You guys!
I'm sorry, last blog I said I'd return to weekly blog updates.....
Then failed to blog the following Sunday.
My bad guys, my bad.
BUT
IN MY DEFENSE
I do have a valid excuse, in so far as I did a bit of travelling which made it difficult for me to write the blog.
Where did I travel i hear you ask? To Monroe, Louisiana of course!!
I actually knew this when I wrote my last blog, but neglected to inform you guys....
Wow, I have been a terrible blogger!
I'm very sorry.
Returning swiftly to my travels, I went to Monroe for three days this week! For those of you (if not all of you) wondering where and what Monroe is, it's a medium sized city (probably be called a town in England) located in North East Louisiana.
As you can see, Monroe is pretty much the only other major city in Northern Louisiana- and it's not even that significant. In fact, as of late, it's only real claim to fame is the show "Duck Dynasty", which, to be fair, is a pretty significant claim to fame. Larger than most of Shreveport's anyway.
Duck Dynasty, if I haven't said already, is a very popular pseudo- reality show about a family of Rednecks with large beards who turned making duck calls into a multimillion dollar business called "Duck Commander".
^here are the bearded warriors
I've watched a few episodes while I've been here, and it is quite entertaining, although obviously scripted. The main thing I, and many other people around here, like about it is the fact that at the end of the day, they're very wholesome, family orientated people with respectable morals. Which makes them eternally better than the people in a show like Geordie Shore or The Only Way is Essex, who are simple minded, sex- crazed idiots who probably think that America is the capital of the USA.
In my opinion, those British shows are so popular because they are essentially a modern reincarnation of the freak show at the circus. People, mostly from a middle class background, enjoy watching these fake-tanned barbie dolls because it makes them feel better about themselves. It reminds me of Roman Emperors watch Gladiators battle to the death simply for their amusement. Quite an extreme comparison I know, but the likeness, to me, is uncanny.
Now, please don't get the impression that I'm judging people who watch these shows, because that isn't my intention, after all, I used to watch and enjoy Geordie Shore, so it's not like I see an episode and react like
It's just that I find it quite interesting that these horrible people get so popular- there's probably some Psychology behind it that I'll struggle to find the motivation to look into.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is the I prefer Duck Dynasty to Geordie Shore and TOWIE. Pretty simplistic point considering how much I rabbited on before arriving at it.
Oh well
That's just how I role
#quantityoverquality
ANYWAY,
I left for Monroe with Rick Gates at 6:30am on Tuesday.
Yeah, 6:30.
That's f*cking early for me.
I was all like
But luckily, I was able to sleep in the truck. Upon arrival, we met up with my host for my three day visit- Mr Doug Seegers. Doug is a great guy, and I had good laughs with him. He took me to three vocational visits: a TV station, a sign company, and a Clinical Psychologist's office. Although the sign company was, to be frank, rather boring, the TV station and Clinical Psychologist's office visits were fantastic! Really interesting, engaging, and helpful. Doug is a very active Rotarian, in fact, two years ago, he and his family hosted another boy from Reading- one Alex Squires (who apparently lived just round the corner from me, yet I've never met him!). So, Doug took me to visit three different Rotary clubs: West Monroe, Monroe, and the Twin Cities Rotary club. I said a few words at each one, although I wasn't booked in to speak at any of them, which meant I couldn't use the Presentation on where I was from.
The one which I spent ages working on before I came here and only used once.
Also, not that it's important, I ate at Hooter's for the second time!
^ I wasn't sure what face to pull.....
When I got back on Thursday, I was delighted to return to the Piraino household, not because I didn't enjoy Monroe, but because I missed them. Not sure how I'm going to cope leaving for good in 7 days, but I'm sure the prospect of home will carry me through. I'm also now getting anxious about flying again! My mind just makes no sense and refuses to listen to reason- the trip over here was fine!! But I'm still worried about security, and the flight itself.
To use an obscure simile, it's like I've told my mind to get dressed up for a big, formal dinner... And it does this
Anyway, Thursday night, after my continuous recommendations, we went to eat at an Indian restaurant in Bossier. The Piraino's, much to my shock, had never had Indian food, so I naturally told them we had to go at some point, and this was that point.
I did what i always do at an Indian restaurant: order a Chicken Korma. I recommended Ross order the same, and he did. Krista had Chicken Jalfrezi and Steve had Chicken Biryani. I think the meal was a success, as we all seemed to enjoy our meals, I wasn't too sure on how great the place was though, the food was good, but the guy who served us had never heard of Lamb Dhansk- which I thought was a staple Indian meal! Maybe not...
That pretty much sums up my week! I leave this coming Friday, meaning that won't be able to write my last blog from Louisiana on the usual Sunday, so I'll try and get it done on Thursday.
