Sometimes I Have to Remind Myself

Red leaf on the ground

Still vibrant

Still beautiful

After hundreds of university students’ feet.

Can I be as resilient?

Can I dare to be as bold, bold red?

Can I be trampled and choose to remain beautiful?

Because eventually, a little girl will see me and smile and pick me up and cradle me in her hands, running her fingers along my veins and circling my dark spots. Then, she will give me to her friend like I am a flower.

And through me choosing beauty, I allow her to do the same.

[Image Source]

Study Abroad for FREE This Summer

Here is a great opportunity for freshmen and sophomore college students.

Study abroad for five weeks this summer for free at Newcastle University in England.

To meet the criteria, the student must: (taken from the website)

·                     ·      be a US citizen (resident anywhere except the UK) and possess a US passport;

·      be at least 18 years old by the start of the programme;

·      be able to participate in the programme in its entirety;

·      have a high level of academic achievement with a minimum GPA of 3.5 (confirmed by academic marks, awards and references);

·      have completed no more than two years of university study, i.e. applicants should currently be a Freshman or Sophomore in college/university;

·      be mature, responsible, independent, and open-minded;

·      be willing and able to fully participate in an academically intensive programme that includes attending all sessions, completing all assignments, contributing to classroom discussions and supporting student ambassador style work as required;

·      have had little or no study or travel experience in the UK or elsewhere outside of the US and;

·      expect to return to the US and continue your education.

Note: The programme is open to students in all courses of study.

The program takes place from July 3-August 8, 2011.

For full details go to the website http://www.fulbright.co.uk/fulbright-awards/for-us-citizens/summer-institutes/newcastle-university-summer-institute. 

Once again, this is a great opportunity. Take the chance and please apply.

[Image Source]

American Colleges v English Universities Part II of II

USA: Many colleges have Greek life consisting of fraternities and sororities.

England: Greek life is nonexistent but there is cross over between male fraternities and sport societies.

Verdict: Watch Animal House and decide for yourself.

USA: Students pay for living expenses through family savings and employment.

England: Most students pay for living expenses through maintenance loans that begin being paid back when their annual income reaches £15,000

Verdict: English students leave university with more living expenses debt.

USA: Students pay for tuition and fees with a combination of family savings, grants, loans, employment, financial aid, and scholarships.

England: Students pay for university the same way as Americans except loans are more common and financial aid and scholarships are very rare.

Verdict: US wins because financial aid and scholarships are amazing.

USA: Most students live on campus in dorms, suites, apartments, or Greek houses.

England: University accommodation consists of flats, and students can only live in university accommodation for their first year. 2^nd and 3^rd year students live in off campus houses or flats.

Verdict: England wins, because students always have a kitchen. Also, university flats provide individual rooms unlike dorms, and living in a house or flat during 2^nd and 3^rd year beats living in a dorm or a suite to a pulp.

USA: Optional summer classes are offered and are usually taken in order to get ahead in one’s degree or because four years is not long enough to fit in all required classes.

England: Following a month-long spring break, which students are supposed to dedicate to studying for exams and to writing essays, university requires students to attend a summer term dedicated to turning in all the essays to taking all the exams prepared during the month-long spring break.

Verdict: US wins by shoving all essays and exams into the semester, effectively clumping all the stress together and getting the term over with.

USA: Law and medicine degrees are not offered at the undergraduate level.

England: Law and medicine degrees are offered at the undergraduate level.

Verdict: England wins, because in the US by the time you graduate from medical or law school, you are balding and being threatened by debtors’ prisons.

USA: Students are assessed multiple times throughout the semester through homework, quizzes, tests, essays, and exams.

England: Students are assessed 1-4 times (usually just 2 times) throughout the term with the majority of the final mark deriving from a final exam or essay.

Verdict: England wins with a lighter workload, but you are screwed if you mess up that final exam or essay. US wins with keeping students on their game and by spreading the weight of the final mark over many assignments.

USA: Many colleges require freshmen (1^st years) to take a writing class in order to learn how to properly write varies types of essays at the undergraduate level.

England: No writing class requirement.

