Sorry?

Hi all,

I know I've not been updating, but life here is really demanding. It's a lot of fun but it's tough too: I work 15 hours a week, I have classes 15 hours too and in the remaining time I need to prepare my readings, cook, go (grocery) shopping, keep my room (and the house) clean, and try not to go crazy by a deficit of social contact ;). To the latter purpose I have my partner-in-crime linguist Neda (also first year), and my flatmates Christina (native!) and Leah (Canadian). More about them later.

Instead of giving you guys a nice overview I'll just start right in the middle of things and will progress from that onwards in a random fashion.

My week schedule is the following:
Mon
| 10-12 Writing Center (work)
| 17-18.30 Semantics
| 19-22 Writing Center

Tue
| 9-10.30 Language Acquisition
| 10-13.30 Accent seminar

Wed
| 9.30-12.30 Writing Center
| 13.15-16.15 Syntax
| 17-18.30 Semantics
| 19-22 Writing Center

Thu
| 9-10.30 Language Acquisition

Fri
| 10-12 Writing Center
| 13-16 Phonology

As you can see, they replaced traditional slavery with phd-slavery ;). I would also like to point out the fact that I'm starting 10am *at the latest*, which I find quite heroic.

Also, I work at the Writing Center (writingcenter.uconn.edu), which does not involve being an editor and correcting other people's essays but we "make you [student/writer] a better editor and writer!". For instance, when a writer comes in we can go over the general structure of his/her essay by making a reverse outline (= summarising all your paragraphs in one sentence) or we can look through the MLA guide together to see how citing works, etc. More on this later too.

Now on to more general impressions..

Well, one of the most intriguing aspects of America is that its stereotypes are essentially true. While a few might be slightly exaggerated the overwhelming majority is simply true (an astonishing fact in itself). For instance, some people here truly are very much "horizontally challenged"; at the same time, there's a huge number of people who are frighteningly fanatic about sports and you can see people running everywhere and at all times of the day.

Another stereotype would be the 'superficial friendliness', but I have to admit that I like this aspect of the culture: it's nice to have a (superficially) friendly conversation when you're buying a quarter of milk. It beats the hell out of buying your hairwax at the Etos where your conversation goes "That's 9.45" [give money], [get back change] and an optional "Thank you. Bye". The thing is not to expect too much from somebody who's just polite to you. I think the main difference lies in different (social) rules of general politeness. However, I would like to add that the "how are you?"s are a bit too much - even for me. And don't get me started on the "like" -- horrible, it's, like, they use like in, like, every sentence! In particular, when they feel insecure and/or are telling a story. Guess what? At my job at the Writing Center I get a lot of insecure people who have to tell what they are writing their essays on..

Before I started my first session, I had devised a strategy where I would click my pen every time I'd hear "like" until they would -hopefully- complain about me being annoying by clicking my pen all the time, to which I could then answer that I'm merely clicking it whenever I hear their use of "like" and that it would be in their own power to make me stop.

Well, that's all for now folks! I hope to publish more of these kind of random squibs but unfortunately I can't promise anything!

Best,
Beata