Thanks, as always, for reading!
Jya ne
James x
And we're back!
...
...To weekly blog updates.
So yeah, hellooooooo all a y'all!! How's it going??
Ah crap, I remember, you can't answer me... Well, you can't answer me face to face at least..... Unless I skype/ facetime you.... Damn I'm just contradicting myself now.
Basically, you can't answer me IN PERSON until I get back, which isn't actually that far off now- only three weeks!
I'm not sure how I feel about coming home in three weeks: I'm in two minds.
On one hand, I'm very sad. This has been an amazing experience, and one I'll never forget. I mean, I've been wanting to experience "true" America all my life, and I'm finally doing it/ have finally done it! It will be hard to come home and leave all the people I've gotten to know so well and return to my normal, English life.
...
But at the same time... I'm going back to my normal, English life! I'm going back to everything I've been away from! I miss my Mummy and Daddy, I miss my friends, I miss my Grandma, I miss being able to go out for a drink, and I miss English sweets.
Yeah.... Sweets.
Ironic really, how America: the country of "too much sugar", has sweets (or candy) that are, to be honest, mediocre. Like, we have Hershey's chocolate back home, and I quite enjoy it- but it's not the "go to" chocolate in Blighty like it is over here. Oh no, that spot is reserved for the one, the only: Cadbury's Dairy Milk. That stuff is the BOMB! The Bee's Knees!! The Dog's Bollocks!!! I personally enjoy it the most with Hula Hoops...
In the same mouthful.
I know, I'm weird.
But weird is good!
Anyway, I'm drifting away from the point. My point is that the original, essential chocolate of America doesn't even come close, in terms of quality, to our chocolate. And that is pretty much the same for all of their sweets, they're all a bit tacky. Now, this is just my opinion, but I think it's one most of y'all will agree with me on.
Soooooo...
I should probably share with you guys what I've been up to this past week...
But I don't have to...
In fact, why should I? This is effort for me! I could spend this time watching Top Gear on Netflix!!
What have you done for me?!?
...
Other than read my blogs each week
...
And probably a variety of other things
...
So yeah, I'll tell you.
On Monday (seems like a reasonable day to start), I spent the day with a Mr Rick Holland at the Gibsland Bank in Bossier. This was arranged last week when I was introduced to My Holland at the Veterans job fair by members of the Bossier Chamber of Commerce (with whom I had been doing some work experience). Mr Holland told me that he could set me up with a few placements relevant to Marketing and Psychology, and so I met with him to discuss these.
As it turns out, I actually spent the day there, as opposed to just meeting with Mr Holland. This wasn't what I was expecting, although I did make some connections for possible work experience placements (with the Bossier City Police and LSU Shreveport's Psychology division, both of which to be confirmed). The day with Mr Holland was actually very profitable: I got those connections, I gained valuable insight into certain Marketing campaigns used by Mr Holland to promote the bank, and I even had a lunch date with James Burton roughly set up. Now, that came about because I told Mr Holland over lunch that I was a guitar player, so he asked me if I had ever heard of James Burton- which I had.
SIDE NOTE
I'm sure some of you are reading me blabbering on about James Burton like
So allow me to clarify, James Burton was one of Elvis Presley's guitar players. Yes, you read that right- Elvis Presley.
When Mr Holland told me this, I was in awe. I sat there with eyes gleaming with anticipation.
But , I did have some anxiety. Although, I knew who James Burton was, I hadn't heard a whole lot of his playing, so I was thinking: "What the hell am I going to talk him about?!". But luckily, I know someone who is very well versed in Country/ Rock 'n' Roll/ Rockabilly, the style James Burton is a titan of- my Dad. So when I got home, I facetime'd my dear Mother, regretfully forgetting about the time difference and waking her up (sorry Mum!). However, my Mum was incredibly kind and got up just so I could share the good news with my dad and ask him for some listening material to prepare me for this lunch. Anyway, sooner or later this lunch will be sorted out, and I can't wait.
Now, unfortunately I didn't get up to much else for the rest of the week, work experience wise, as I kept waiting on Erica Adams from Cumulus radio to get in contact (like she said she would) to arrange some more time with her, but she has yet to do so. But I have gotten up to some other things.
I don't know whether you know this or not, but in Louisiana, they have a thing for Crawfish. A big thing.
Crawfish are like small lobster/ shrimpy things. But oh my God are they good. There's a lot of waste involved in eating them, in so far as the only real meat is in the tail and you've got to remove the body, and then the shell from the tail before getting to the succulent, heavenly flesh.
