Norwich: Ghetto Living
It occurs to me that here I am, sitting in Norwich, without any legitimate explication of how I got here, what it is like, or what I'm doing here. (What I'm NOT doing here: the women.) So I will attempt to address that here.
One of the things about UEA is that, whereas Dickinson provides a nurturant community with such things as meal plans, declining balance accounts, no-charge laundry machines, cheap printing facilities, and such like, UEA basically tosses you into itself with little or no guidance whatsoever. Figure it out yourself, dumbass, it cackles. This might be OK at a university in the States, where if I need something or run into trouble, I can at least be assured that my medical insurance card will be understood by the friendly people at the hospitals. More so, if I've forgotten some necessary implement for life (say, pillowcases, or more seriously, a cooking pot), a 90-minute drive will get me back to Baltimore where I can obtain whatever it is I've forgotten.
Here, I have to spring and buy it.
I'm more likely to just go without, being of the frugal sort.
So, some examples of how I'm managing, in true Ghetto-Fabulous style, to adjust to independent living in a (moderately) foreign country:
1. I only have one plate.
2. And one set of utensils.
3. Yes, I use dish soap. Geez.
4. It is possible to buy about anything cheaply if you are not overly concerned with quality.
5. I cook spaghetti out of a saucepan that is too small for the spaghetti--so it kinda sticks out at an angle when put in.
6. I simmered pasta sauce in a wok the other night.
7. A Hefty bag is sufficient to transport clothes to and from the laundrette.
8. Wear sandals regardless of the weather and avoid having to wash, and by extrapolation match, socks.
9. Place bread in the fridge to allow it to keep longer.
10. Who needs a pasta strainer when you have a steady hand? (Keep in mind we're cooking pasta out of a saucepan.)
11. Lacking a ladle, I stir cooking pasta with a spatula. Gets the job done at any rate.
12. Always reuse your water bottles.
And then there is the UEA campus itself. At Dickinson we're accustomed to limestone buildings, each with a distinctive character and unique identity. There is Bosler, Denny, Old West, Althouse--the list goes on. The UEA campus is no less planned, but instead of limestone the prevailing theme is concrete. So much so, in fact, that the student newspaper's name is "Concrete." Seriously, UEA looks like the headquarters of some Federal agency in DC that you never knew existed. It's a Stalinist architect's dream. The planners must have asked themselves "How much concrete can we get on this campus?" and their resulting answer still wasn't enough. And then, once they realized how...INSTITUTIONAL the whole thing looked, they added a ridiculous waterfall/pond thing entering the central square on a diagonal, almost as an afterthought, to give it some hint of life. A far cry indeed from Dickinson's manicured quads. And instead of getting up each morning to go to class in Denny Hall, I get to go to "Arts II." No name or character. Just "Arts II." Dreadful. The building is so large and long that it's segmented off from itself--you can't necessarily get from one end of the building to the other on the same floor by traveling in a straight line. Moreover, room numbers are assigned in a horseshoe pattern, such that (for example) Room 2.01 is directly across from Room 2.99. This makes finding classes extraordinarily confusing if you do not enter the building in close proximity to either 2.01 or 2.99.
The nice thing, though, is that all of my classes (all two of them!) are located in the same building, except on Mondays, when my Democratic Theory lecture meets in the Lecture Theatre. Which sounds more exciting than it actually is.
Dorms are nothing to write home about. I live on a flat with five others (all English), each of us in a single room with its own shower pod/toilet. This is a remarkable concept originally pioneered in maximum-security detention facilities and now it has been, appropriately, applied to university student living. There is a shower curtain to divide the "shower" from the rest of the pod but this does not prevent the floor from flooding, as the drainage is not so good. Moreover, the "hot" and "cold" directional arrows on the temperature knob have been reversed. Suffice to say this was discovered a posteriori. Each flat also has its own kitchen, which has everything a kitchen should have save for a dishwasher and oven. We have a grill/toaster oven sort of thing but I am not quite sure how to use it. For the moment, I'm sticking to things that are compatible with the range.
Rooms are cleaned every day, with the shower pod cleaned every Monday and the kitchen every Thursday. By "cleaned" I mean either (a) the rubbish bin is emptied or (b) surfaces are disinfected, as appropriate. The cleaner knocks twice and, using their master key, enters your room regardless of any protest offered. So it was rather shocking, at 9:30am on my first full day in Norwich and just out of the shower, to see a waifish, young Englishwoman with pink hair (with two strips shaved out kinda Mohawk-like) and studs in her lower lip and nose. I'm sure she's perfectly charming. It was just visually arresting, is all. And all the more so because I was in the process of putting on pants.
Norwich is a lovely town, though in England it passes for city. I use the term "town" because the central "urban" area is only a square mile, and though there is all sorts of shopping and a train station and bus routes and open-air markets and pubs and an airport (just north of town, with daily flights to Amsterdam) and medieval churches out the wazoo and a huge Anglican cathedral, it is still pretty small by my standards. The cathedral has the second-tallest spire of any in the UK but you can't necessarily see it from all parts of the city. That's not because there are skyscrapers or other architectural impediments to viewing it; but that the town is deceptively hilly. The town does, however, have more medieval churches and buildings than you can shake a stick at, and some of the city walls are even still intact. Of course, the walls are made of flint, so the city's squared away unless the barbarian hordes have learned to make fire. Apparently there's even been some discussion of rebuilding the old city gates, which would really add a nice flavor to the town, I think.
