Letter Home (SHINE Competition Entry)

[This is something I whipped up for some international student competition a few months ago I wasn’t planning on entering but at the last minute decided to have a go at. Didn’t win anything in the end, but it was fun to write. Thanks to all of you who tell me my stories are entertaining, whether they actually are or not.]

 

Dear Mum and Dad,

Life in the UK is good (oh, I learned the difference between ‘England’, ‘Britain’, and ‘the UK’, by the way). More than good; it’s fantastic. My main source of information on Britain having been childhood literature like Robin Hood and Harry Potter, I had some pretty fanciful perceptions which I fully expected to be disappointed. They were not.

Sure, there aren’t wizards flying around on broomsticks (that I know of), but history and culture is positively oozing from every building I see. Before I left Japan, when I would tell people I was going to Bradford, aside from never once failing to have the link between my name and that of my destination pointed out, I certainly received a number of surprised looks from those who’d heard anything more about the city. However, the slight worry that began to stir in me was unfounded. It’s lovely here. As you saw, I couldn’t help but snap loads of pictures as soon as I arrived, and not just because of ingrained Japanese tourist tendencies.

I quickly took the opportunity to do a bit of traveling around West Yorkshire, which only served to confirm my amazement. In addition to modern city features such as malls and museums in Bradford and the nearby Leeds, there’s also wide countryside, rustic villages, massive ruins, the whole gamut. It might just be the faery-tale lenses on my eyes, but I think colours are more vivid here. The sky definitely is; it’s certainly not dreary grey as often as I was led to believe.

Speaking of added colour, since coming here I’ve expanded my vocabulary with words such as ‘rather’, ‘smashing’, ‘cheers’, and ‘yoright’, which basically means, “What’s up?”. I’ve also learned to spell properly, but it seems that I don’t pronounce things quite correctly.

On that front, however, I have had a kind of success. Like many others, before coming, I was guilty of assuming there to be a sort of ‘standard’ accent, like there is in Japan and, to a certain extent, the US. There doesn’t seem to be, or if there is, it’s certainly not to be found in Yorkshire, much less this uni. To the contrary, I’ve been surrounded by a mad swirl of different pronunciations since arriving, but am slowly starting to match accents to regions and cities. Fortunately, I picked up early on that no matter how curious I am to see whether my fledgling instincts are correct, I must never ask, “Is your accent Scottish or Irish?”.

Even though I had very little idea what I’d be studying in my chosen course, “peace studies”, this too has turned out to be excellent. I’m learning so much about, well, everything, and because we’re given a range of essay questions to choose from, I basically get to study what I want. One day I read all about the Chilean coup of 1973, the next day I went from knowing nothing about the British political system to having a much better understanding of it than either the American or Japanese ones. This culminated in getting to sit in on a Parliamentary session in Westminster, which most people would probably find boring but for me was, like all else, enchanting. It was a bit of a struggle towards the end of term to finish all my essays, but I was able to pull through and emerge into the sunlight of five glorious weeks of break.

I had the most amazing Christmas and New Year’s experience because I chose to spend a chunk of that break in London, the mecca of my magical expectations for this island. For twenty days straight I walked the streets, took in the sights, visited museums, and stayed at strangers’ houses thanks to a wonderful travel website called Couchsurfing. Between that, trying out hostels for the first time, and Megabus, I was able to have this entire adventure for quite cheaply; in fact, with my remaining few days of break I did the same with Edinburgh and was blown away, again. I’m absolutely chuffed to be making friends not only at uni but ‘all throughout the land’.

People ask me what my favourite thing in London was, and I suspect they wouldn’t be entirely satisfied with ‘standing amidst broad, old, tall, new buildings with my senses wide open, soaking in the the very spirit of the city itself’. But that’s the truest answer and also a pretty fitting description of my experience in Great Britain in general. It’s exceeded my expectations in virtually every aspect, and often I feel it’s almost unfair that my life should be so good.

I suppose this is what all those hours of teaching English last year really were for. And the complexity of getting academic transcripts and bank statements from both Japan and the US. And the scholarship essays. And the risk of committing three years to a place I’d only seen the website for. Well worth it.