If you say to a Louisiana resident: "Crawfish and Ice tea", they will get a look in their eye similar to when one puts a bowl of bacon, cheese, and tennis balls in front of a dog.
And I totally understand why.
I couldn't get enough of the things.
I'm really glad that I enjoyed them as the other Louisianan food that I had had since getting here (red beans and rice, and gumbo) I hadn't enjoyed so much. So now I'm feeling more like a true Louisiana resident!
Later that week, on Friday, Rick Gates picked me up to take me to lunch at somewhere called Fuddruckers, which prides itself on making the best burgers in the world. And they weren't lying.
I had a 12 ounce (340g) burger with cheese and it was the best burger I have ever had. Ever. That's one thing the Americans do better than anyone- Burgers. I've had many since getting here, and they've all been amazing, but the Fuddruckers..... Just blew me away.
After that, Rick took me to a shop called "Bass Pro Shops", which is an outdoors-y, fishing, and general "American frontier" kind of shop.
With a lot of guns.
So that pretty much concludes my week. I'm kinda tired writing this, so apologies if this blog has been somewhat un- animated (which is what it seems like it's been to me).
Nonetheless, thanks ever so much for reading and be sure to tune in for next week's blog, which will be the penultimate blog written in Louisiana! Eeeek!!
Jya ne
James x
*Goes to write blog*
*Shakes head*
*Blows 6 inch thick pile of dust off of blog*
WOW
It has been a while since I blogged...... A long while...
My blog pretty much looked like this when came back to it
It's been something like two weeks? Ah well, details aren't important, what matters is that I'm sorry for the long wait and that I'M BACK!
Also, Man Utd drew 1-1 with Bayern Munich (i.e. didn't receive a major butt pounding)- that's pretty important.
So yeah.....
I'm assuming, seeing as you're reading this, that you have some mild level of interest in what I've gotten up to these past two weeks.
The answer is a lot.
Cos I'm in Louisiana.
And Louisiana is awesome.
Like, for real, Louisiana is amazing. When I found out I would be coming here, I was taken aback a tad. I thought: "Louisiana? That's WAY down there! I thought I'd be going somewhere like California or Colorado! Where everyone my age drives ridiculously expensive, brand new cars and only ever says OMG INSTAGRAM!!"
Well as it turns out, teens do that down here too.
But that's besides the point....
The point is that I AM SO HAPPY TO HAVE COME TO LOUISIANA. I've said before that Southern Hospitality is very true, and I mean it. The people here are SOO wholesome and friendly. It's never "Hello" with them when greeting a stranger, it's "Hey! How are you! Great to meet you!" and it's never "Yes" or "No" to a senior, but "Yes sir" or "No ma'am"- I get a true sense of respect being here. Now, it's true that people are somewhat conservative down here- Guns 'n' Jesus are both very, very popular. But there's nothing really wrong with that. People back home rave about how Americans should be stripped of their guns because they're causing far too much violent crime... But if you take Los Angeles, Detroit, and New York out of the statistics, America has a lower violent crime rate than Britain!!
Yes, people love their guns down here, and have A LOT of them, but holy moly are they responsible with them (most of them anyway). The amount of times I've heard "Don't point a gun at someone unless your, or someone else's life is in danger" is ridiculous.
But anyway, I'm trailing away from my point once again. People here are great, food here is great (I've gained like 5 pounds since being here), the weather here (when it's warm and sunny) is great, and I'm feeling great.
So in my last blog I said I'd be working at a daycare centre in the coming week. And I did indeed work at a daycare over that week. Now, just to clarify, by daycare I mean young children, not old people. I'd take working with kids over working with the elderly any day, I mean both groups have problems with controlling their bowls, but it's less gross with one of them. The children were aged 7-11 (older than usual because it was spring break) and they were so friendly and accepting! A new adult? Who cares! How's it going, Mr James!!
The kids there all seemed to be big fans of these things called Rainbow Bracelets, which are brightly coloured bracelets (or rings or necklaces) made by weaving together small, elastic bands. A small girl called Riley showed me how to make one and even made me one. Imma keep it as souvenir fo' sho'
One thing I found quite amusing while I was working there was snack time. As far as I can gleam, the children get snacks provided for them by the daycare twice a day, on top of their packed lunches. What was amusing was the snacks they gave them. They had large bags of Lucky Charms cereal from which they would take scoops using cups, and then give these to the children. The whole time they were doing this the only thing I could think of was taking scoops of rabbit food and putting it in bowls for the rabbits to eat at my volunteering on Sundays. So this was like a kind of "Child feed"! I found very hard to stop myself laughing out loud.