Verdict: Depends if you like to write or wish you had learned.

USA: Students choose a major, which is the degree that they choose to pursue. A minor is equivalent to half of a major. Students can pursue multiple majors and minors. Pursuing two majors is called double majoring, and the student must take all the classes for both majors.

England: Students choose a single-honor, which is the degree that they choose to pursue. Minors do not exist. If a student wants to pursue two subjects, then he/she can pursue a joint-honor. The joint-honor student takes the same number of classes as the single-honor student with half of those classes deriving from one subject and the other half deriving from another subject. Therefore, the English joint-honor is equivalent to two American minors but is the English option of the American double major.

Verdict: England wins on lighter workload. US wins on freedom of choice.

USA: Guided learning philosophy

England: Independent learning philosophy

Verdict: US wins because independent learning is like communism, sounds good but doesn’t work. Given more free time, students are going to party, not research.

USA: Requires that all students take general education (gen ed) classes, which are classes required from every discipline that provide students with a broad knowledge base. These gen eds are taken in addition to a student’s major(s) and minor(s) classes. For example, my home college in the States requires 14-15 gen eds listed as:

1 Fine and performing arts theory or appreciation

1 History

1 Literature

1-2 Foreign Language depending on initial placement

1 Philosophy or Religion

1 Humanities

1 Writing

Either 1 math and 3 sciences with one science being a lab science or 2 maths and 2 sciences with one science being a lab science

1 Intercultural Foundation

2 Social sciences

England: Students are required and allowed to take only one class outside their degree during their 1^st or 2^nd year. This class is called a MOMD [Module Outside Main Discipline].

Verdict: England wins on focus. US wins on well roundedness.

USA: Undergraduates are marked on a 0-100 scale with 90-100 being a 4.0 (an English 1^st) and 69 and below being failing.

England: Undergraduates marked on a 0-85 scale with 70 being a 1^st (an American 4.0) and 40 and below being failing.

Verdict: Just different.

America: Wear graduation gowns and throw caps into the air.

England: Wear graduation gowns and throw caps into the air.

Verdict: We both wear ridiculous outfits on graduation day. I’ve never figured out if throwing the hats is an act of celebration (Hooray! I earned this degree and survived!) or panic (Oh, cruel real world! Don’t take me away! What am I supposed to do with my life?!)

Click here for American Colleges v English Universities Part I of II

American Colleges v English Universities Part I of II

USA: Undergraduate institutions are called colleges. Postgraduate institutions are called universities.

England: Undergraduate and postgraduate institutions are called universities. College is where students take their A-levels.

Verdict: It is what it is.

USA: Contains over 4,000 higher education institutions

England: Contains 131 higher education institutions

Verdict: With England being 74 times smaller than the US and having ¼ the population of the US, England wins with a larger ratio of institutions to size and population.

USA: Prospective students can apply to as many colleges as they desire and as they can afford. Each college charges a different application fee.

England: Prospective students can apply to a maximum of five universities. No application fees.

Verdict: England wins on cost. US wins on freedom of choice.

USA: College usually lasts 4 years, but can range from 3 to 5 years with students on average taking 32-40 classes during that time.

England: University strictly lasts 3 years with students taking 15-18 classes during that time.

Verdict: England wins on less time and less work. US wins on demanding more from students.

USA: 1^st years called freshmen. 2^nd years called sophomores. 3^rd years called juniors. 4^th years called seniors. 5^th years called super-seniors.

England: 1st years called 1^st years or freshers. 2^nd years called 2^nd years. 3^rd years called 3^rd years.

Verdict: USA wins on creativity. England wins on clarity.

USA: Classes meet 2 to 3 times a week.

England: Classes mostly meet 1 time a week with a few classes meeting 2 times a week.

Verdict: England wins if you don’t like going to class. US wins on face time.

USA: Every class taken throughout college is weighted equally in the final mark called a GPA [grade point average].

England: First year does not count towards the final mark, but students must pass with 40% in order to move onto second year. Second year counts 25% towards the final mark. 3^rd years counts 75% towards the final mark.