So that’s been my first few months trying to convince the natives how great their country is, and I’m looking forward to what the next semester, and next few years, will unveil.

Love you much, and yes, I’ll try to be on Skype more regularly this year.

-Bradley

I Get Close To Finished (Another Essay Post-Op)

But then my perfectionist nature retorts, “But you’ve got an entire night ahead of you of empty hours, surely you can make your essay better than that.”

And I comply, and stay awake, and trudge through, and produce another what-my-sleepy-surreal-semi-consciousness-deems-a-masterpiece.

You don’t have to tune in for the battle, you just get to enjoy the fruits: another dark-of-the-night post-essay blog entry. I do so enjoy these.

Even though I put it off and put it off, I probably get more than the average person’s share of fulfilment out of completing an essay. To me, almost regardless of the topic, it’s a work of art – words are clay to be crafted into a sturdy yet attractive sculpture that is not too weak at any point and yet not ugly in any way either (blog posts, on the other hand, are rarely more than the spewing ground for disjointed thoughts).

Bradford’s essay submission process (at least the Peace Studies Department’s) consists of an online Turnitin submission, then a paper submission of two copies of the essay (plus official filled-in cover page) to the undergraduate office. Not wanting to risk the library printing queues I’ve heard horror stories about but never actually seen, I took a four-in-the-morning trip to the library to get my two copies.

(Here’s a hugely entertaining video about four in the morning. Watch it. It’s great. )

Oh, and before I redressed- er, re-dressed…and left my room, as I was filling in the cover page, I realised that it was 3:33 a.m. on 3/3/11. Cool. What to wish for? Well, I thanked God that He was nice enough to get me through another one, and, well, my clock wishes (11:11, 22:22, and whatnot) are always the same, so I didn’t take much time on that. It’s funny, though…

And I set out. The cool quiet feels great. Clear. And the birds chirping…wait what? Don’t birds only chirp in the daytime? Stupid Bradford birds. But have you seen the rats…oh my oh my. This actually scares me. I live here.

I quite enjoy going to the library in the middle of the night, though I don’t do it much. I love that it’s open all night on week nights. In addition to the security guard, there’s always at least a few people there. I bet every night there’s at least one person pulling an all-nighter, or at least close to it. We should do a library sleepover sometime. Ha ha!

Tonight was no exception, and there were even two guys from Peace Studies there working on their essays. I couldn’t do that. I’ve found that I have to get out of my room, to the library, in advance of deadlines so that I don’t get distracted by the Internet, but when it comes down to the final stretch, I need to be in my room with ample snackage, break-time entertainment, and music on tap. It’s a fine-tuned science that the perfectionist voice in my head puts me through. I do intend to do better for the next deadlines, just like I intended to for this one. But this one wasn’t actually as bad as the last one, which was two essays. But I wrote about that; you can read about it.

After struggling with the technology a bit I extracted my eighteen pages (two copies), had a short chat, returned home. Home. Something like that.

Hey, I say it’s home if you walk in, press play, and have the opening notes to ‘Fireflies’ waft comfortingly out of the speakers (the aggressive notes of Slash’s solo on Daughtry’s ‘What I Want’ are ‘wafting’ out of it right now. Yes).

So I rest in the music. Not feeling much like sleep after the victory and the stroll in the crisp last-vestiges-of-winter air. I use hyphens too much. But I do use them properly…I would give you a link to explain that comment, but I can’t remember the name of the article. No matter.

You know, I think Planet Earth does turn slowly. And though it is hard to say I’d rather stay awake when I’m asleep, on nights like these it’s easy to say I’d rather be awake than asleep. For a while.

But he’s right, of course – nothing is ever as it seems.

Sometimes I like to revel in lines. Something you’ve heard a hundred times can bound up in new meaning on nights like these.

Because my dreams are bursting at the seams.

(Let’s pretend I ended with that line, and that everything below was actually somewhere above it, ate?)

I’m going to Nottingham tomorrow! Er, today. In twelve hours. Oo. I should sleep if I want to work out, do laundry, pack, and go to seminar.

