Saturday January 21 activities and musing

Saturday January 21

Started the day with an ice cold shower having overslept and needing to choose between a 30 minute wait for hot water or a late arrival for my first faculty meeting.  The meeting included the other faculty teaching in the consortium this semester: 2 Theater/Dance faculty from U of Wyoming, a woman from U of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and their 50+ students.  The CSU program sent Joanne (English) and me (sociology) along with 42 students from Long Beach and Fullerton campuses.(Don’t worry—none of your taxes involved—we are paid from fees for this adventure). University of London College faculty teach the mandatory “British Life and Culture” course which I will probably attend out of curiosity. 

Yesterday after checking out the university union gym and pool in Bloomsbury, I returned home and walked around exploring the rest of Hampstead.  It’s a great neighborhood including two different shopping zones and dozens of little restaurants. I really got lucky with this flat. Best of all is the heath. 

It is a huge park (700+ acres) on the highest hill overlooking Central London; contrast to Central Park in NYC which is about 100 acres larger. It has footpaths, jogging trails, and ponds (for open air swimming, too!). Unfortunately, the foot paths yesterday and today were frozen mud giving way to slippery, slushy mud, so I saved the real walk there for better weather and a day with a shorter coat. It seemed too real a possibility, in a full length overcoat, to drag the hem through muck.

I have a ton of reading to prep for classes this week.  I expect to complete most of it this afternoon and then I am heading out by bus to a cinema a few miles away to see The Iron Lady. 

As you can see from the photo, the kitchen will not allow me to do much more than heat things and make a cup a tea or coffee (I brought my own ground coffee beans and little drip filter).

Being here is a blast. Now that my circadian rhythms are in sync, I am really enjoying it all—weather included.  Note to self: never, never leave the flat without umbrella—even if the sky is blue and no rain is forecast.

Oddities: Brits don’t say, “Pardon me” or “Excuse me” when needing to push you aside on sidewalk or tube but rather, “so RHAY.”  I am having a hard time with some of the British and Scottish accents.  I might do better following conversations with Spanish speakers as I would get about 80% instead of 40% of what is said.  Luckily there are Irish around who I can turn to for translations—those dialects I “get” having grown up with the two most outrageous—Mayo and Cork.

If  I get my tail out of bed in the morning, there is really no need to watch the time at all.  No worries about bus or train schedules since the tube comes every 5-7 minutes and everything is a 10-15 minute walk from the tube.  Very convenient.  Plus shops are open until 10pm and grocery until midnight.

Oddly, ask anyone on the sidewalk for directions and 99% of the time they say, “It’s only a 10 minute walk from here.”  Now that could mean it is actually across the street (1 minute) or 25 minutes (if you get off at the wrong station).  Doesn’t matter—standard answer is “10 minutes.”  I even did that today when a poor soul asked for directions—“Probably just a 10 minute walk, but it is in that direction.” 

Ick Factor:  I saw a group of a dozen or Mums with little girls today walking down the lane in their “Princess” costumes.  I gagged a little thinking about how Disney already has such a grip on their notions of gender.  I mean, seriously, these were 4-6 year olds performing the most repressive stunts of femininity—including being hobbled by fake little high heel shoes in 40 degree weather.  What really does it mean for a young girl’s imagination that they aspire to copy Cinderella, Snow White and the cast of helpless female caricatures?  This is their limited notion of femininity? What kind of straight (no pun intended) jacket are they being jammed into in terms of possibilities in their own imagination? 

It is ironic that in 2012, these little girls show more conformity to such outdated gender roles than we did growing up in 1950’s.  Seriously, I thought climbing trees, playing ball, riding bikes, swimming, competing in all types of games, creating dances and shows were the rights of all children. I knew I was neither Shirley Temple nor Annette Funicello; I was confident that I had lots of possibilities with which to enjoy my body and lots of interests beyond pantomiming submissive, people-pleasing, lady-like, a-sexual, girlish-women.  Thank God.

Reflections: I was thinking about how privileged these students are to be able to study abroad during their college years.  That was as far from possible for me as a college student as expecting to wake up with long legs.  As the first in my family to attend college, just being in college was such an alien experience outside my expectations. Had it not been for Sister Redempta, a HS nun, who encouraged me to take the SAT and think about college, I would never have had the scholarship that became my passport to living.

My feeling out of place was more acute given my choices: first U of San Francisco—picked solely by three factors: (1)  It was in the City; (2) as a Jesuits school, it emphasized social justice but offered freedom from the bondage of Catholicism; and, (3) it is where Bill Russell had played ball.  Then, after one semester, homesick and yearning for a more diversity (other than 12 BB players, the entire student body were 2^nd generation Irish and Italian), I transferred to USC—which was at the time the University of Spoiled Children.  I remember hearing girls in the dorm at USC talk about going to “the continent” over summers.  I honestly thought the “continent” was a hotel somewhere near San Diego—that is how exotic my imagination ventured at 17 years of age.

Financially self supporting and working 15-20 hours a week to pay for meals and clothing, I could not imagine how a trip to Europe ever could be possible.  European travel became an aspiration for the distant future.

To be working here for the semester is a dream and a great privilege for which I feel immense gratitude.  I am eager to have classes Tuesday and Thursday to learn how the students are processing their experiences here.  I am energized in anticipation of discussions where I can engage their thinking about the stuff that occupies my brain: inequalities stemming from systems of social class, race, gender and sexuality.