Would you guys believe it, I’m in America?
Yep. America. The US of A. And it’s actually rather lovely, considering I’ve only been
asked where Wales is in England once and that everyone keeps asking me to say
things in my ‘cute accent’. The American people are actually rather decent,
I’ve found, though they still don’t know how to spell simple words such as
‘Colour’ or ‘Programme’ properly. As I write this on the shiny Mac computer in
the student newspaper room, it’s underlining the correctly spelt words above in
red.
Shut up American computer, I’ve been writing and spelling
things for years. I know what I’m doing here.
So, yes, as you can see, I’m enjoying America. I’ve learnt a
lot of things whilst I’ve been here already, such as that the fact that my name
is apparently uncommon in America and everyone feels the need to compliment how
beautiful a name it is.
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| Americaaaaa Gemma Parry |
Well done parents. You have the American approval. You chose
my name well.
But in all seriousness now, I am actually enjoying my time
here. We’ve been doing absolutely loads of stuff on journalism and media and
all the stuff that I’m probably going to use one day, as well as finally
getting round to setting up my own website, which will be linked up to this
blog when I figure it all out. It has honestly been a bit overwhelming, with
all the hands on learning and being immersed in American culture. We’ve been up
to the Rockies, (did I mention I’m in Colorado by the way? Clearly not…), we
celebrated American Independence, (we British didn’t even care anyways, India
was a far better choice,) we’ve been to a rodeo and lots of other stuff I can’t
even remember right now. It’s lovely that they’re trying so hard to show us
what American culture is all about but, frankly, I’m mostly here for the food.
I think I’ve gained my body weight twice over again whilst
being here. Even the vegetables here taste divine. It’s so confusing because
I’ve spent most of my life holding a personal vendetta against vegetables that
aren’t potatoes but I suppose it’s a good thing. I bet they coat them in sugar
to make them taste better. I must try this when I get home.
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So yeah, I’ve been here now for around about 24 days and I’m
leaving for Britain on Saturday. It’s gone quickly actually, and I can’t
believe it’s all over already. I think I’m more than ready to come home now
though. I’m really starting to miss Britain, my family and my friends. In fact,
it’s my little brothers’ tenth birthday tomorrow, which makes being away from
home even worse. That coupled with
the fact that I’m not of legal drinking age here and that when I get back into
my boyfriend’s house, I’ll probably be handed a glass of some sort of alcoholic
beverage, makes me miss home even more. But I’m sure I can hold out for four
more days.
Anyway, there is a point to this blog apart from my random
musings on American life. And that is the positives of doing exchange
programmes or studying abroad. I never really saw it as much of a good thing
before but, now that I’ve done it for myself, I can truly see how wonderful it
is.
1) Travelling to places you’ve never been before
Before this, I had never been to America before. A few of the people I travelled here
with hadn’t done it before either, so it was completely brand new and exciting.
Like most people, I was expecting the version of America that I have seen on
shows such as 90210 (best show ever, by the way) and, in some aspects, I was
pleasantly surprised to find it completely different to my expectations. It’s been a massive learning curve and
I really wouldn’t hesitate to come back here again.
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| Me, Kayla and Jack |
2) Making friends for life
The first day of my arrival, everything was a bit awkward. I
was sharing a bathroom with two of the only other females on my course who were
already firm friends after travelling around America before the course started
and, of course, having made friends back in Swansea. I felt left out, sad and
tired. But mostly hungry after all my travelling. And so, one of the guys on
our course went to Subway and brought me back a massive meal, and well, we all
bonded. Over food – my favorite thing. It was a magical moment.
What was really the best thing about it was the fact that
these two girls have now become friends for life. We have bonded and shared
this experience whilst we have been here and they are without a doubt among the
funniest and most cheerful people I’ve had the pleasure to meet. There is no
doubt in my mind that we will continue to be friends when we get back to the UK
and that counts for each and every single one of the other eight people on the
course too.
3) Learning new things
This goes without saying. Being in a brand new environment
obviously means that you will learn brand new things. But it’s still a
wonderful learning experience, all the same.
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| Diana and I |
4) Personal growth
To you, I may still seem to be the same immature student
that I was before I embarked on this adventure and I suppose I still am in some
ways. But I feel very differently about the world around me. I feel that I
understand it a bit better and that I understand myself a bit better. It makes
me feel sorry for my poor boyfriend who puts up with me, day in day out. I’m
sorry babe, but it’s all good fun, right? My point is that I feel like I’ve
developed as a person and that I can understand where I want to go a bit better.
That can’t be a bad thing.
5) More stuff for the CV
I hate CVs. I really do. I
hate writing them and I hate sending them off and I hate people reading them.
But I feel a bit better about my terrible CV right now, knowing that I have had
this experience that I can show off to potential employers, that not many other
students will have had. Plus, I apparently get a shiny graduation certificate at the end of the programme to take home. My
mother will hang it up in the house – it’ll look lovely.
My ultimate point is that travelling and studying abroad is
incredibly rewarding. It’s even nicer for me because I’ve always really wanted
to do it without spending the incredibly long time away from my home. So the
fact that this course is compacted into one month is a bonus for me.
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| At the Rockies! |
I will be very sad to leave America – I’ve made incredible
friends here and it’ll be really strange not waking up every day and barging
into Polly and Diana’s room and bothering them with my nonsense talk. It’ll
also be very strange not waking up and putting sun cream on straight away, but
I hear that Britain is currently in the middle of a heat wave, so that
transition should be easy enough. But I still can’t wait to get back to Britain and cause the havoc
that usually follows me around all over again.
Good luck with that, Britain.