Yeah, Robin Hood, bla bla bla. Going to see a friend from Japan. Will be the first person from outside the UK sphere for me to meet since coming here.

I guess I’ll go to bed now. I don’t wanna be one of those unfulfilled-life people who operate by feeling. Wake up tomorrow at…say…9:30ish, gym. Yay!

Oh, and I get to shave tomorrow (‘get to’ shave? Going to shave. And be all soo-waaave). Double yay!

I only say yay at four in the morning.

Day 16: Forty-Two Hours

Like I said, I had a lot planned for Thursday. Didn’t mean for everything to get pushed up against the end like this, but after turning in my two essays to the undergraduate office that morning, I didn’t care, I was free. Normally I try not to put all my self-worth into a single task, but when that single task is part of what’s keeping me in this country, and I’d have to pay supposedly £100 for a late submission, things are a bit different.

I had a one-hour make-up lecture from the week cancelled due to snow, and then three more hours of regular lectures. All four were international relations. I’ve really liked both lecturers we’ve had for this module, and I recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity to study it anywhere. That’s my focus within Peace Studies at the moment, though I get the chance to change it before going in to second year. The extent of the goodness of next semester’s Conflict Resolution will largely determine whether I switch or not. However, I can’t deny that I struggled to keep my head up in it today. I soon slipped into the cycle of nod off, pry eyes open, listen, nod off…tried to break it with gum, but English stuff was just too weak. Used another precious Japanese piece, and that kept me up for a while.

Ultimately, though, the best antidote was walking in the brisk Bradford winter air, as we did when we went shopping between the first two hours and the second two. I was intent to make the most of my first day of weight-off-my-shoulders and managed to assemble the final ingredients for attempting my mum’s eggnog recipe, which I tried my hand at after finishing lectures at 5.

Oh, before I go on, I had a Peace Society meeting between morning and afternoon lectures as well, and though I’m sorry to say  our last meeting of this year was poorly attended and uninspired, through no fault of the members present, I did volunteer to make a “Peace Times” Peace Society Newspaper website. I’m thinking I’ll use WordPress, but do you guys have any ideas for this? I know most of you aren’t Peace Studies, but, you know, what would you wanna see in an online newspaper? I’m hoping to get a start on that this break.

Right. With the last lectures of my first semester finished, and finished with applause, which only our international relations lecturers received this year, I headed back to my flat for some Christmas-itising of my beverage choice.

For those of you who’ve never had eggnog, it’s fantastic, but I wouldn’t have been too quick to offer my concoction as your first sampling. I ran into a few problems, though not what I had originally worried about – getting the correct ingredients. I think it’s safe to say evaporated milk and dried milk are the same thing. But I didn’t have enough of certain ingredients! My vanilla flavouring, which is apparently one of the most expensive liquids in the world, was only 38 ml when I needed 45, and the dried milk was lacking about another cup. Furthermore, I had no electric mixer, so while I could do a decent number on the eggs, beating the milk powder into the water proved challenging. I never did get all the lumps out, and finished with a thick, lumpy, overwhelmingly richly sweet nog of egg.

Yes, the flavour was actually not bad. I devoured it over the weekend, sprinkling my proudly acquired ground nutmeg on it each time, and though I was sick of it by the end (tried to drink it too fast as our date for bussing to London approached) it was ever so worth it. With an electric mixer and proper proportions, I feel I could do a well good job.

After the eggnog I was hungry for supper so I succeeded in making what I’d call my best spaghetti yet. Sure, it was only store-bought bolognese sauce, but I added minced meat (not to be confused with mincemeat, though they are at times used interchangeably), chopped up hot dog wieners (not worthy of the same title ascribed to the varieties of sausage my German friends have allowed me to sample), and onions (nothing worth parenthetically asiding here except ow, my eyes), and it was good. Made enough for two meals, though the second half proved problematic to finish before leaving. I had more food at the end than I’d realised.

