Brad's England Journal- November Entries 

Monday, November 4, 1996

After arriving back from the District conference last week I found out that Denis and Florence were setting up a dinner party for Thursday night. They were going to invite around 25 people and get 5 or so people to help cook. At the planning meeting we had, however, the list of names grew to about 35 people. After much debate it was decided to charge 5 pounds per person to cover the wine and food. This was later changed to 4 pounds, and then at the party to three pounds, which didn't even provide enough to cover expenses.

In any case, Kristin (one of my flat mates) and I agreed to help cook. We would do some chicken drum sticks together and I would cook a tuna noodle casserole. We went down to the Bull Ring on Wednesday and bought some chicken. The Bull Ring is a large permanent street market, partially indoors and partially outdoors. Vendors have their own stalls and you can buy just about anything there. We bought about 12 pounds of chicken there for 10 pounds, which was quite reasonable. We probably got the good price since we arrived at closing time and the butcher needed to get rid of the rest of his meat (the meat was actually looking a little suspect so we made sure to cook it well).

Anyway, on Thursday the party went fine. The chicken and casserole were both eaten completely, so the must have been okay. After the dinner most of us went over to the Guild of Students where they were having a Halloween Dance Night, Halloween Trop (they have the same every Thursday called Club Tropicana, but had a special one for Halloween).

This past weekend was my first weekend orienteering trip. We went to New Forest, in the south of England. On the way down we stopped at Caroline's, the O-Club captain's, house for a proper English Tea. Everybody had a good laugh at me, the American, drinking the tea with a pinkie up in the air. Saturday night we stayed at a scout hut in Winchester and ate at a pub. Then on Sunday morning we went over to the orienteering meet which was a National Event. To my shock I found that I had a 8.6 km course, where the only one I had done previously was 2.3 km. Despite this I went ahead and decided to give it my best shot. New Forest is notable in part for its indigenous wildlife, specifically wild ponies and pigs. The start of the meet was slightly disrupted by a mother pig and her 12 piglets who were rooting around for food! The course was a disaster for me, to find the second control point (out of 12) took me over an hour. Fortunately the remaining 10 only took another 2 hours or so, and I finished with a time of 3h16m, the slowest time in my age group. The main problem was that I mixed up the scale of the map and kept overshooting the second control point. I won't make that mistake again!

On Sunday night, after returning from New Forest, I went to a big bonfire celebration with my host counselor, Dr. Yannamani. Bonfire Night is unique to England and is officially November 5th, but it is celebrated on the weekend before and after that date. It commemorates the attempted bombing of Parliament by Guy Fawkes and comrades, and the foiling of the plan and execution of the would be perpetrators. Kids are supposed to build a straw man, called a Guy and tow him around collecting money ("A penny for the Guy"). They then burn him in a bonfire, but nowadays mainly people have bonfires and fireworks. The bonfire we went to was held on the farm of one of the Rotarians of my host club. There was also a small fair and a large fireworks display. The bonfire itself was huge as well, easily 100 feet in diameter (picture of me with bonfire at left). In addition the Group Study Exchange (GSE) team from India attended (see picture at right). GSE is another Rotary program where 4 young professionals and a Rotary Host go from one country to another, and people from the host country go to their country.

Tonight I went up to Tamworth to watch the GSE team give their presentation to the Tamworth-Anker Club. They did a very good job, showing slides and giving a talk. They also performed a traditional Indian dance, which was fun to watch. One of the GSE team members confided to me that they didn't really know all the steps, but they looked fine to me and nobody else seemed to notice. 

Wednesday, November 13, 1996

Well, two months have now gone by since my arrival in Britain. In summary, it has been a busy and eventful two months, as is easy to see by looking back through my journal entries. I hope the rest of the year goes as well, and am sure it will be filled with new experiences.

This past weekend was the Anglican Society retreat at Southam. We stayed in an old school and alternated time off to relax with some bible study. I have to confess that I was feeling a little worn out last week and decided to start a game of Civilization II on the computer. The game is notoriously long (one game can last 20-30 hours), so I seldom indulge myself. Since I started the game only last Thursday I spent most of my free time playing the game, which is not very social. The point of the weekend was to get away from it all and relax, however, so I don't feel to bad about it. It did help me to unwind some as well. We did study one passage that was very interesting written by Paul on Love (Corinthians? I must look it up again later). I think it gave a good definition of love, whether or not you are a Christian. It said that love is/does:

It also said that love is not: This definition of Love seems perfect to me, particularly the love of a parent to a child, or presumably Christ to his people. Although I am sure much of what was discussed that weekend will fade over time, this one discussion will not (I hope).

Yesterday night was my second Rotary Speech at the Redditch-Kingfisher Club. It was a younger club than Bromsgrove where I spoke previously, and also an evening club. I spoke about my background, impressions of England, and the Internet and how I am using it to keep people up to date about what is going on (namely this journal). A lot of the members were pretty computer savvy, so they understood what I was talking about and asked a lot of questions. Because it was an evening club the time was more flexible which was nice and allowed me to answer more questions.

Tuesday, November 19, 1996

Oakley Court Covered in Snow
The Trees Outside My Window
with a Light Dusting of Snow

Snowy Scenes in Birmingham
This morning Artur, one of the students in my course, came by just as I was waking up to talk about a project we are working on for HCI, and he told me to look outside the window. I was shocked to find snow coming down outside, mainly since I was told it only snows once or twice per year. Some of my flatmates asked if I had ever seen snow before and I assured them that 4 years at Cornell in up-state New York had exposed me to plenty of snow. A couple of pictures of the snow are above.