One of the things about UEA is that, whereas Dickinson provides a nurturant community with such things as meal plans, declining balance accounts, no-charge laundry machines, cheap printing facilities, and such like, UEA basically tosses you into itself with little or no guidance whatsoever. Figure it out yourself, dumbass, it cackles. This might be OK at a university in the States, where if I need something or run into trouble, I can at least be assured that my medical insurance card will be understood by the friendly people at the hospitals. More so, if I've forgotten some necessary implement for life (say, pillowcases, or more seriously, a cooking pot), a 90-minute drive will get me back to Baltimore where I can obtain whatever it is I've forgotten.
Here, I have to spring and buy it.
I'm more likely to just go without, being of the frugal sort.
So, some examples of how I'm managing, in true Ghetto-Fabulous style, to adjust to independent living in a (moderately) foreign country:
1. I only have one plate.
2. And one set of utensils.
3. Yes, I use dish soap. Geez.
4. It is possible to buy about anything cheaply if you are not overly concerned with quality.
5. I cook spaghetti out of a saucepan that is too small for the spaghetti--so it kinda sticks out at an angle when put in.
6. I simmered pasta sauce in a wok the other night.
7. A Hefty bag is sufficient to transport clothes to and from the laundrette.
8. Wear sandals regardless of the weather and avoid having to wash, and by extrapolation match, socks.
9. Place bread in the fridge to allow it to keep longer.
10. Who needs a pasta strainer when you have a steady hand? (Keep in mind we're cooking pasta out of a saucepan.)
11. Lacking a ladle, I stir cooking pasta with a spatula. Gets the job done at any rate.
12. Always reuse your water bottles.
And then there is the UEA campus itself. At Dickinson we're accustomed to limestone buildings, each with a distinctive character and unique identity. There is Bosler, Denny, Old West, Althouse--the list goes on. The UEA campus is no less planned, but instead of limestone the prevailing theme is concrete. So much so, in fact, that the student newspaper's name is "Concrete." Seriously, UEA looks like the headquarters of some Federal agency in DC that you never knew existed. It's a Stalinist architect's dream. The planners must have asked themselves "How much concrete can we get on this campus?" and their resulting answer still wasn't enough. And then, once they realized how...INSTITUTIONAL the whole thing looked, they added a ridiculous waterfall/pond thing entering the central square on a diagonal, almost as an afterthought, to give it some hint of life. A far cry indeed from Dickinson's manicured quads. And instead of getting up each morning to go to class in Denny Hall, I get to go to "Arts II." No name or character. Just "Arts II." Dreadful. The building is so large and long that it's segmented off from itself--you can't necessarily get from one end of the building to the other on the same floor by traveling in a straight line. Moreover, room numbers are assigned in a horseshoe pattern, such that (for example) Room 2.01 is directly across from Room 2.99. This makes finding classes extraordinarily confusing if you do not enter the building in close proximity to either 2.01 or 2.99.
The nice thing, though, is that all of my classes (all two of them!) are located in the same building, except on Mondays, when my Democratic Theory lecture meets in the Lecture Theatre. Which sounds more exciting than it actually is.
Dorms are nothing to write home about. I live on a flat with five others (all English), each of us in a single room with its own shower pod/toilet. This is a remarkable concept originally pioneered in maximum-security detention facilities and now it has been, appropriately, applied to university student living. There is a shower curtain to divide the "shower" from the rest of the pod but this does not prevent the floor from flooding, as the drainage is not so good. Moreover, the "hot" and "cold" directional arrows on the temperature knob have been reversed. Suffice to say this was discovered a posteriori. Each flat also has its own kitchen, which has everything a kitchen should have save for a dishwasher and oven. We have a grill/toaster oven sort of thing but I am not quite sure how to use it. For the moment, I'm sticking to things that are compatible with the range.
Rooms are cleaned every day, with the shower pod cleaned every Monday and the kitchen every Thursday. By "cleaned" I mean either (a) the rubbish bin is emptied or (b) surfaces are disinfected, as appropriate. The cleaner knocks twice and, using their master key, enters your room regardless of any protest offered. So it was rather shocking, at 9:30am on my first full day in Norwich and just out of the shower, to see a waifish, young Englishwoman with pink hair (with two strips shaved out kinda Mohawk-like) and studs in her lower lip and nose. I'm sure she's perfectly charming. It was just visually arresting, is all. And all the more so because I was in the process of putting on pants.
Norwich is a lovely town, though in England it passes for city. I use the term "town" because the central "urban" area is only a square mile, and though there is all sorts of shopping and a train station and bus routes and open-air markets and pubs and an airport (just north of town, with daily flights to Amsterdam) and medieval churches out the wazoo and a huge Anglican cathedral, it is still pretty small by my standards. The cathedral has the second-tallest spire of any in the UK but you can't necessarily see it from all parts of the city. That's not because there are skyscrapers or other architectural impediments to viewing it; but that the town is deceptively hilly. The town does, however, have more medieval churches and buildings than you can shake a stick at, and some of the city walls are even still intact. Of course, the walls are made of flint, so the city's squared away unless the barbarian hordes have learned to make fire. Apparently there's even been some discussion of rebuilding the old city gates, which would really add a nice flavor to the town, I think.