On the Thursday of that week, a family friend of the Piraino's, Alfonso, (who was my age and I'd been in some phone contact with him attempting to set something up) came to the daycare centre to "borrow me" for a little while. On the way out he told me that him and his friend were actually running from the cops because they had stolen some goats. I was like "Oh yeah, sure you stole some goats".
But then I got in his car.
And looked in his back seat.
And there were some bloody goats sitting there bleeting at me.
Taken aback as I was, I retained my cool and merely said "Well, you're clearly doing a good job of running from the police, as I don't see any cop cars".
BOOM.
Alfonso then admitted to pulling my leg and to make up for it, bought me some chicken.
Good deal.
As we were driving to our destination (which I didn't know until we got there), Alfonso kept making up different reason why he had these goats and where we were going with them ranging from: "We're taking them to Mexico to help boost their economy", to "We're going to sacrifice them to Satan". The actual reason was just as bizarre, if I'm honest- we were returning them to where Alfonso bought them (some redneck's house) as they were too much hassle, Alfonso bought them in the first place as a way to ask his date to prom with him, claiming that he chose to spend $180 to do this because "She likes goats".
On Friday, we did something awesome. We left for New Orleans.
Now, getting in a car for a five and a half hour journey may not seem very exciting at all, but I was pumped. After all,
WE WERE GOING TO NEW ORLEANS
I don't know what comes to y'alls minds when you think of New Orleans: Jazz? Hurricanes?
Whatever comes to mind, I'll tell you what should come to mind:
Alcohol.
And lots of it.
We visited Bourbon Street (the party central of New Orleans) at least twice while we were there and, well.... The only way I think to describe it is.....
If Camben Lock and Ibiza had a retarded baby and got it high on crack...
That's Bourbon Street.
Drunks outnumbering the sober.
Vomit and condoms painting the streets.
Strippers outside of clubs just to lure you in.
Girls flashing guys on balconies just to get some stupid plastic beeds.
It was pretty damn awesome.
There was one guy who was so out of it, that he was just dancing non- stop outside of a Jazz club. It was pretty remarkable... So I took a selfie with him.
(he didn't mind/ couldn't comprehend what was going on so it was all good)
We ate at a restaurant called Oceania on Saturday night, which is a classic Louisiana/ New Orleans seafood place. Unfortunately, much to the dismay of Krista, I ordered the Cheeseburger. Now, I do regret doing this, as it wasn't that great, and the Oysters looked tempting. But I did, in my defense, order the Blackened Gator bites as a starter. It is what is sounds like, Alligator nuggets.
They tasted like chicken.
So, I mean, that's pretty N'awlins right? You can't eat Alligator just anywhere! It's pretty unique!
Ah well.
Earlier that day in the French Market I saw possibly the most unappetising sounding food ever. It was called "Alligator Shrimp Sausage Cheesecake".
I'd like to meet the person who sees that and says "Hot damn! That looks good!!".
...
Actually, thinking about it, I probably don't want to meet that person, as I probably wouldn't survive the encounter.
On Sunday we took a walk round Tulane University, which is where Avery is attending (oh, I forgot to mention, Avery is the Piraino's daughter, and visiting her was one of the reasons we went to New Orelans). For a long time I considered going to an American uni, but walking around the campus, I'm kinda glad I didn't. It's a beautiful campus and everything, but the dorms weren't really... as nice as many English Uni's dorms. But don't get me wrong, the university was very nice- I'm just glad I'm going to university back home.
But yeah, seriously guys, if you don't have New Orleans on your ''cities I need to visit'' list, add it. And if you don't have such a list, you should make one! It's a great way to indulge one's imagination. My list, if you're interested, is currently comprised of LA, Chicago, Paris, Sydney, and Tokyo (I use Tokyo to represent everywhere in Japan, because I want to see every inch of that country).
After New Orleans, nothing really happened until Ross had his Eagle Scout ceremony on Saturday. I spent a couple of days doing work experience at the Bossier Chamber of Commerce, which was great, and it in turn got me another placement at a bank, which I start tomorrow.
Ross achieving Eagle is really something remarkable. Apparently, only about 5 or 6% of boys who start Scouting NATIONALLY reach Eagle, so it's really impressive that he's done this. Congratulations to him!
So that's pretty much me up to date! It's been a great two weeks, just like the rest of the time I've been here.
Oh! Before I forget, my friend Jenny has started a blog about her accidental gap year! It's a great read with some interesting insights into a side of uni life you may not hear a lot about. Check it out http://my-accidental-gap-year.blogspot.co.uk/
So, back to weekly blogs now, apologies once again for the long wait- I'm sure you felt thoroughly deprived of my mildly entertaining stream of stupidity, but fret no more! It has returned!!
Thanks for reading you guys!
Jya ne
James x
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