The land of convenience

Unless you live in New York city, you need a car to do most things in America.

Even to get money out…

I’m back…

Hi Folks,

Sorry about the three month hiatus. A few things happened…

• The two weeks after my last blog post saw me traveling to Texas, Rhode Island, & Massachusetts for work, with short turnarounds in Connecticut between each trip.
• Then the winter recess started and I was away from campus for 6 weeks in Boston, New York and Colorado.
• I came back to a new semester, with double the classes and double the work hours I had last semester.  So time spent on blogging is study or work not getting done. 😦
• I have been here for 6 months now, so I guess things are starting to seem “normal”. Which is a little bit of a worry…

Nevertheless, I will try to put a few more things up as my year here continues. Thanks for your patience.

Graduate Admissions

Winter wisdom… OR… Stuff I didn’t know about the snow

What to expect

The day after a snowstorm is almost always one of stunning blue skies and sunshine.

The quiet of the snowfall is quickly disturbed by the scraping, dumping, reversing, and engines of the snowploughs and snow blowers (think chainsaw-level decibels).

Cancellations

Snow days (ie: campus closed) are indeed every bit as glorious as I imagined them to be.

Unless you are stuck at an airport trying to fly home. Then it sucks big time.

A university-wide announcement that classes are cancelled tomorrow is code for every undergraduate to throw a house party and get drunk.

Every day that is cancelled or shortened due to winter weather, public schools have to make up. This means either Saturday morning classes, or staying in school for extra days (or weeks) in May.  Who’s laughing now?

Health and Safety

Fire hydrants all have a long pole attached so that the facilities workers can locate them and dig them out.

 

It is not advisable to stand underneath the eaves of buildings. Falling snow, sheets of ice, and pointy icicles are all waiting to drop on you.

Parking lots are the most lethally slippery places on earth.

It is common for people to suffer heart attacks when shoveling snow.

Driving

 Due to cold air passing beneath them, bridges, raised freeway exits and pedestrian overpasses accumulate more ice and therefore are more dangerous than roads and footpaths at ground level.

 Some tips for driving long-distance in winter I didn’t know include:

• A brightly colored cloth tied to the antenna or a piece of cloth placed at the top of a rolled up window signals distress
• You should make sure the exhaust pipe isn’t clogged with snow, ice or mud or else you are susceptible to carbon monoxide poisoning.

Parking lot (lack-of-honor) code.

Once you dig your car out of the snow in the campus parking lot, you move your car at own peril.  Incoming drivers will take your spot and then you will have to dig out another one in order to park your car when you get home.

 

Really cold weather and cool (or stupid) experiments

A polar vortex is one of those rare weather events you should be willing to miss in your lifetime. Trust me on this.

When a polar vortex strikes, putting boiling water in a pan and throwing it into the air can create instant snow.   Or to create your own snow gun put boiling water in a super soaker.  (If you click on any links in this post, click on these).

Be warned – this is likely to lead to a trip to the emergency room.  

New England’s Superiority

If you can’t distinguish between sleet and freezing rain you reveal yourself as an outsider in New England.

New England mocks the rest of the country for the ways they cope, or rather don’t cope, with minimal amounts of snow or ice. “The city has run out of salt? Ha! What sort of circus are they running down there?”

This map will show you how many inches of snow need to fall in order to cancel classes.

Fun Stuff

Here is a Go Pro video of students sledding on Horsebarn Hill on the side of the university campus mid February.

And here is a photo gallery of gorgeous snowflakes underneath the microscope.

The Most Sacred of Consumer Holy-days: Black Friday

As this was my first Thanksgiving I naively imagined the day after the big meal would be all about sleeping in, and eating leftover turkey sandwiches and /or pumpkin pie while watching made-for-TV holiday movies on CBS.

Silly me.

In fact, the day after Thanksgiving is a distinct consumer holy-day unto itself.  ‘Black Friday’ marks the beginning of the ‘Holiday Shopping Season’ and is supposedly the point at which the budgets of the major retailers will lift from the ‘red’ into the ‘black’ with all the profits.  My “research” tells me that originally the moniker came from the Philadelphia Police Department in the 1950s and 60s which had to patrol the huge crowds and traffic coming to and from shopping malls alongside football traffic. They hoped the negative connotations of the phrase ‘Black Friday’ might discourage too many people from joining in.

No such luck.

In fact the whole event is so popular that retailers have given up on the midnight or 5am openings, and instead they are now opening a little earlier.

But there is hope. Not everyone is blinded by consumer culture. If you object to shopping on a day meant for family and community gatherings, then you can take this pledge.

A beginners’ guide to Black Friday shopping

From what I observed, participation in Black Friday shopping rests on two essential underlying principles.

Firstly,  ensure one is in the mood to jolt oneself out of any sense of peace and goodwill towards others.  Secondly, one must erase all memories of the blessings for which one had expressed gratitude over the Thanksgiving meal just hours before.

