Arrival

 View from the window

I have been in America for a whole week now but it feels like an age.

My flight wasn't bad! I was sat next to a friendly yet talkative chap who had read up on the wikipedia entry of the airbus we were traveling on and was keen to share that it was one of a breed that had mysteriously crashed on a couple of occasions, so it wasn't exactly relaxing! However the trashy inflight films, as always, allowed my mind to decay for those several airborne hours.

And here I am in Mississippi. I'll do the quintessential British thing and remark on the weather, which has been extreme! The heat is beyond anything a heatwave in England has ever offered and the humidity gives you the sensation of walking into a steamy bathroom all the time. Somehow though, perhaps due to a long cold English summer spent longing for warmth, I've found it bearable so far. We did a walking tour of Hattiesburg today though, which tested my endurance.100 degree heat is exhausting.

We- the international students- have done a variety of things these past days leading up to classes. All first year and transfer students are welcome to join in with 'GEWW' activities which basically involve bonding exercises, learning school chants, tours and orientation. A couple of us tagged along with a group and ended up running with a group of freshman through a giant inflatable helmet across the football stadium, cheering, which is something that would never be experienced in the UK. Perhaps one of the most surreal things imaginable but the lack of students photographing or filming the events led to me assume it was pretty routine in the life of an American Teenager.

A video I took from said event.

Another sharp contrast to the English University Campus is the architecture and scenery. Keele may have Keele Hall, picturesque lakes and the countryside but the student accommodation is about as glamorous as a muddy puddle (which you get a lot of with the considerable amount of rain)
My hall, or as it's called here, my dorm, has pillars!

Rather pretty, yes?

And inside the corridors we were welcomed with cute names on our doors and balloons!

So that's some of my week!

Going,... going...

Tomorrow morning I fly to America. I think I’ve finished packing, a difficult task considering it’s currently 34’C (but apparently ‘feels’ more like 39’C) over there but a cold, partly clouded day with heights of 19’C here. It took a while to convince myself that a place existed in which I wouldn’t need several thick jumpers.

When I’ve told people I’m going to Mississippi I’ve received mixed reactions, the most common being ‘why Mississippi? What are you going to do there?’ amongst ‘what state is that in?’, ‘wow, that’s slap bang in the Bible belt isn’t it?’ and even ‘Oh right! Are you going there to teach English?’

Mississippi is perhaps more famous by word rather than association. A lot of people associate it with the land of Mark Twain adventures or maybe think of the name as a word that assists in counting seconds rather than a state in the Deep South of America.

Maybe one reason it’s remained quite unfamiliar is due to the fact that there aren’t any real landmarks associated with the place; just a difficult history and a gentle way of life. In terms of the arts it’s also remained quite faceless; there are a few books by John Grisham who is an alumni of Ole Miss, there was the Coen Brother’s Oh Brother Where Art Thou? and more recently, Kathryn Stockett’s The Help for which Mississippi provided the backdrop. Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Southern’ Django Unchained, which is currently in production, is also set in the plantations of slave era. 

It turns out finding more about Mississippi is harder than you’d expect. There are no travel guides on the state in publication and within a guide book to the whole of America it is covered within just a few pages, which does make me wonder, what is there in Mississippi?

Although I’ve read up on its history, I do rather feel I’m arriving slightly ignorant to what exists in the state I will be spending the next academic year but I am excited about finding out first hand.