I think what will be one of the most fascinating things about being an exchange student is being able to be a fly on the wall whilst kind of eating the shit (probably could've gone for a better metaphor but hey!). Like yesterday at Noise Parade - it was pretty liberating to dance around like a complete moron (all British conservatism aside) whilst watching the absolute utter craziness going on around. I mean there's crazy, then there's BRIT school crazy, and somewhere up in the outer rim of the galaxy is Reed crazy. I'm talking full on naked people running around clashing saucepans together, pouring paint over themselves, burning a huge table sized papier mache version of The Odyssey (am still puzzling out the symbolic gesture of it) and absolutely literally embodying the Reed motto, communism, atheism and free love. That level of personal expression in utterly rejecting 'the system', defining yourself as the 'other', however might be so much so that it creates a very very exclusive esoteric community that perhaps isn't so very different from the very thing it wants to shatter. For me though, it is something absolutely incredible to watch, but be able to watch from the outside in (or maybe the inside out?) no longer being a UEA student nor a Reedie. Oh the joys of liminality.
(A fake Doyle owl made it's appearance at NP which excited me regardless. There's just something about a magical aloof and myserious bird. Reed this, and you too will be amazed. http://www.reed.edu/apply/about_reed/doyleowl.html)
On a more light and fluffy note, the other reedie/non-reedies have found my blog. And are very sad that they aren't being mentioned (a lot of egos need stroking perchance?). But at risk of looking like all I have been doing is wandering round Portland having deep thoughts about life and the nature of existence, I figured it's probably a good idea to indulge them (I realize satirical comments might just be making me look like a dick). So here some of them are. In all their glorious glory.
(yes, we were showing Mona the joys of epilating)
You guys are all so chill haha. Yes, Sidney, I realize you don't have a photo here but it's because I don't have one of you to put up, not because of said huge feministy argument we had last night... I'll sneak some more of the rest of you when you aren't looking - I'll be like a blogging ninja.
Day 5 and I think I'm starting to completely get why Reed is one of those places you can't describe. And why it's one of those places that isn't for everyone. But I think it certainly will be for me. Granted I've only just finished international orientation and so all the amazing nuanced people I've met so far are also international students, but, after spending 5 hours, wandering to 7/11 in the absolutely pouring rain, drinking whisky and falling between discussions about political idealism, James Blake and The XX, celebrity culture and The Hunger Games (as you probs know one of my fave topics) and yelling, 'come on y'all to keep it fair let's do some guys' while playing snog, marry, avoid with a group of 10 or so guys who don't even bat an eyelid and immediately switch from phoebe, monica and rachel to sean connery, brad pitt and ryan gosling, has made me feel like this place could easily become home. It reminds me of me and Tash in our starrybs in Croydon but with a group of twenty people. I know things will probably be different once this infamously insane workload hits, and the campus fills with other Reedies, but for now I feel like this synaptic speeding, bubble is just one of those places that will shape me.
Oh yeah, and we had a carnival this evening, with sparkly llamas. Real sparkly llamas.
is definitely not like London rain. It's actually, dare I say it, quite lovely. None of this sleety sideways gale force rain. I understand why Portlander's don't carry umbrellas.
Target really does have everything. Including...
Yes. Shelf on shelf of tea. And yes, that is a box of PG Tips. I did however, compromise and went for liptons because of its magical multi functioning properties that allow it to also make ice tea :)
And this. This makes me happy.
Especially as half of the candy bars I've tried (yup candy bars plural) literally all taste the same. Don't get me wrong I love a good bit of peanut and chocolate but ask me the difference between a 5th Avenue, Mr Goodbar and Reeses and I couldn't tell you. It also makes up for the fact that pop tarts aren't veggie friendly :(
So imagine driving to Target to glut in the magic of everything in one of these bad boys. Yeah. Proper hardcore American experience right there.
Also, fun fact, Reed is the kind of place where they have free mnm dispensers in the business office and free interview clothes in the career centre. Everything also kind of looks like Hogwarts. Google the Grey's anatomy spin off 'private practice' and the reed health centre looks exactly like that. There's even a mind spa. With free bio feed and massages. And acupuncture. Living the high life.
Oh and I finally saw my first real double decker bike. They do exist. I do plan on getting on one. Yes, my health insurance does cover me for any injuries sustained on that bad boy. As long as I wear pads and a helmet. I checked.
Also had a little wander through the canyon today. I mean it's more of a beautiful ditch than a canyon but either way, it's lush.
Obligatory post jet lag update on the beginnings of life at Reed and I could definitely waffle on forever. It's almost unimaginable that so much living has been squashed into the last 48 hours. From saying goodbye at Heathrow
(it was like 4am, I'm allowed to look rough!)
to sprinting to make my connection at Amsterdam and finally touching down in PDX after a full 20 hour door to door journey life has already been turned upside down!