Verdict: It is as though England know that students are going to behave like debaucherous lunatics during first year and accommodate them accordingly.

USA: Apart from specific upper level classes, students from all years take the same classes.

England: First years only take classes with first years; and second years only with second years; and third years only with third years.

Verdict: England wins on all students being on the same academic level. US wins on combining students from different backgrounds, allowing for more knowledge and intellectual diversity in the classroom.

USA: Each college decides their costs of tuition and fees, which include little government subsidy. College costs between $25,000 to $50,000 per year.

England: Government subsidizes and caps university costs, and almost all universities charge up to the permitted cap. University costs £3,000 per year currently, and due to government budget cuts, university costs will rise to £9,000 per year beginning September 2012.

Verdict: Despite budget cuts, attending an English university is significantly cheaper than attending a US college.

USA: Students can transfer colleges with most of their credits transferring as well. Also, students can easily switch degrees if done during the first two years.

England: Students can transfer universities after year 1 and enter year 2 at a different university. If they change their degree, then have to start as a first year again, because their degree courses are so focused.

Verdict: Just different.

Gap year— the year between finishing high school and beginning college (or the year between finishing A-levels and beginning university for the English) in which students take a hiatus from school to travel, work, and/or volunteer.

USA: Gap years are rare and even looked down upon.

England: Gap years are a common and legitimate option.

Verdict: England wins. US fails and needs to embrace this concept.

Click here for American Colleges v English Universities Part II of II.

University of Birmingham, UK where I am studying abroad

Birmingham-Southern College, AL, USA where I study in the States

Happy Love Day

Happy Love Day to you.

Let's make like fabric softener and Snuggle.

Please, do not be cynical on the Day Celebrating Love. That is giving some external source—commercial industry, card industry, whatever—too much power over your emotions. Be joyous and tell someone you love him or her, whether that person be family, friend, or lover. We all need that every once and a while.

.

Translating English to English Continued

England: cheers
America: thanks

England: proper
America: legitimate/authentic/genuine/actual

England: candy floss
America: cotton candy

England: plasters
America: band-aids

England: mate
America: friend/ buddy

England: hob
America: stove

England: bloke

America: guy

England: maths
America: math/ mathematics

England: mental

America: crazy/ insane

England: marks
America: grades

England: chat

America: converse

England: faulty

America: broken/ damaged/ unreliable

England: bits (The English really love this word.)

America: pieces/ parts

England: Pop in

America: Stop in

England: car park

America: parking lot

England: city center

America: downtown

England: prawn
America: shrimp

England: burgled
America: burglarized 

England: yeah?

America: okay?/ following?

England: Mum

America: Mom

England: 12/02/2011 February 12, 2011

America: 02/12/2011 February 12, 2011

Note: Very important difference.

England: arse

America: ass

England: standard

America: usual/ typical

England: bird (a girl)

America: chick (a girl)

Note: Bird/chick has always come across as derogatory when I have heard it used.

England: to post/ post box/ the post

America: to mail/ mail box/ the mail

England: tramp

America: bum

England: interval

America: intermission

England: to tidy

America: to clean

England: bloody

America: damn

England: I’m shit at

America: I’m terrible/ awful/ horrible at

England: camp

America: flamboyant/ gay/ metro-sexual

England: washing up liquid/ to do the washing up

America: dishwater liquid/ to wash the dishes

England: wellies/ wellingtons

America: rubber boots or rain boots

England: torch

America: flashlight

England: rubbish

America: trash/ garbage

England: petroleum/ petrol

America: gasoline/ gas

England: nail varnish

America: nail polish

England: jumper

America: sweater or sweatshirt

England: lift

America: elevator

England: post code

America: zip code

England: biscuits

America: dry cookies (think Graham Crackers and Vanilla Wafer type cookies)

England: cinema

America: movie theatre

England: film

America: movie

England: dustbin/ bin

America: trash can/ trash

England: ground floor

America: first floor

England: hoover/ to hoover

America: vacuum cleaner/ to vacuum

England: holiday

America: vacation

Click here for more Translating English to English.

