As you could probably tell from my last blog I'm feeling homesick, I'm fed up of being in IV and need a real kick up the arse, I'm being very lethargic at the moment and can't be bothered to do anything about it. Most of my friends have left and I live a long way away from those who are still here, I hardly ever run in to them and am often to lazy to organise things. So I end up by myself not doing anything but watching TV. One of my friends room mate is leaving and I really hope I can move in with her, it would be so much better than living here.
I've been watching several British films recently and as a result I am missing the greenery of England. I long to walk across a green field and get lost in a green forest. But the public footpaths are all well cared for, not the historic and badly signposted, barely used footpaths I am used to. Also all the walks are so far out of town that they require a car to get to. I would love nothing more than to get lost in the countryside, but it is impossible to do. I wouldn't even mind that the weather is appalling by southern Californian standards (its spitting with rain), in fact I almost like it that way. I need a mini-adventure. Perhaps I should just go for a magical mystery tour anyway.
Last Saturday I went rockpooling and had a great time, just like I use to as a child on family holidays to France, I went for a walk along the beach at low tide and discovered a wonderful world I had never seen on the local beach before. I even found loads of wild mussel beds with the biggest mussels I've ever seen. I can't wait to harvest some and cook a great meal.
Hopefully I'll somehow manage to have an adventure soon and so will have something to tell you all about!
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Sexual and Political Responsibility
Sorry, but I've been very quiet again, partially because I haven't been doing anything exciting lately, partly because I'm feeling fairly anti-American and I don't want to come across racist.
Don't get me wrong, I've met some really nice Americans, but generally I've found them to be very hard to get to know properly and some even plain rude for no reason. In fact some of my new room mates are very rude - when I've cleaned up after them (even when it wasn't my turn on the rota) they have seen me do it and yet not even thought to thank me, yet they are quick enough to ask me to tidy up, etc. At times I feel like their mother.
Anyway I'm not here to slag off my room mates but comment on something I noticed when I decided to take advantage of the free HIV testing that was offered on campus today (for the record I don't have HIV, not that I thought it was at all likely, but better safe than sorry!). As I sat down to await my test results (which only took 20 mins) I looked around and was surprised to see that there were around 20 girls there, and yet only 4 men. Are men less sexually responsible? I tend to think that is the case, although having said that a friend of mine last year had one of the free Chlamydia tests offered on campus and proudly announced that he didn't have "knob rot!" when he found out his results. Generally it strikes me that men take less responsibility, leaving women the job of sorting out contraception, mainly because the failure will leave us in a much worse position than the men.
If I was writing an article for a newspaper I would come up with lots of statistics to support my thesis based on rather meager evidence, but I'm writing a blog dammit, so I can be as biased as I want!
On an entirely different note student politics here has really impressed me, the recent primaries (bloody stupid reason to have an election, get the party to choose the Presidential candidate, don't drag it on, especially when at the end of the day it makes little difference) led to lots of campaigning, varying from political protests to signs places everywhere around Isla Vista imploring people to vote for a particular candidate. Today there was even a big anti-war protest, which last year drew 1500 people and succeeded in shutting down the highway the leads straight to campus (yes thats right, highway 217 leads straight to campus!), quite what this did to stop teh war in Iraq I have no idea, but their hearts were in the right place. Unfortunately I had a class I really had to go to, so I couldn't make it, but I have seen the photos that show a large police presence and I've discovered that there were 3 arrests. Almost harks back to the 60s and 70s, which as my lecturers keep telling me, was the place to be.
Anyway, I've got to get back to actually doing some work (occasionally I'm forced to!), so I better go - but I'll leave you with these thoughts - be politically and sexually responsible! (God, I sound so dull, really must get out more.)
Don't get me wrong, I've met some really nice Americans, but generally I've found them to be very hard to get to know properly and some even plain rude for no reason. In fact some of my new room mates are very rude - when I've cleaned up after them (even when it wasn't my turn on the rota) they have seen me do it and yet not even thought to thank me, yet they are quick enough to ask me to tidy up, etc. At times I feel like their mother.
Anyway I'm not here to slag off my room mates but comment on something I noticed when I decided to take advantage of the free HIV testing that was offered on campus today (for the record I don't have HIV, not that I thought it was at all likely, but better safe than sorry!). As I sat down to await my test results (which only took 20 mins) I looked around and was surprised to see that there were around 20 girls there, and yet only 4 men. Are men less sexually responsible? I tend to think that is the case, although having said that a friend of mine last year had one of the free Chlamydia tests offered on campus and proudly announced that he didn't have "knob rot!" when he found out his results. Generally it strikes me that men take less responsibility, leaving women the job of sorting out contraception, mainly because the failure will leave us in a much worse position than the men.
If I was writing an article for a newspaper I would come up with lots of statistics to support my thesis based on rather meager evidence, but I'm writing a blog dammit, so I can be as biased as I want!
On an entirely different note student politics here has really impressed me, the recent primaries (bloody stupid reason to have an election, get the party to choose the Presidential candidate, don't drag it on, especially when at the end of the day it makes little difference) led to lots of campaigning, varying from political protests to signs places everywhere around Isla Vista imploring people to vote for a particular candidate. Today there was even a big anti-war protest, which last year drew 1500 people and succeeded in shutting down the highway the leads straight to campus (yes thats right, highway 217 leads straight to campus!), quite what this did to stop teh war in Iraq I have no idea, but their hearts were in the right place. Unfortunately I had a class I really had to go to, so I couldn't make it, but I have seen the photos that show a large police presence and I've discovered that there were 3 arrests. Almost harks back to the 60s and 70s, which as my lecturers keep telling me, was the place to be.
Anyway, I've got to get back to actually doing some work (occasionally I'm forced to!), so I better go - but I'll leave you with these thoughts - be politically and sexually responsible! (God, I sound so dull, really must get out more.)
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