What's been the funniest so far is how absolutely clueless I am about the little things. Things that crop up in casual conversation like, what the heck is a comforter or whippets, required immediate googling and definitely took me by surprise. My two attempts today at boarding a bus was also met with amused smiles.
But anyway back to yesterday. I've made the wild assumption that people who travel are 100 times more friendly than people who don't. I never thought planes were such chatty modes of transport! In a mere hour and a bit (actually with the panic inducing hour delay (baring in mind I only had an hour and 15 to make the connection) it was more like 2 hours) on my way to Amsterdam I spoke with a guy who'd been on army selection, had bee delayed an extra two weeks and was flying to Johannesburg to get to his sister's wedding where he was best man ( I asked, his best man's speech was in his carry on rather than his suitcase), and a woman on route to Rowander for training (I wish I'd asked for what) and then heading down to Mali. It makes me smile now thinking how far apart we all are now and yet for that one brief little flight we got to intersect in each other's past. My long 10 and a quarter hour slog to Portland was less eventful but after spending the entire time avoiding talking to one another, I finally got chatting to the girl I'd been sitting with who was on route with her family from Burnley to have a huge family gathering at a lake in California, who then sort of adopted me until we'd got past passport control (incidentally who were very chill and relaxed, not like the East coast!)
I had the epiphany moment, realizing what I was about to do, on the plane, triggered, would you believe, by a cheese sandwich. Crappy American processed cheese and the magnanimity of what lay head suddenly hit me. But then as we were landing and all I could see were beautiful lakes and mountains I knew this was going to be something. Something good.
The rest of yesterday passed in a manic sleep deprived blur, surviving for 48 hours on only 4 hours sleep was sadly reminiscent of that crazy 40 hour stint in the Library with Sophie and as anyone who saw me after then remembers, was not a pretty sight. Gay, my host family was absolutely lovely and hit me up with a care package of all American delights, as did Aunty Ruth who had beautifully sorted out and sent me my phone and some bits (sitting here typing this I have to confess to demolishing half a huge bag of cheetos... oops).
(ignore the stuffed cat hiding behind my pillow)
My room
is actually a step up from Norfolk Terrace! It's really big and thanks to Anna and Sophie (my lovely lovely saviors who went to Reed on exchange last year), pretty cosy from all the lovely bits they left. The windows open out onto the great lawn and I can see Old Dorm Block in the distance (you can just make it out between the two trees in the photo above).
The only downside is that I'm right next to a pretty busy road which is pretty loud and I can hear the light rail trundle past every now and again (saying that, I heard it once at about 6am so it could easily have been sleep induced! UPDATE: definitely just heard it again - NOT going crazy... yet) and there might as well not be walls or doors as you can hear absolutely everything on the floor (no word of a lie I heard a girl cough at the other end of the corridor). But my HA is lovely, she's a 4th year economics major, and one of the girls on my corridor is a french exchange student from Lille, Anais and we seemed to click pretty well. No-one else is here yet so we have the run of the floor so at the mo the noise is not an issue. It's definitely been really friendly in Macnaughton. The only down side is living literally next door to Anna Mann, which is why I think it seems worse than it is.
I realize that these look exactly like the ones I posted before but I actually took all of these ones!
I have to admit as I finally crashed at half 8 pacific time, I was suddenly overwhelmed and terrified, now being here in the flesh is definitely different to sitting in bed in Swansea Road and google imaging. But, as I was in the shower this morning, the excitement returned in full force, just in time for my first trip to Portland. From the tiny few measly hours we spent downtown today I know I'm in love. It may have been the two hours in Powell's - the world's biggest bookstore and a little slice of utopia on earth that helped me know I was in the right place. I may have spent my first US dollars... I know I know, it's not like I just got a nexus as an early 21st birthday present but feel like every ebook has to be offset with a real one to maintain the karmic balance. Or something.
After hitting Sizzle Pie for pizza and falling in love in Powell's I got to visit Stumptown, a coffee place I've been dying to go to. So yes it's so hot I had ice tea rater than coffee but it still counts. Yes, it was lush. In our little group I got to meet Neil and Sam, two of the other brits from Sussex and Nottingham who are really chill. Apaz there are 5 of us and I happen to be the only girl - yes for having the only cute female british accent on campus! As Sam's in the co-op I think we're all planning on cooking together there once the free campus food runs out (he's also veggie which is sweet) and he also runs so I won't have to brave the mountain lions alone! What I've definitely noticed already is the intellectual charge around Reed. Not in a pretentious way but conversation naturally starts revolving around really interesting topics like, how the world is imagined by humans as an object of consumerism which everyone involves them self quite animatedly. It also made me smile how going to Powell's wasn't even a choice - we were all kids in the candy shop. It's a nice difference.