Comfort is not Confidence

BSC was the land of confidence. From the moment I strutted onto campus freshman year, friends were made, classes aced, clubs joined. I was cast in shows; I even scored a summer internship. Life was good. Worries trivial.

But it was too good. It was easy. I was bored and needed friction, sharp and hot like match striking rock.

My solution: study abroad. I wanted to travel. BSC had an exchange program with UB. Why not? It’ll be great. I’ll be great. Look at me at BSC, living life as though I invented the word confidence and taught the world its fierceness.

So I travelled, straight across the globe, and I did strike rock—body-slamming into rock bottom.

It was not great. I was not great. UB was not BSC.

For the first month and a half, I existed in a semi-depression. I was miserable, lonely, scared, homesick and constantly crying—all feelings that I had never before experienced and was at a loss of how to handle. At 20 years old I was reduced to a frightened, trembling child who wanted nothing more than to run home to Mommy and Daddy.

BSC had been my tailor-made, velvet glove, and I had slipped it on, effortlessly. UB was me being tossed onto a street corner to ask directions from strangers to the nearest thread and needle shop to make my own glove. But I didn’t know how to sew, and I kept messing up, screaming inside, "Just hand me a damn glove!" as life had always done. Eventually, I got so frustrated I threw away the needle. I threw away the thread, and said. “Screw it.” Because I didn’t need a glove.

Because comfort is not confidence. Comfort is tied to a specific person or place. So what happens when those ties break or unravel or are purposefully cut like me leaving BSC? In my case, I ended up stranded, defenses ripped away, totally vulnerable, and directionless. Confidence should not be something that can be left behind like a childhood home. Confidence should be something carried within. And from the hard darkness of rock bottom, I discovered that that is exactly where confidence resides. Because confidence, I learned, is faith.

There is faith in a higher power; there is faith in others; but there is also faith in yourself. Faith is believing in something that cannot be proven, believing in something that none of the five senses can grasp. And sometimes that thing that cannot be proven or grasped by the world or, more importantly, by you is you—what you can decide, what you can do, and where you can go. And that faith is what sees you through, providing strength and support when the elements of confidence—certainty, assurance, trust, and courage—fail or seem nonexistent.

And sometimes your faith—your confidence— will fail. Sometimes it will seem nonexistent or feel too far away, or you will forget that you ever held it. But the strongest faiths battle wars of doubt.

But that is why it is faith. It can be doubted. It can be frustrating. It can even be lost. But you control it. You carry it. And if lost, you can find it again. Faith is tied to no person and to no place but you. Faith in yourself is true confidence.

I am a month into my second semester at UB, and I do not want to leave at the end of the term. I have created a life here with people who I am excited to see every day and who I do not want to be an ocean away from next year. The beginning of last semester was hard, painful even, but it was worth it, even if it did not seem so at the time. I cried when I arrived, and I will cry when I leave. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

P.S. The biggest confidence rush I know is walking down a virgin city street. Do I know where I am going? No. But I will figure it out. Do I know any of these people? No. But I can ask them for directions. Have I ever been here before? No. But I am here now, and I will be okay.

Irrational Fears

Irrational Fear #1

Tipping over onto the road and then being run over by a car. Not a fear of tripping and falling into the road. Not a fear of being pushed into oncoming traffic. Not a fear of a car veering off the road and hitting me. I have a fear of just walking along the sidewalk and then tipping over like a pencil onto the road and being run over. Tip. Oh dear. Splat.

Irrational Fear #2

“I know [noun] like the back of my hand.” I have heard people make this claim my entire life, and the amount of people that I have heard make this claim, implies that everyone should know the backs of their hands in exquisite detail. But when I close my eyes, I cannot picture the backs of my hands, and even when I look at the backs of my hands, I do not think that they look very different from the backs of other people’s hands. But everyone is supposed to know the backs of their hands, right? So the fact that I don’t know the backs of my hands has always triggered the irrational fear that if my hands are ever chopped off and tossed into a green Rubbermaid tub filled with other Caucasian chopped off hands, and using my nubs, I have to dig though the tub to find my hands, I will not be able to find them. I will never get my hands back, and I will have nubs for the rest of my life, because I do not know the backs of my hands.

