experiment

hello
the idea of this is to be a stream of conciousness, rather like my previous blog. My last blog was about my time in the middle east. It has been a useful resource - basically because you I can refer to it and remember things they were perceived to be.
Writing a blog is useful therefore I guess also becuase, as a sociologist (hopefully), it helps me sort out my thoughts.
So my situation, I'm from Cambridge Uni UK (undergrad) to Cornell, USA (grad). I finished at cambridge about 3 weeks ago and I start at Cornell now. 3 years at cambridge obviously furnishes oneself with degrees of confidnce that probably border on arrogance.

So i've been in the states since sunday. Initial impressions:
Luggage is badly dealt with, thanks delta for losing my bags and not really caring. They leave my bags at JFK, I can deal with that. The wankers then tell me that they won't phone me on my British number to let me know the bags have arrvived and can be delivered because it's too expensive.

People like flags.

People like Barack Obama, lots of signs tell me to vote for Barack for president, all of the signs suggest i should vote for barack in about april 2008. This is a liberal liberal town by US standards. It is the only palce in NYto go for Barack. Thisis also avery safe town. It seems the best/only way to get murdered/mugged would be to wear a vote McCain t-shirt. Even Barack is bit 'illiberal' around here

Second impressions:
Streets are not designed for anyone. I've never come across so many potholes. My recent purchase of a bike sees me desperaltey swerving across all sides of the road to avoid cracks/potholes/weird things that might be black holes that would probably do everything the CERN experiments hope to achieve at a fraction of the price. Cars have the best deal. Pedestrians seem to be an afterthought. "Sidewalks" disappear for no apparent reason. Pedestrian crossings in Britain are designed to allow pedestrians to cross the road. Here pedestrian crossings are designed for cars to speed up and attempt to literally cross over the pedestrian. I have so far avoided this consequence so I cannot report what happens when the pedestian gets crossed, but as you can imagine, the consequences are not to be sought.

Brands are important: I know I like sainsburys (UK) own brand bacon, I know I don't like own brand mince, there is one type of milk, I know what washing up brands are like. etc etc. here I have no idea, few brands are the same. There is infinitely more choice here but its really not worth it. Whilst milk comes in pints and bacon in rashers and mince in grams in the UK everything here comes in "weeks could sustain and impoverished family in sub-Saharan Africa" (typical no. weeks=7). "Soda" comes in huge bottles, fosters beer comes in sizes that would make the most hardended australian shrink. Everything is packaged, individual cheese wrappers are harder to break into than pentonville prison. Nothing is simply what it seems to be. You have 200 choices of bacon, one that increases the mass in your left calf, another guarnatees to reduce back hair etc etc. None of them are frigging well just bacon. When I want bacon I want bacon. Everything seems to have a tonne more sugar than Britain, if it is diet than it tends to taste like crap. the major plus side is diet dr pepper. i love dr pepper, i can now drink a diet dr pepper.

Alcohol: you think about drinking and someone comes and IDs you, I saw a very middle aged couple both being IDed today. I do admire the attempts I have seen to prevent under age drinking. However it does seem excessive. I admire the entrepreneurial spirit of a cohort of teenage students who manage to acquire alcohol. No doubt this spirit then impacts on their ability to become entrepreneurs in the more accepted sense of the word later on in life. It also makes you think about your own freshers experience. Many of my friendships were created due to the embarssment of hazy nights...I genuinely can't imagine not being able to go to the pub/bar forthe last 3 years.

Nice: everyone here is exceptionally nice. I think partly due to the fact I have an accent (oh my god, like, have you met the queen?!) but just generally people are nice. I had my hair cut and the barber practically offered to drive me around town looking for odds and ends. Checkout staff not only wish you a nice day but

Can do attitude: things get done here, if the rules don't allow something then the rules are changed if thgere is no good resaon not to. People seem to have a great deal more responsibility compared to relaitve positions in the UK

Cheap: almost everything here seems to be a lot cheaper. and a lot cheaper than differential tax rates would explain.

Tax: in Britain VAT is included in prices, if something is five pounds its five pounds. over here the prices you see are not the prices you get. for instance a $5 meal at subway (equivalent of feeding sub-saharan family for 10 days) is actually $5.32 for instance. a $50 shop is actually $60. You constantly realise just how much youy are being taxed and it immediately makes you more right wing

Hills: its bloody hilly around here, cyclists have calf muscles the size of tree trunks (maybe from the cheese/cereal/bacon that offers larger glutes, quads and triceps? who knows)

Obsession with transfats:"this product contains no transfats" - fantastic, I'm a big fan of no transfats. I don't really know why. I'm a big fan of antioxidants as well. I have no idea why antioxidants are something I want and transfats aren't. Que sera. What I do find amusing though is the products that contain no transfats generally have enough fat to clog my arteries until December. My other favo(u)rite: this product contains BOTH natural AND artifical colorings! - Well good for you, hitting all the bases there. Don't see why you need to advertise this. Maybe it helps explain why canned soup helps improve concentraiton in french lessons by 50%?

sarcasm: british sarcasm goes down very very badly or very very well, seemingly impossible to tell. I'm staying well away from sex jokes, cynicism, 'potty humour', obvious exaggeration faux racism, sexism, any other ism. Anyone who knows me will realise that this leaves me with absolutely no chat whatsoever...

meritocracy: in britain cambridge is linked with lots of views on elitism etc. Here everyone is impressed that you studied there or at cornell. This is something that people seem to hope for their children and ask everything they can about how you did it, what you thought. In comparison to Britain where people go oooh a bit posh that isn't it


Anyway enough for one night. Before anyone jumps on this I know that most of this stuff is circumstancial, not generalisbale. I also realise my spelling and grammar are bad. heck this is not good enough to even be published on comment is free. If you don't like it dont read it