When in Rome

All the stores are decorated for Halloween. I thought I'd get into the spirit so yesterday I made a Jack-o-Lantern. He's not as scary as I would have liked (I never was much of an artist) but I'm happy with my first attempt.

Today I'm making pumpkin soup.

Super-Size Me: Adventures with American Food

I just have to say something about American food for those who haven't been here. All foreigners here feel they have to discuss it and compare notes whenever they meet and it's not that hard to see why; you'd expect the food to be the same as other Western countries but, in so many ways, it just isn't.

The bread it sweet. I don't understand why, but they add glucose syrup to all bread here. You know the hamburger buns at Maccas, all the bread is pretty much like that. You can buy wheat bread (light brown) or Italian style but they still have added sugar!

Everyone who comes to American for a holiday comments on how fatty everything is. They don't seem to really bother trying to keep their meat lean. Supermarket chicken and beef are very fatty but the bacon is unbelievable. Bacon is not middle rashers like in Australia, the American cut is about 90% fat!! (I normally trim the fat off the edge of my bacon but when I tried that with American bacon I had nothing left!) More surprising is that they do have a lot of low fat products, just not the ones you'd expect - like a low-fat ice-cream with choc-chips and cookie-dough in it!

The cheese is orange! (Again, think Maccas.)

Not many Americans drink hot tea (Southerners drink a lot of iced tea) since the Boston Tea Party so they haven't discovered the electric kettle yet - they use a stove-top whistling kettle. Everyone seems to drink drip-filter coffee which is ok but most cafes serve it too so it's hard to find anything stronger. And iced-coffee often comes black and unsweetened (being cold it's very hard to get sugar to dissolve)!

One of the difficult things for me cooking for myself is that there are not many short-cut sauces. Most of the instant sauces are for very boring dishes (eg macaroni cheese) and contain tons of MSG!

All these things I'm getting used to avoiding but the problems are sometimes more fundamental. I mean that Americans have different taste-buds to us. They have cherry-flavoured soft drinks! That one caught me unawares a couple of times now.

I have been trying to eat sensibly and I feel a little reassured when I see that the staples here are enriched with vitamins: bread and rice have iron and folate added; milk has vitamins D and K added. I had assumed that the hot sunny Indiana summers would be enough to prevent rickets but maybe the winters are longer and darker than I'm expecting. The cold weather is starting already, but I'll save that whinge for another post.

My weekend

On Saturday I went the the Farmers' Market again. I'm trying to get along every week and buy something then I'll be forced to eat whatever vegetables I buy and, with any luck, I might be able to stave off the scurvy. I bought a large pumpkin which I plan to make into a Jack-o-Lantern. I've never done it before but I've seen enough American TV to have a fair idea of what it's supposed to look like!

Saturday arvo a futon was delivered. I've really been wanting a lounge for a while and eventually got around to buying one through the uni's classifieds website (I've been buying lots of things through the classifieds but no jousting sticks yet). I'm pretty happy with it because, unlike some sofas, it's long enough for me to stretch right out on when I'm reading or watching TV and if anyone comes to visit it can fold out into a double bed. I think my apartment is fully furnished now!

Saturday night I went to see Tom Stoppard's Arcadia with HPS folks. The script was fantastic (I'd never seen or read Stoppard before) the acting very good and the English accents decent (on the whole, one minor character was terrible and the others' accents did break down a bit when excited). I really enjoyed it. I'm already planning to go see their next production, Macbeth, with some other friends.

Now Entering the Blogosphere!

When I first came to America I had planned to send out emails en masse quite frequently. But after three emails (posted below) I ran out of interesting things to say...

Then it occurred to me:
What do people do when they have nothing interesting to say?
They start a blog!

So if you want to feel like we're still in touch, bookmark this page -- I'll be posting inane bits and pieces here as frequently as I can.

Disparaging The Boot is a Bootable Offence!