(See nub photo-shoot below.)

Irrational Fear #3

Getting trapped in an elevator with a serial killer.

Irrational Fear #4

While reading about ninjas several years ago, I came across an account of a ninja crouching below his target’s toilet for an entire day, spear aimed, waiting for his victim to sit down and…ouch. After reading that story, I did not fear a ninja crouching below my toilet, because we do not use holes on benches for toilets anymore. But I began to worry that something could be waiting in the toilet to attack me, and that something could be sharp. Soon that something took the shape of a water snake, lurking in the toilet pipes just waiting for someone (me) to sit down and… bite! Thankfully, this fear rarely comes to mind anymore, but every now and then while doing my business, I’ll think, “Man, a snake bite would really hurt.”

Irrational Fear #5

Turtlenecks. They are fine on other people. Elegant even. But if I wear one, it will slowly and ruthlessly choke me over the course of the day, and I will die.

What are your irrational fears?

Now, for my nub photo-shoot. Courtesy of Sarah.   

Ode to Harvest Morn (Erotic Slam Poem)

I’m in England for a year-abroad exchange, and before I got on that plane, I swore to myself, “No romantic interests for the first semester at least. England is your time.”

Well, all was going fine. Yes, there were cute guys, but I just said, “Hey, how’s it going,” and passed them by.

But walking into Aldi on my second day, 1^st aisle, 1/3 the way down, on the left. A dark boxy figure caught my eye. Hmm, looks nice. It’ll do for tonight.

Slide down the conveyor-belt, beep, bag, pay.

Then back at my place, where what I thought would be a one-night stand became love at first bite.

Harvest Morn Chocolate Crunch. Mmm, I’d always gone for the tall ones, but short, dark, and hansom, baby where have you been all my life?

Pretty soon, we’re meeting up morning, noon, and night. Our love song playing on repeat, the rhythm a sensual

Pour, splash, crunch, slurp, bite, swallow.

You are what you eat, and soon you become me, I become you

Chocolate Crunch and Me, now we.

Existing closer than two soon to be divorced disillusioned lovers under rice strewn church bells.

Because multiple times a day my digestive juices break you apart, the crunchy, the smooth, the sweet into molecules that flow through my veins, filling my cells, constructing my tissues, my organs, my heartbeat, the very hands, the lips, the tongue that holds you to me.

Now, I am made of

Oat flakes, wheat flakes, sugar, rice flour, barley malt extract, sunflower oil, sunflower lecithin, vegetable oil, plain chocolate pieces, milk chocolate pieces, white chocolate pieces,

soya lecithin?

cocoa butter, cocoa mass, cocoa powder, skimmed milk powder, whole milk powder,

coconut, chopped hazelnuts,

and flavoring.

And damn, life has never been so sweet.

Sitting in class, I fantasize about pouring you into an erotic bath, ambiance of candle-light, and please, forget the red wine, I’m having gallons of 2% chocolate milk tonight.

Love affair spiraling in delicious chocolate bliss, but after a few weeks, I feel my waistline expanding and my wallet contracting.

And I know it was low, especially in public. I didn’t mean to make a scene, but I rebounded in Aldi to your plain cousin Malted Wheaties. Half the sugar and 1% the fat, fortified with 7 vitamins and iron. Box twice the size for 2/3^rd the money and 34 less calories.

I won’t go through this one fast. It’ll last me a while, two weeks at least.

Pop a few in my mouth. Hm. Kinda bland.

But oh, what is this? A sweet, come-hither aftertaste?

For what I thought was Chocolate Crunch’s geeky cousin, in coke-bottle glasses and sweater vest, stripped them off to the kinky beat of “crunch, crunch, yes!” to reveal dark lashes and a tanned six-pack torso framed by those sexy bones forming a V, pointing the way to the land of freedom and opportunity. Trust me I know; I’m American.

By that I do not mean cereal slut, no just of good taste.

Which I prove three times a day.

Romeo and Juliet? Lancelot and Guinevere?  Jack and Rose?

They've got nothing on us, Harvest Morn.