Today is also significant since it is my brother's birthday. Happy Birthday, Curt!! I sent him an email but will wait to give him one present for his Birthday and Christmas to save on shipping costs.

I also think that I have finally straightened out the financial problems with Rotary and the University. Briefly, the University wanted me to pay tuition for the whole year at once or pay a 6% penalty to pay in installments. If I paid the University (which I have to do to get the receipt to send Rotary), then I wouldn't have enough money for living until the second payment comes in January. So, I have now arranged to get the payment from Rotary in early December if I send in my report and payment receipt now. This still doesn't give me money to live off of, but my bank has agreed to give me a 500 pound loan to tide me through until the second payment. I finished the report, and paid the tuition and sent everything off, so all should be set. A copy of the report is online here.

Last Friday they had an international dress night at the Social Centre which was a lot of fun. The British guys in the flat went as gentleman from various English periods, two of them as Black Adder (2 and 3 I think). I didn't know what to wear, since there is no real traditional American dress. I didn't want to rent a cowboy outfit or military costume, since it was both expensive and not that traditional anyway. In the end I decided to go as a stereotypical American tourist. I wore black leather shoes with white socks pulled up high, a huge pair of shorts with a pillow stuffed in them to make me look heavy set, and a camera around the neck (see picture of all of us at left). One American at the party came up to me and said she thought I was insulting our own country, but I think that you have to be able to laugh at yourselves. Frequently we Americans, myself included, get so involved with touring that we forget how we appear to the people in countries we are touring. As proof of this I had many foreigners from all over Europe comment on how appropriate the costume was. They had a competition for best dress and I made it to the final round before losing out to an Indian girl with a large group of supporters.

Last night was a dinner for all of the scholars at Knowle and Dorridge Club. They had one scholar from each country speak, and Jennifer Haney, the other American in the district got the draw. They picked up all of the scholars from the University of Birmingham area at the University train station. Although Jennifer doesn't go to the University, she lives in the next town over and they asked her to meet their as well. Unfortunately this meant she had to take public transport, and she was over twenty-five minutes late so the rest of us scholars left without her. Because of this they asked me to step in and give the talk at the last minute in her place. I was trying to come up with what to stay at the last minute when Jennifer showed up, having taken a Taxi. It was a relief for me, and Jennifer got to give the talk she had already prepared. The picture at left is of a few of the Knowle and Dorridge Rotarians with the scholars.

Sunday, November 24, 1996

Well, the snow from last Tuesday lasted all of one day before it melted and was gone. It snowed again yesterday morning but was melted by the end of the day. That makes two snows and I was told they usually only get two snows per year, but somehow I suspect we will get more this year. Everybody has also said that it is unusual to have snow so early.

This Thursday was a dance in Coventry held by a Rotaract Club down there. Lorena, one of the scholars from Argentina, has joined that club and asked all of us to come. Taiji, one of the scholars from Japan at the University of Birmingham, and I went down to Coventry for the dance. They had a great jazz band playing, but unfortunately most of the songs were very old. This wasn't a problem in itself, but a lot of Rotarians who also attended the dance took their dancing very seriously and new all of the dance steps. All of us young people (the Rotaracters and Scholars) didn't know the steps, however, so we were too embarrassed to go out and dance. Finally at the end they played some songs that were more freeform and we all got up and danced.

On the way back from the dance an interesting happened that you probably wouldn't see in the US. The train that we were on was almost empty and a Security Guard that was just getting off work sat down and started talking with Taiji and me. We talked about where we were from, American football, and politics. The conversation was at a fairly intelligent level, and it surprised me. I don't think it would ever happen in the US. (Perhaps it is rare here as well-- in any case it was interesting).

I started to get sick this past Friday, mainly a sore throat and chest cold. I had intended to go to an orienteering meet at Aston University today, but unfortunately there was a lot of noise on last night, so I was both sick and tired this morning and thought it prudent to stay in bed and get better, rather than running around some fields with a chest cold. There will always be other times.

Saturday, November 30, 1996

Well, another busy week has gone by. Thursday was Thanksgiving, a holiday of little significance over here, but one of some importance back home. I missed not being with family and having a big meal, but did get some flavor of it when I went to the Handsworth Rotary Club. Handsworth meets every Thursday at Lunch, so every Thanksgiving they have the Pub where they meet make Turkey and stuffing and invite any American Scholars in the district to come and speak. Jennifer and I are the two American Scholars so we were invited. This time I drew giving the talk and Jennifer just gave a short introduction of herself to the club. I prepared a special speech giving a history of Thanksgiving and talking about its personal significance to me. I finished off with an Iroqouis Indian Thanksgiving prayer. Overall the talk seemed to be pretty well received. I also one the raffle and got a bottle of wine.

Thursday continued to be busy, as that night I went with AngSoc to a play in Sutton-Coldfield called "Groove". The play was billed as a tale of two single mothers living in the psychedelic sixties, and can best be described as bizarre but interesting. There were only two actresses, one playing a single mother in London whose boyfriend was thrown in jail, and the other a Lesbian who had tried to propagate the female race through artificial insemination only to have a boy. There were a lot of light effects and they projected a sort of multimedia film onto a screen behind the action a lot of the time. I am still not sure quite what to think about it.

The busy week continued Friday night with the Nutcracker. The Pearce's invited me to attend, and I met them down town at the Hippodrome where it was showing. I went in early and did some shopping and indulged in dinner at Pizza Hut before the show. The production itself was marvelous with some pretty spectacular sets. Although I have seen the Nutcracker before, each time it is still magical and captivating. The combination of the music and story is like seeing the world through the eyes of a child once again.