I think it's an assessment period for many of you Keelites right now, so good luck! These two weeks here at App will be very busy and I think I will have to cut out much of the 'sleep' aspect of my life - but like always I am very happy to pack our remaining weeks full! There are papers due in each of my classes this fortnight (a word, by the way, which seemed to confuse several of my International and American friends. They have trouble with my time-keeping as well; 'half-past' and 'quarter-to' usually get lost in translation). I also have two presentations. Tomorrow it is my turn to teach the Adolescent Literature class! I am a bit nervous, but I have to say that the class format here basically forces students to speak up in class, and I hope I will continue to be as forward back in Keele as well. I'm teaching a book called 'Whirligig' by Paul Fleischman, which is a rather strange but quite lovely book.
This week is the Carolina Renaissance Faire, the $1 showing of Inception (missed its release, so I will not be missing this one!) and a morning with my host family. The following weekend will be App State Mountaineers' final home football game. We haven't lost a game so far! Friday is, of course, the 5th of November and I was really pleasantly surprised to see that there will be a showing of V for Vendetta in our dorms that day (along with bottomless tea and coffee, which is always a plus). I don't expect many people here to know what the significance of November 5th is - after all, as I discovered when putting together the portfolio for Intercultural Communication last year, the States have many national holidays and days of celebration that I don't remember - so it is fun to explain the story to my friends.
Tonight I had dinner with my friend's host family, who are always kind enough to invite several of us. I got my first taste of sweet potato fries, which are delicious. We also had crepes for dessert and played card games together, so it was a really nice evening. I have recently been very enthusiastic in the university coffee shops and vending machines, so I'm running low on my meal plan allowance and fear a return to the end-of-term pasta and salt diet, but considering that we will be in New York City over Thanksgiving I think it will be okay!
It is much cheaper to travel by bus than to fly, so we're taking a coach up to New York and back for $60. This means a 12-hour drive but I'm sure it will be worth it! We're booked to stay in the Jazz Hostel, Manhattan, right by Central Park. There's enough stuff in New York to keep one person occupied for months, so I will definitely be coming back, but this time around I would like to visit as many of the landmarks as possible; The Statue of Liberty, The Empire State Building, Wall Street and 129th, and so on... but there is much more to New York than that and I can't wait to discover exactly what. Because we'll be there for Thanksgiving, we're also going to see the Macy's Thanksgiving parade.
Unfortunately, my camera had an accident at Union Station in D.C. and I won't have many new photos until I buy a new one next week. I had been leaning over the balcony when I dropped the camera onto the floor below - unsurprisingly, it didn't survive.
The big event on this side of the Pond this week was Halloween! Campus started gearing up about a week beforehand; decorations went up in the hallways, there was jackel lantern carving fun, and free candy started appearing in pumpkin bowls all over campus. Free candy - always a good thing. I have quite a thing for Tootsie Roll Pops, which I've been trying to get since arriving and which I always drop on the floor or something before eating it. But the pumpkin bowls finally provided. I still don't know how many licks it takes to get to the centre of a Tootsie Pop, though...
Oh yes, well, Halloween was on a Sunday this year so many of the celebrations were on Friday and Saturday. Walmart had a big Halloween sale where everything was only $2-3 - we bought makeup for our costumes, stickers, candy and room decorations. As for costumes, there were plenty of witches, some zombies, a geisha, vampires, fairies, cats, a hick... and then a friend who wore just a pizza box. It was really fun, and though I did kind of miss the British cynicism ("Halloween is too Americanised/just an excuse to flog people crap/I'm not giving stuff to any trick-or-treaters!") I got caught up in the enthusiasm. On November 2nd, Mexico also celebrates The Day of the Dead, which I'll write more about next time.
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