Then proceed as follows:

1. Thursday shoppers: Finish Thanksgiving dinner early, or skip it altogether.

OR

Friday shoppers: Set alarm clock for 3am.

2. Pack loved one/s in the car and sit in shopping mall traffic queues.

3. Hunt down a parking spot.

4. Line up outside the doors for hours in below freezing temperatures.

5. Jostle with fellow shoppers and fiercely defend place from ‘line cutters’.

6. Elbow one another out of the way in order to get the 50-inch plasma TV for $299 or Xbox thingamy.

OR

  Discover that the item desperately wanted is all sold out so search for something else you don’t need, then buy it to make the all the bother worthwhile.

7. Line up for hours to pay for your sale goods. Work your way backwards through steps 6 to 1.

Optional step: In some cases you may choose to push, shove, snatch and grab at people and things in order to secure the consumer goods you desire.

 

Unfortunately in 2013 many people chose to exercise the last optional step. You can view some of the ugly scenes as collated by the Huffington Post here.  Be warned it is not pretty.

Postscript: There are a couple of positives I can see out of this phenomenon.

• ‘Shop local Saturday’ to support small businesses.
• ‘Cyber Monday’ for online sales. Shop from the comfort of your home instead.
• You can actually do all your Christmas shopping in the sales, rather than in Australia where the sales start on Boxing Day.

Thanksgiving is coming…

So far Thanksgiving on campus means…

• No lectures this week.
• My residence hall is empty and (blissfully) quiet.
• Carpark is vacant.
• Everything is pumpkin flavoured – coffee, ice-cream, cakes, and of course pies.

Very soon, you will find out about the tradition of ‘Black Friday’ which follows hot on the heels of Thanksgiving day. Stay tuned…

 

 

Helpful Americans: Bob’s Lesson of the Week

One of the quirks of being an international student is that each Monday I receive a ‘lesson of the week’ email. They come from Bob*, the Director of the International Student Center, and tell me how to live in America. You may be familiar with some of Bob’s earlier wisdom from the ‘Advice for international students’ post, or the ‘They do things differently here’ page. My parents told me from their years of living in USA, that Americans are the most helpful and hospitable nationality of people they have ever met.  I have to agree. And Bob is a charming example of this.

In this post I share with you the titles of Bob’s ‘lessons’ and the salient point/s from each.

 The Yard, Tag and Garage Sales

• People sell used stuff. You can pick up a bargain, or make some money.

The Early Bird Catches the Worm

•  Everyone takes holidays in December. Prices go up. Book ahead.

Have you been selected for Jury Duty?

• International students cannot serve on a jury. This violation of your student visa could bar you from future US citizenship.

The Ice Missile Law

• You are legally obliged to remove snow from your car before driving it. This is dangerous.

What does RSVP mean?

• It is common courtesy to respond to an invitation that requests an “RSVP”.  Failure to do so reflects poorly on you and may cause undue stress and problems for the host /hostess who cannot adequately plan for the event.

Halloween

• Traditionally it is time to celebrate the end of a bountiful harvest season. Typically, one should buy, distribute and eat candy.

Grocery Saving Tips

• Coupons are an invitation to save money. Buy a folder and file your coupon clippings by categories to save time at the checkout.

Time

(this had two sub-categories – daylight savings, and punctuality)

• Turn your clocks back on Saturday 2^nd November. Also known as ‘Fall back’.
• Americans place particular value on promptness and punctuality.
• Direct from the horses’s mouth: ‘Time is a very important commodity in our culture.  Think of “time” as money, where we try to “save” and “spend”.’

Now, where would I be without Bob’s lessons? I’m glad you asked.

Firstly, after receiving a $120 fine for driving to class with a snow-filled car bonnet, and having not ‘fallen back,’ I would be an hour early to my lectures, wearing something I bought new at a store instead of second hand at a yard sale. I would have missed the chance to eat lots of candy at the end of October, and I would have upset my friends by not bothering to RSVP to their Halloween party. I may have served on a jury and convicted a felon only to have the decision overturned on a technicality (Australian student clause), and later had my green card application rejected. Finally, I would be stuck on campus over the Thanksgiving break because I hadn’t thought to book a plane ticket.

Actually, that last one is true.

*Bob’s name has not been changed.

Talk to the hand…

A Christmas gift suggestion for the person who has everything. Including an inability to go 5 minutes without talking on their mobile phone.
#GetSmartWinterFashions #OnlyInAmerica

Whiteboard Wisdom

Every Monday I have a team meeting with my co-workers* in room G427. It appears that G427 is also the venue for RAs (Residential Assistants) to gather on the last Sunday of the month to review and plan their programs. The left over meeting notes on the white board have been  amusing and informative for myself and my coworkers. And even better they have provided material for this blog post.

In September the RAs reviewed the success, or otherwise, of the orientation sessions in the first month of the academic year.

