Climax: Cheesecake.

WHAT IT DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

What is UP you guys, this is James reporting live from Bossier City, Louisiana!

...

I'm trying introductions to my blog in different, melodramatic emotions. That was the "pretentious, overly pleased with himself reporter" intro- kinda reminds me of that Swedish youtuber nobjockey Pewdiepie. MAN those people get on my nerves, like, I used to enjoy them- I subscribed to PhilipDeFranco, Grace Helbig, Ray William Johnson, NigaHiga etc etc... But now most of them get on my nerves (especially Philip DeFranco, self- righteous tosspot). Same thing happened with viners, they're just annoying now.
...
Oh dear, it would seem that I am becoming somewhat of a grumpy introvert who doesn't like real people- don't worry friends and family reading this, I still love you all!!
I guess this is another pre-uni concern of mine: that I won't be able to make friends unless they have big gleaming eyes, messy hair, and are drawn by someone Japanese....








^Be my freind, plz?

Aaaaanyway, let's get back on track This is a travel blog after all, so I suppose I should talk about my travelin'

This week has been a bit of a crazy, sporadic, "little bit of everything" week. It was a tad random... Like this photo!

















I was originally supposed to spend the week with someone named Erica Adams who works at the local radio station, but unfortunately, Rick couldn't get a hold of her until Tuesday, after which he told me that I needed to phone her to arrange times for the rest of the week.
Bugger.
I hate using the phone.
Especially with strangers.
BUT, I got over myself, and summed up the courage to phone her.
The conversation was quite straight forward, but my mind was spinning the whole time:

*Bring Bring*

Erica: Hello?

James' thoughts: Okay James, you can do this, just like you rehearsed (Yes, I actually rehearsed)
James' words: Hi, is this Erica Adams?

Erica:... This is she

James': thoughts: ARGH She sounds weirded out, she sounds angry, she thinks I'm a creep, what did I do wrong? Why do I always mess these social situations up? I'll never succeed in life, partly because I suck at talking to people, but also because Erica is about to bite my head off because she thinks I want to breathe heavily down the phone or some other pervy thing.
James' words: Hiya Ms Adams, this is James Hill, I'm the exchange student Rick Gates mentioned- I'm just phoning to discuss times for me to come and job shadow you.

Erica: Oh hi James! Yes, Rick Gates told me about you. Unfortunately, my daughter threw up at school on Monday so I couldn't get back to you sooner, sorry about that. In terms, of times this week, how's Friday at 10am?

James' thoughts: 












ONLY FRIDAY?!?!?!?!?!

James' words: Okay, Friday sounds great- see you then!



So yeah, a week's work experience quickly became a day's. At least I could still go, but it meant we had to find other things for me to do.

Tuesday was a great day off, as Ross didn't need to go into school for some reason, so he and I watched all 13 episodes of Hellsing in that one day. With Pancakes. It was awesome.

Steve, before flying off to Pennsylvania for the next week (he comes back on Tuesday), very kindly arranged for me spend Wednesday with another Rotarian- Wayne Gates (Rick's older brother) at his farm out in Benton. Wayne's a great guy and kindly said yes.
Boy oh boy! I spent the day at an American farm! It was fricking awesome! Most English farms seem to consist of a red tractor, a flock of sheep and their farmer both standing idly chewing cud, and a border collie wishing it had opposable thumbs and a higher level of intelligence so it can use a smart phone and cure it's boredom. But Wayne's farm was waay different: he farms cattle and timber, so there were huge ares of these long, thin trees that were just beautiful.
I took some photos....

Also, Wayne has 18 large rifles. d---(^_^)---b

Then on Thursday, another mishap! I was supposed to ride along with Kelly, the person who does the marketing and sales for the restaurant that Krista works for (Notini's), but unfortunately, she hadn't checked with her boss as to whether I could or not, and it turns out I couldn't- due to me being a liability.

