Introduction

Hi, my name is Phil North. I am currently a student at UCLan in Preston studying Creative Writing and Journalism and have been given the opportunity to study my second year at Central Connecticut State University. Here is where you will be able to find out about my experiences, opinions and just how well I'm adjusting to the US way of life.

Wednesday 5 September 2012

Carroll Cobras

On returning from Cape Cod back to Carroll Hall, I was unpacking and settling back into Uni life when it sounded like my door was being broken down. When I opened it, there stood two girls representing the Carroll Council. Apparently they are organising a birthday board for the entrance way with all the residents' birthdays on it. I was then told about the Council Meeting that everyone must attend. I have just now returned from said meeting, and all I can say is that my attendance was pretty pointless. I turned up, ate the food on offer, listened and left. My dad has always told me to keep quiet at meetings like this so that you don't accidentally volunteer to do anything. Apparently they have a budget of $X for the year and want to know how we want it spending. Ideally it would be nice to have some form of air conditioning in our rooms like the other halls, but I'm guessing that's out of the question. In each tiny room are two adults and two computers as a minimum. Others have televisions, printers, games consoles, fridges etc resulting in sweaty rooms in an already sweaty climate. Air conditioning would be helpful. Instead we get to have Carroll Cobra clothing if we turn up to each and every meeting! In fairness to them, they have organised trips to Washington, Philadelphia and other cities in the past. Hopefully this year they'll do something similar.

A Small American Breakfast
Back in Cape Cod we went to Province Town on our last night for tea. As I said in my previous post, Province is the San Fransisco of the east. By this I meant that it is the gay district. The area is actually very twee with bars, shops, and restaurants surrounding small narrow streets that lead to the harbour. In a way it reminded me of Amsterdam with people on bicycles swerving through the crowds of people on these overpopulated streets. When I mentioned that it reminded me of Amsterdam, minus the sex shops to Connor's cousin, he told me to follow him. Confused I followed him into a tourist shop and he led me upstairs, here I found Amsterdam. Unfortunately out of the seven of us, only three of us were over 21, so we couldn't stay to soak up the atmosphere in the pubs after we ate.

One thing that Erik and I have noticed in our short time here, is that Americans do love their breakfast and their ice cream. On our way home we stopped for breakfast and found the queue out of the front door and down the street. When we tried elsewhere, it was only slightly better. The same is with ice cream shops. At 9pm on a Saturday night, you don't see people stumbling from pub to pub. Instead you find them queueing up for ice cream so big you wouldn't know where to start eating. I giggled when we went into a Starbucks and saw a sign next to a rack of muffins that said 'A Healthy Alternative' If muffins are the healthy alternative, who knows what the unhealthy food is! We do however plan to go all American one day soon and have cake for breakfast, dinner, and tea.

I have just signed up to play in the IMLeague here, which from what I gather is for people to play competitive sport against others within the university. I set up an account on the Internet and signed up as a free agent. I know that I'm not the best in the world, but surely I'm worth at least $10? I'm not sure when my first game is, but I'll keep you posted.

I have planned to go White Water Rafting this coming Sunday (9th Sept) in Massachusetts which should be fun. I'll have to let you all know how it goes. Until then, I'm off to get some ice cream.

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