Am definitely excited to spend time in Portland and get to see more of this incredibly beautiful city and even just explore all of campus. I haven't had a chance to get to the canyon or the lake or even the other side of it as we've been so busy! Hope y'all are all good back home, it seems like another lifetime rather than just a couple of days since I was there! x x x
I can't decide whether seeing everyone else disappear via facebook makes me feel like a 5 year old child waiting to catch up with her friends who are already running around Disney Land, or, want to sit staring at a wall for a few hours forcing myself to realize that this IS actually happening and I WILL be joining them in a week's time. Either way, having spent the day slumming it in shitty not socially acceptable pjs, curled up with/pretending to be my cat whilst making my way (yet again) through all 9 seasons of Grey's Anatomy, is equally as unproductive in getting ready to go make friends with a guy in a mouse outfit as it is making this whole moving abroad thing feel any more real. So to try and make this all feel less unreal in all the things I don't know, I'm going to bore y'all with some of the good stuff I do :) I finally have my dorm assignment all sorted now so I know where I'll physically be even if my head hasn't caught up yet - I'm in a single in Macnaughton "The Asylum" which, being karma's way of kicking me in the butt for bragging about how beautiful all the accommodation is at Reed, really doesn't seem as bad as I've heard :) So I might be here
rather than where Allen Ginsberg performed Howl for the first time in here
but it'll just force me into Portland all that more often. Oh what a shame.
And my eager little googling fingers are literally itching to get hold of Portland.
This does makes me excited :)
Although after looking up potential running tracks near Reed however this
does not. Does anyone actually know the whole if you come face to face with a bear/mountain lion/cougar what you're actually supposed to do? I feel like this is probably vital info I should know, knowing my luck.
Go?
Wednesday, 7 August 2013
I'm definitely the worst suitcase packer ever. I haven't even opened my suitcase. Or my wardrobe. Yet I'm incredibly happy to pile up the baggage in the back of my head of all the things I'm needlessly worrying about (a pause should be indicated here for the time I wasted trying to verbalize said terrifying thoughts but I couldn't even do it shrouded in the lovely anonymity of the internet). Oh but I have made a list (1. Cadbury's 2. Twinings Earl Grey from Amy). I do love a good list. I'm an excellent list maker. It's a fabulous distraction from actually doing anything but comforting yourself that you have, in fact, been very productive - much like reading a measly 10 pages of a 500 page book that has to be read in a week, but by counting the preface, forward and introduction that you skipped, you're already up to page 50 so now it's time for a well-deserved break. I'm rambling. So yes, I have a list. Yet sadly this list is comprised solely of the things that suddenly came to me at 4am and I had to scribble down before I forgot them. So, so far all I'm taking for my year long stay in the US (according to my list) is: dairy milk, teabags, my external hard drive, a keyring bottle opener, fluffy slippers, my fixed 80p watch from China (I see your faces Harriet and Olivia, I will be timeless no more!) and sudocrem. Very useful.
I'm thinking that really what this tells me is that the key word here is distraction. Trying to think about everything else other than leaping on a plane and zooming 100,000 miles (a quick wikipedia check informs me that that figure is wildly overdramatic) away. I know, I know, but I'm a glass half empty kind of person so all that amazing OMG-I'm-going-to-live-in-this-incredible-city-and-go-to-this-ridiculously-crazy-liberal-arts-college-where-they'll-be-more-pop-tarts-and-reeses-pieces-than-I-can-physically-cram-into-my-mouth excitement was muffled somewhere under the mountainous pile of surprisingly tricky paperwork, visas, health assessments, sexual harrassment training, dorm applications, new reedie forms, travel insurance, health insurance, student frickin finance and the rest. Plus I love to live in lala land where Emily logic rules and, if you've ever been fortunate enough to be counteracted in an argument with Emily logic, (this usually involves some sort of unicorn analogy or a, maybe-the-dinosaurs-live-in-the-Bermuda-triangle philosophical point) you'll understand why this whole experience still doesn't feel real. Oh I forgot to apologize for my absolutely raging abuse of punctuation - I like dashes... and brackets :) sorry.
But yes, 17 days! 17 days and I'll be hauling my (then to be) overpacked lovely red suitcase across the pond and nesting down in my little dorm room at Reed to start my US adventure. Ok so I am definitely way more excited than this is probably coming across. Already I'm planning to hit Seattle during the fall semester, heading down to San Fran to party with the Berkeley bound bestie Tash during fall break which, oh how conveniently, happens to fall on the week of my 21st, head to Nashville and then end 2013 with NYE in New York. Mid terms or no mid terms I am NOT missing Mardis Gras and I'll definitely feel unfullfilled if I don't get to Coachella or Burning Man or SXSW. I feel like if I say these things publicly I'm duty bound to make them happen. I have such itchy feet and cannot wait to get my treck on around America :) I just need to get there first...
Steady?
Monday, 5 August 2013
port, n.1
a.A town or place possessing a harbour which boats use for loading or unloading, or which forms the starting point or destination of a voyage;
landed, adj.2
1. That has landed or gone ashore: in comb. as new-landed, newly landed.
