Day 111, 27 April: Afternoon Tea and British Accents

Norfolk Terrace, UEA, Norwich, Day 111. Afternoon Tea and British Accents

It was one of those mornings where my body set its own alarm—the phone alarm buzzed all right, but my hand swiped it down faster than my body could process the notion that it was a school morning (not day—2 hours in the morning is not a school day. I love uni.). I got eight hours of sleep, almost on the dot. The downside: Ahhh! 9:30! I’m late!

      Ten minutes late, I treaded into the classroom and unlike nineteenth century, the Romanticism seminar had a more structured revision session. Afterwards, I invited Stef over for tea, in which we used the time waiting for the tea to steep for going over the notes we missed separately. I felt so British in having afternoon tea.

      Since Stef lived in the same block of Norfolk Terrace last year, she had the same cleaning lady Judy. It turned out that Judy was just finishing the kitchen as we entered and she recognized Stef. It was a great moment.

      Meanwhile, a guy was busy fixing the refrigerator situation for the second time. In case I may have not mentioned it, there was a disastrous moment over spring break in which both the fridges and freezers in our flat stopped. All our food perished. As the first one back, Matt boldly went about cleaning the whole thing. He almost died of the smell the first time he opened the fridge, but he survived. And really did a good job cleaning everything. So the day I was gone this week, Wednesday, the right fridge stopped working. Again. All my food was in that fridge. Luckily, Matt and Vinnie put my food in the other fridge and I salvaged most of it.

      Oh yeah, and speaking of maintenance issues, I still don’t have carpet. The white layer between stone floor and carpet is tearing up in pieces. It’s clinging to my socks too. It’s just annoying.

      Anyway, tea was great. I used vanilla soymilk in replace of milk and my tea was much sweeter than I usually have it. One thing I’ve picked up in my time here is an appreciation for milk tea (not boba, which is an Asian, tapioca milk tea very, very popular in Berkeley, back in California, but té con leche, tea with milk). Stef met Stephen, Vinnie, and Alvin, I believe, and there was that moment when Stef knew who they were and they knew who she was—because of this blog. It’s freaky sometimes when that kinda thing happens.

      After a stop at the library, I said farewell to Stef and headed back to my room. This reminds me of something I forgot to mention yesterday—I was outside the library and saw Kate. I had a good talk with her about my Europe trip and about her desire to go to America. When she pulled off an American girl accent, I was impressed—and the American accent crystallized in my mind. Seeing a British friend of mine talk American was a profound experience. The British dialects (because there are definitely many regional accents—north London, Cornish, Bristol, Essex, Norwich, etc.) have a certain reverence to the vowels, with long a’s and o’s. So, to oversimplify, I’d put down the American with a ‘wide’ inflection to English and the British with a ‘tall’ one (in terms of mouth shape in pronouncing words).

      The rest of this day was spent indoors, except for abs and running after 6. I had another late dinner around 9:20 and decided against going out tonight. I had more time to talk to Katya and recover from the deadline stress of yesterday. I also got back into watching How I Met Your Mother, an American TV show. I was still up late, as late as Vinnie returning, because I decided to start on another story. This one about a dark, anti-intellectual dystopia…