Before I knew it it was time to go meet the Christian Union for…ice skating! After several weeks of watching the uni hockey team battle it out on ice, I was eager to get back out there and see if I hadn’t completely lost any ability to stay upright. As it turned out, I had not, and it was immensely fun. Will certainly be going several more times next semester. I guess this winter will be one of ice skating rather than snowboarding, but that’s alright. Ice skating is one of those things that, while perhaps considered less-that-manly by some (there are those gender roles again), I’ve always wanted to be good at. One of the many things, I should say.

It cleared out shortly before the hockey team practice at 11:00 (I don’t envy their practice and game hours) so we basically had the place to ourselves to revel in our antics. The diving stomach-slide, however, did not pan out. That and the matching scratches and blisters from budget skates were the only negatives of that excursion.

Back to the campus! Some of the Union went…somewhere…but I returned to the university for the Peace Studies end-of-semester party (this is what I meant by busy day, two parties in one night, yeehaw, party animal and all that) By this time I’d all but forgotten about the previous night, or lack of it, and aimed to thoroughly enjoy myself. Unfortunately it was mostly master’s students (either they’re much more into socialising with fellow peace studiers or they recover from deadlines much more quickly) but we enjoyed the company and the candy- er, sweets, but that kills my alliteration. Saw some classmates drunk that are usually much more dignified, and some that aren’t, had the distinct pleasure of having grown up in Japan and witnessing two non-Asians discussing anime with more interest and knowledge than I could ever muster, and enjoyed the company of a high-class native Bradfordian. At least he exudes that aura (not to be confused with aurora, not that you ever would). Really just wanted to use the word ‘exude’. Say it.

But I can’t say anything about drunks, seeing as

• seventeen hours of sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease in performance equivalent to a blood alcohol-level of 0.05%. I was past double this by that point, which, according to Wikipedia, is a level consistent with blunted feelings, disinhibition, extroversion; loss of reasoning, depth perception, peripheral vision, and glare recovery. Me? Surely not!
• After five nights of partial sleep deprivation, three drinks will have the same effect on your body as six would when you’ve slept enough.

There’s some more sleep facts for ya. Clearly lack of sleep and alcohol are not a safe mix. Funny that it’s such a common mix.

Just when I thought the night was winding down, it wasn’t. Ended up having the most enthralling conversation of the semester, not a moment too soon. Talked for hours, and it all started with personality types. And so I’ll end my recount of this day with a brief discussion of labels.

I claim to hate labels. I’ve said that several times on this site. And yet I was challenged on this point today, because I use them on others and I use them on myself. My defence was that while labels describe what a person is, they can never fully grasp who a person is. And that’s true. But I’m guilty of stopping at that shallow label level, and worse, I’m guilty at stopping with the labels of my own judgements, not even the ones they stick on themselves. I don’t need to meet people to think I know all that I need to know about them. I don’t need to meet people to not like them.

I’m terribly judgemental but that doesn’t have to keep being me. I hope to one day outrun this, but know inside that it’ll take much more than running. While I believe I have grown more accepting of people and lifestyles (emphasis on style, not life), I’ve also grown more arrogant in presuming my first impressions of people be accurate and unchangeable, by them or by me. That’s flat out wrong. I guess I want you guys to know that I know it’s wrong, even though it’s how I am, right now.

So I’m guilty of using labels on others, and I’m also guilty of using them on myself. INTJ…MK…TCK…even the fact that they’re all acronyms reveals something. I use labels to distance myself from people, to say both overtly and implicitly that I’m different from you and you won’t be able to bridge that gap because you don’t even know what I am, unless I condescend to walk with mortals. And it’s justification in numbers: I’m different (read: better) and it’s not just me that thinks so, we’ve got a proper group thing going on that you’ll never be a part of.

While the whole what-I-am-not-who-I-am definition of labels still stands, I’m realising that I’m not as free from this as I thought. Labels are distance, and I use them just as much as the next guy, if not more, for my labels are cryptic and exclusive.

This was just a fraction of the mullings that conversation engendered, the conversation that marked forty-two hours of wakefulness. Sheesh. Considering bragging rights to be a poor reason to do anything – well, almost anything; things like roller coasters could be made a case for – I promptly went to bed at half past four.

Slept well into the double digits the following morning, it was glorious, though I usually hate doing that. Such a waste of daylight. Well worth it. Everything.