My Mumbling Thoughts

So I know things have been scarce here on My Mumbling Thoughts. Trust me, I've been busy. Life is just continuously busy here in London. It's hard trying to juggle a part-time job, university, life and....wait for it...thinking of topics to write for the uni newspaper! I know. It's not a mental year for me (*knocks wood*). Well, not as mental as last year. Obviously things are going to be crazy, because that's just how things seem to roll here, but I have been keeping myself out of trouble for the most part.

And while I haven't really got the time to post anything new, I do have the article handy that I wrote which is going to be published in next month's issue, just for your reading pleasure. I know. It's just a little thing, nothing special, but I thought I'd post it up here just because I feel like it and I've been feeling guilty for not being a good, regular blogger. Hope you enjoy my little bit.

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English Lessons

Okay, so we all know that many moons ago some folks decided to hop on a giant ship and live in a new land far, far away so they could practice their religion freely and get away from the great monarchy of England. It was great, for the most part and now, hundreds of years later, we’ve got a great country called the United States of America. It’s pretty cool, and of course I would say that being one of the many children that was born and raised there.

I’m a second year international student that has jumped in headfirst and studies here at the great university of Roehampton. I’m dong a full three-year course, rather than just a semester or a year. A lot of people ask why I chose to live here in London? Why not just stay at home and enjoy all of the nice comforts that America has to offer (i.e. food, super sizing of the food, twenty-four hour stores and drive-thru’s for virtually everything).

It’s simple, really. When I go somewhere, I want to get the full experience. I like to get my hands dirty and sink into my new life like a native. I don’t want to be an outsider looking in. No Sir. I want to be considered one of the locals that tourists stop on the street to ask for directions on how to get from Piccadilly to Trafalgar Square. London (and England as a whole, really) is quite big and I’m just one tiny person. There’s way too much to see and do, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to cram everything into just a few short months.

You would think that being American wouldn’t be that different for us living in England. I mean we are basically an extension of England minus a few things here and there. What I didn’t realize when I first arrived a little over a year ago is that it’s two totally different worlds. There are the more obvious differences that I noticed immediately, mostly with how much smaller and compact things are. The roads are a lot more narrow and there were a couple of times when I thought surely, by now we should have been in a fender bender with another vehicle. The accents threw me off a lot more than I thought they would as well and I had to ask a lot of people to repeat what they had said to me for the first couple of weeks. Everything was completely different and I certainly had a “we’re not in Kansas anymore” moment on quite a few occasions.

The one thing that slowly crept up on me though was my own internal change. After a while, people began to point out how different I sounded, and it wasn’t until they mentioned it that I started to notice the change myself. Words came out a lot different and I was calling things by different names. It was no longer a vacuum, but a hoover. I threw things away in the bin instead of the trashcan. I went to the toilet instead of the bathroom. I greeted people by saying, “Heya, you alright?” instead of “hey, what’s up?” I smoked fags rather than cigarettes. The list of my new vocabulary kept on growing with each passing day and I could hear an English twang being added to my already confused southern, American accent.

I remember my very first night out at Roehampton. I went to the Froebel bar with my friend, Trish, who is also from America (she’s actually from the exact same place and lived 30 minutes away from me, but that’s another story for another time). We were slightly lost and wandering around campus trying to find this bar that everyone was apparently going to. On our way, we ran into a third year student who gave us directions. I noticed her accent and thought it was weird that an English student had already moved in, seeing as the home students wouldn’t be arriving for another two days. When we asked her where she was from she told us California.

No, that couldn’t be right. She had an English accent! She was American? I told myself that that wouldn’t be me in the end. I’d always have my American accent.

I learned that it’s an inevitable change though. You change and adapt to your environment wherever you go. It just makes things easier in the end. You change the way you dress, speak or act, whether you realize it or not, and it’s okay. In fact, it’s quite comical and a great conversation starter. Nowadays I get shattered, I think things are brilliant and live comfortably in my gaff.

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