   










^ the face of a liability

So then I spent the rest of the day with Krista, which was pretty good. We went to the bank, which was the highlight of the day actually, as one of the people who works there is from Liverpool, so it was great hearing a somewhat familiar accent when I walked in and heard "You're a big lad for ya mother!". 

So Friday finally came, and I went off to shadow Erica Adams. She works at Cumulus Radio, which, it turns out, is the second biggest radio conglomerate in the entire United States. In this North Louisiana branch, they are in charge of a number of small radio stations: 99.7 KMJJ (Urban), i97.3 (Charts), NASH country 101.1 (Country), and Magic 102.9 (Old soul and funk). After spending some time with Erica, she introduced me to Fox, who is the DJ of the country station and I sat in with him for a while and chatted with him when he wasn't talking on the radio (which was extraordinary to watch, by the way), he then introduced me Ali, whose the DJ of the chart station: i97.3. She was closer to my age (21) and when her friends came to get her for lunch, we ended up having some great banter about an idiot abroad and what girls from different places in Britain are sometimes called (Mank bird, Scouse bird etc) they then dubbed me 'Foreign Exchange James'. I'm welcome back there any time I'd like, and I will certainly be taking them up on their offer.
The Cumulus building is located directly above restaurant specilising in Cheesecakes. So I had one. It was amazing.
Now, back home in England, the idea of Cheese in a cake REALLY put me off, but since I'm in the land of 'put cheese in everything', I thought I'd finally  try it.
GOD DAMN.
The first piece I had was with Crickett Oldenberg- someone had brought some in for a birthday and Crickett offered me a piece. There was no going back.
Over this past week, I've had cheesecake on at least four different occasions. It's amazing.
One of these occasions was yesterday at the Rotary Club of Benton's Roast of Bossier City's Mayor, Lorenz "Lo" Walker. Now a "Roast" seems to be quite an American thing, in so far as, I've never seen any on British channels, with British guests- always American. The basic premise is that a number of "Roasters" (who are friends of the Roast-ee) all go up and speak about the Roast-ee in front of an audience. Now, I use the term "speak about the Roast-ee" very loosely, a more appropriate term is probably "crack jokes about the Roast-ee's height and sex life, and reminisce on stupid things they've done. It's pretty jokes. My highlight of the night (other than the cheesecake) was one particular joke: "Mr and Mrs Mayor had to buy a strobe light for their bedroom to give the illusion that there was actually any movement".

So yeah, pretty here-and-there week, this coming week won't be like that, as I'm at the daycare centre. It's gonna kick ass. And then, this coming weekend, we're going to New Orleans!! This week is gonna be AWESOME.
Oh yeah that reminds me, because I'll be in New Orleans, there won't be a blog on Sunday, I may just postpone it to Monday or Tuesday, or just skip that week altogether. I'll let you know.
No I won't.
You'll have to wait and see ;)

OH 
By the way, it has come to my attention that the video I linked y'all last week didn't work in the UK. So, in the likely event that y'all were too lazy to look the song up yourselves, here's another link that will hopefully work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE0XcdM22Yo
If this one doesn't work, then go find one that works cos this constant linking is effort.

I'm getting worried that this blog hasn't been as entertaining as some of the past ones. 
Damn.
If you're finding this, then I'm sorry.
I'm bloody tired and that's affecting my stream of stupidness, I'll try and do this earlier next time.

Also, social networking! On the off chance that some of you reading aren't my friends and family, this seems like a good opportunity to try and get more Twitter followers! Hooray for desperation! Anyway, I'm @JamesBookerHill check me out! 

SOOOOOooooooOOOOOooooooo
I'm off now, got stuff to do, anime to watch, and Z's to catch.
As always, thanks for reading!
 ...
Have I ever said that before?

Hmmm

If I haven't, I should have, it is common courtesy after all

Ok! Ok! Sheesh...

Jya ne!

James
x