Showing good leadership, they realised that while it is important to reflect both on what went well…

… one should also be honest about what went poorly.

Hmmm… sometimes demand exceeds supply. And as my friend Loaf remarked “I wonder what they were doing with the ice cream that made it uncomfortable?” Indeed.

In October the RAs stopped to think about the needs of each particular cohort of students.

The Freshman…

The Sophomores

(I wonder if the Sophomores have an identity crisis because they are ‘forgotten’?)

The Juniors

and the Seniors. ( To support the end-of-an-era mood cue Greenday track here )

But it appears the RAs became stumped when considering the needs of their older student cohort.

I think I’ll manage okay.

* I have learned co-workers is  the preferred term here, not colleagues.

PS: My friend HSLC has shown some initiative and proposed what might go in the graduate column. Thanks for chiming in!

Fall Foliage Photo Essay

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”

― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“Autumn…the year’s last, loveliest smile.”

― William Cullen Bryant

I first noticed myself doing it in September, but it wasn’t until October that the habit really took hold. I started to walk around campus with my phone in my pocket, ready to slip it out and take photos at any given moment. The colour palette of the landscape was changing daily. Green… yellows… orange…red… grey. Click, click, clickitty-click.

I found myself wandering off the path to kick my feet through the leaves like a school kid.

 

 I became drawn to the ‘shadow’ that the leaves create underneath the tree from which they fall.

 

 

One day I was driving on a narrow and winding road, through the woods, colours in full bloom, the sun setting in the distance, and leaves were drifting across the bonnet of my car. One even stuck on the windshield before flicking off. I felt like I was in the opening credits of a movie.

When I saw yet another tree I had been watching shed its final leaves the sadness hit me unexpectedly.

 

I am scared about the winter that lies ahead. Everything will be grey, and bare, and dark and cold.

Match Report: Homecoming Football Game

So we pick the action up at the tailgating party. After coming to the realisation that a tailgate party pretty much consists of people getting drunk in a car park, I sought an escape. I wanted to see how ‘American Football’  – or ‘Grid Iron’ – stacked up against rugby or Aussie Rules Football so I put down my red plastic beer cup and headed for the real game.

My entrance through the gates presented another awkward moment involving ID checks. Only this one went slightly differently to the one I described in the ‘Can I See Your ID? post. As I had a student ticket, I had to pass through the student entrance.

Ticket checker:          This is the student entrance.

Me:                            I know

Ticket checker:          Are you a student?

Me:                            Yes

Ticket checker:          Are you sure?

Me:                            Yes I am sure.

Ticket checker:          Can I see your student ID?

Me:                            Yes. (I hand it over.)

Ticket checker:          (Looks at it, hands it back sheepishly).

                                  I was just kidding! In you go.

Me:                             No you weren’t.

I brushed it off and entered. It was over two hours since kick off but the game was still in the second quarter. But we hadn’t actually missed anything.

Think of every cliché relating to American Football that you can. That’s exactly what lay before me. Cheerleaders. Dancers. Bleachers. Match statistics. Slow-motion replays. Over-enthusiastic ground announcer. Marching band. Flag-waving-baton-twirlers. Gatorade buckets. Kiss Cam. Dance Cam. Sidelines full of helmeted-padded-lycra-clad players itching to take the field. And 6400 yd² of luminous green turf.

I was grateful for all these distractions because the game was a little hard to follow.  It went like this. Stop. Start. Stop. Start. Kick. Throw. Stop. Referee’s announcement. Stop. Start. And so on. And on. And on.

One major difference in spectator behaviour was how the students responded when the visiting team had possession and were making an important play. Rather than simply ‘boo’ the opposition, everyone got out their key chains and jangled their keys. It must have terrified the opposition.

Half-time was all about the marching band. You can hear them here. And because it was homecoming weekend, they invited back alumni who had been part of the band to perform once more. But it wasn’t just former band members getting in on the action. On the sidelines was a group of middle-aged alumni cheerleaders  – pom-poms in hand – and when the flag waving girls marched out they too were accompanied by alumni. These former students were truly living up to the alumni motto: Students Today. Huskies Forever.™

I wish I could tell you more about the the game, but I just wasn’t enthralled. Give me a leaping AFL forward, a soccer striker on the penalty spot, or a rugby winger on a chip-and-chase any day. At least you can tell what they look like off the field. In their playing uniforms the American Football players remind me of the little kids in ski school lessons – all suits and helmets and identified only by a shirt number.

Once all the starting and stopping, and stopping and started was done, just 4 ½ hours after kick off, we lost 13-10. It seems our key chains weren’t scary enough.

PS: Five fun facts about American College Football

• There are 52 players suited up to play on game day.
• There are 105 players in the actual team.
• They have 12 coaches.
• The head coach is highest paid public servant in the state.
• Every time possession changes (say from offense to defense) they sub on an entire new team. There is no such thing as an all-rounder.