Day 9, 16 Jan: Lost In Translation

Norfolk Terrace, UEA. Day 9. 23:59. Lost in Translation

First day of class today meant two hours in the middle of the day (and I got to get up at 11, ate breakfast at 12). This is like college-light, a vacation even. I had Nineteenth Century American Writing and it was actually interesting a bit. I talked a few times but then the tutor [name for a professor in a seminar/discussion] hoped that most of the 13 of us had read Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans. Sorry, didn’t know where to find the online module bulletin board of announcements and messages (I am apologizing subconsciously, in reality he didn’t really press anyone and he was super friendly). After class, I ate dinner alone at Zest after Mo didn’t respond; he had lost his phone for most of the day and texted me about it later. It’s cool. Anyway, after a long but really good skype session with Katya and then a shorter one with my parents, I played yaniv with a few of my flatmates, Dan, Alvin, Charlie, and Stephen.

            The most hilarious part of the day came next. Amidst watching the first episode of series 2 of Sherlock free on bbc.co.uk (yeah, in America, it’s not accessible to watch—one perk after losing Netflix and Hulu when crossing the Atlantic, I guess), in came Marie to visit and ask me something I think. The more important fact is that we found each other lost in a sea of odd translations. I am the left-facing arrow ("<"), Marie’s the right-facing arrow (">"). So Marie starts:

>What do you call chips in America?

< Um, [google-picturing a bag of Lays potato chips] these.

> No, those are crisps.

< For us they’re chips. Like potato chips.

> No, chips are these [UK-google-picturing chips].

< No, those are French fries!

> No, they are chips. Don’t they look like chips?

< No!

< Ah, but they’re Lays.

> Well, here they’re Walkers.

< So odd. But they have the same logo. I bet they came from America.

[We stumble upon a picture of a global survey of different labels for Frito-Lays products. Both of us:] Whoa.

< How many hours a week do you have class?

> Oh, 3 and then 9 hours of placement.

< What’s placement?

> For this year, I basically shadow and stalk a social worker on different days. Next year more hours and doing more of the social worker’s job. The year after I get the degree.

< So after getting your degree, you just become a social worker?

> Well, there’s a shortage of them in the UK. So I apply and I’ll become one then.

< Oh, cool. Well, in America I’m studying English for a degree but then I can apply to law school. It’s not as specialized as it is here. Oh but here’s my schedule from last semester. I did swimming Monday and Wednesdays, English literature on these days, and rhetoric and Gospel chorus and music history. The music for most likely a minor. Oh, yeah you don’t have minors. Um, think of it as a mini-course and then you have your main one.

> That’s so weird. Why do study so many different things?

< Uh, well uni is more of a broader education in America than here. We have breadth courses in America too, where you take courses in like science even if you are an English major, er, course.

> So do you have to take breadths when you get back?

< No, I’m done with them.

> Oh, really? I don’t think I can stop taking breaths.

< Oh you mean breaths as in breathing?

> Yes.

< [still showing her my schedule from last semester] I had swimming these days and English on these.

> So do all English students have to do swimming?

< Oh no, it was for fun. You get to choose your classes.

> Ah, well here they choose your year for you.

< So it’s only three years and then a degree? It’s so specialized.

< I took a British Literature: 1900-1945 course, er, module last semester.

> That’s silly. Why British and not American?

< Because British literature is sometimes more interesting.

> What did you study?

< Oh like a bunch of authors, like T.S. Eliot, Joseph Conrad…

> Oh T.S. Eliot, I know him.

< Yeah, he wrote the Wasteland.

> I just know his name.

< Oh, well, the poem’s not as bad as Ulysses. By James Joyce. That kinda takes chapter headings from The Odyssey. You know The Odyssey?

> No.

< Do you know Homer?

> No.

< Trojan War?

> I know the Trojan horse.

< Yes, same area.

< YOU DON’T KNOW DR. SUESS?

> YOU DON’T KNOW JACQUELINE WILSON? She does the child books, The Story of Tracy Beaker.

< Nope. Never heard of her.

> [looking at my opened Microsoft Word document] What is that?

< Oh I was seeing how many pages would make 1500 words. It’s an essay I wrote from last semester. Oh, since you’re here, I was wondering, how do you format a paper here?

> [still looking at the essay] You have so much space between the lines.

< Oh we have to double-space. For the grader to comment.

> Why not just have them comment in the margins?

< There’s more room to revise whole phrases.

> So you get a lot of wrong markings?

< Well, no, not that many.

> [sarcastically] Oh so you’re clever, are you?

< Oh yeah, that’s the word for “smart” here, isn’t it? Like, you say it more often than “smart”?

> I guess. If someone’s kinda posh [stuck-up] and goes to Oxford or Cambridge, they might call themselves “intelligent”. But kids there all have parents who own something big, have a lot of property. I knew one kid from college [high school] who went there and he was all posh.

< [Back to Microsoft Word] But back to this, how would you do the heading? Where would your name and everything go?

> [looks closely] Why do you put the date? Our papers are scheduled like a month in advance.

< In America we have to put the due date. Kinda in replace of “Paper 1” or “Paper 2”.

> Oh, well we just put our student ID number and a title in the center.

< That’s all?

> Well you put the paper in your pigeon hole in your school’s hub.

< Um, what?

> You know your school?

< School of American Studies.

> Okay, well every school has a hub on campus. Do you know where yours is?

< [looks it up online] In the Arts building. [a pause] Wait, is a hub like a department office?

> Yeah!

< So I put the paper in the pigeon hole and they know what to do with it?

> Well yeah.

< So all papers are single-spaced and have just a student ID and a title?

> Yeah. You have a paper due next week or something?

< No, about six weeks.

> [laughs] Then why do you need to know?

< I was curious!

> Oh, one thing. Put spaces between the paragraphs.

< Why?

> So there’s more of a divide.

< Why not just double-space? In America, that’s what we do.

> So in America you double-space the shit out of it and organize it into a big bulk?