds like Paris Hilton. I am distressed. Furthermore, the popularity of Toy Story 2 and its famed cowgirl character, Jessie, has forever embroiled me in the minds of my peers with cowgirls and Texas. Conversely, my fake English accent is apparently very posh (see Appendix A for a full list of silly slang words that my flatmates insist on using. Yes, I made an appendix. I like making charts. It’s hereditary.)
This week has been overall fantastic if not extremely stressful. The English have the second most hilariously inconvenient administrative system I have ever encountered (the first being Rustin High School), so I have now been to every possible combinations of every single administrative building and stood in every queue, but my classes are finally right and Dickinson will be sending out the application for India study abroad that I gave them months and months ago (other hilariously inconvenient administrative stuff).
I’m pretty sure my flatmates think I’m their grandmother because I’ve been staying in all week working on my paper. I also decorated the flat with colored paper snowflakes so it looked like a kindergarten classroom when they arrived, made a list for everyone’s phone number, and have flat meeting plans in the works because I have too much crazy RA/summer camp counselor energy. Sadly the kindergarten snowflakes had to come down because they are a fire hazard, as is having a real stove in the kitchen or any door in the entire building that is not conspicuously labeled FIRE DOOR KEEP SHUT and reinforced by lead (I think they’re still paranoid about the Great Fire of 1666). What is not a fire hazard is the club fair (called a socmart here) I went to last Tuesday, in which about 5,000 people were jammed into a tiny room with unmarked tables and attempted to organize their social lives.
I’ve had a lot of opportunity for cultural sharing including religion, politics, class, slang and dialect, and Harry Potter the Musical (which for some reason is not that big over here. Probably because they actually have real magic over here and don’t need a silly musical). Also, I’m on a Boat is a far less popular meme than the rest of Lonely Island’s body of works. Popped polo collars signify the same thing in England as they do in America. I asked a boy wearing one.
I am still very loud and very short. I thought perhaps this would change as I entered a new culture and the norms shifted, but no, I am just a delightful American stereotype, complete with cowgirl name and Paris Hilton accent. All my dreams.
Anyway, I love my flatmates and pretty much everyone I’ve met so far. Despite the minor administrative malarkey, I really like the school overall, and I have a view of this huge, beautiful lake from the library (where I’ve been spending most of my mornings being an old woman and writing my paper). More exciting news after I finish this paper and classes start!
Appendix A:
Posh – pretentious/classy
Toff – a person who is exceedingly posh
Chav – acronym for council house associated vermin; mean epitet for someone
Taking the piss – messing with someone
Fringe -- bangs
Pants – underwear; I learned this when I very publicly announced that I need to buy some pants because the three pairs I brought were all dirty
Trousers – pants; apparently it doesn’t have the old-person-word connotation that it has in the homeland
Slag – women of ill repute
Chunder -- vomit
Quality – British version of awesome
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