Today I was asked about The Boot.
I wondered how long it would take. 1 month, not bad.

The maintenance guy for my building is about my age and a Simpsons fan. We discussed the toilet fallacy and he seemed pretty knowledgeable about the toilets of the world so I thought he was joking when he first broached the subject of Bootings. But the thing is he was neither joking nor completely stupid: he had heard about the rattan beatings they give in Singapore and wondered if we really had some bizarre corporal punishment that Matt Groening was trying to parody... I dunno, I was expecting to be asked about the size of our beers or whether we call bullfrogs "chuzwozzers" but the Boot question really caught me off-guard.

The only other really stupid question so far was "Have you ever seen a kangaroo?" from an Indian guy. His Indian friend pointed out that this would be like me asking him "Have you ever seen an elephant?" and it stopped there.

I thought by this time I would have more anecdotes about how Americans see us. I think it might be that they can't tell the difference between my accent and the English. Oh, well, I'm sure I will get plenty more in my time here.

Getting Started

I've just finished my first week of classes; finally I've started what I came here for.

It does feel a little strange going back to coursework after 2 1/2 years but I've been eased into it pretty smoothly. I'm so glad I got here early, all that walking around campus during the break helped me to get my bearings so that, now the campus is bustling, I don't have to think too hard and try to orientate a map. Luckily I've bought most of the necessities for my apartment so I can concentrate on finding the right books etc.

There are 6 other incoming grad students in masters and doctoral programs, so it's not too hard to know them all. But each of my classes have about 20 students because the older grad students are there too, even some students from other departments. I guess that's what happens when the system is geared as a whole grad school. The atmosphere seems pretty similar to Australia: not too formal; class discussion as well as pure lectures.

The orientation party last Saturday night was pretty good. It was at the house of one of the professors, Colin Allen, so I think the department must be pretty social. I got to talk to a few people including, for the first time, my supervisor, Jordi Cat. He was unconcerned about my choice of classes (I had already emailed him about this) but wanted to make sure I was settling in ok. We discussed groceries at some length, where to buy lean meat etc (seems all foreigners commiserate about the quality of American food!). And I've now been invited to a welcome party for the Philosophy dept, where I'm not enrolled yet. It seems HPS and Philosophy get along so well that they are happy to invite each other to social events.

I think the best thing is my timetable -- none of my classes start before 2.30 pm. (One class is on at a very strange time, 5.30-8pm! but there's a break in the middle for pizza!) Makes a nice change from getting up at 6.30am to catch the 7.52 train from Emu Plains! I've heard that Descartes preferred never to get out of bed before noon and did most of his philosophy in his dressing-gown, looks like I'll be able to follow his lead!

Greetings from Indiana, the Crossroads of America

I've been in my apartment here in Bloomington, Indiana for a week now and am settling in well. The weather is stinking hot and very humid. But I guess I should savour it before winter comes and it starts snowing.

When I first arrived I stayed in one of the dorms temporarily but it wasn't the most comfortable place and they set a 3-night limit on my stay. So I looked at a few apartments and, after hearing from various people where not to live, I found a tiny 1-bedroom apartment 10-15 min walk south of campus, which is perfect for me.

It's also walking distance from a laundromat, a big supermarket and a small international grocer. Before I left I heard horror stories about not being able to get various Australian products but this little grocer sells Cadbury chocolate and even Milo (but not Vegemite, so I'm still glad I brought that with me)! And Bloomington even has a farmers' market on Saturdays with real Amish selling veges!

Orientation was pretty straightforward. They didn't make me take the English test! But I think I'm the only international student this year with English as my first language. The others are mainly from Korea, India and China, which makes me feel far less of a foreigner, especially when they assume I'm American!

I've completed the special orientation for international students and have another week before classes start. Talking to other students I found that Business, IT and Law all have week-long orientations for their programs. My department has a 2-hour meeting Wednesday arvo and then a party Saturday night!