Settling in...

Konichiwa, you guys!

First of all, sorry the blog is late: I know I said I'd be posting one every Sunday, and I had one all lined up for y'all.... But then shockwave crashed..... And I couldn't save nor publish the blog..... I thought I'd saved it and so refreshed the page...... And the blog that had taken me the best part of three hours to write was wiped......
I stood there looking at my laptop like

I was SO angry!!
No word of a lie, it took me about 40 mins to calm down and stop myself from ripping apart my laptop.
But I eventually chilled out and went all zen mode. And now.... Here's my blog!

Gooooood aftern-
*checks time*
Evening, readers of my blog! I have now been here in the "deep south" for the best part of two and a half weeks now, and boy am I lovin' it.
Now, the title "Settling in" would lead you to believe that I'm only just, well, settling in. But, that's not actually the case (to be expected, I suppose, as my title- writing so far has, to be honest, sucked). I was pretty much settled in after the first few days, and now I feel so comfortable and "at home" that it seems like I was at my actual house a lot longer ago than just three weeks. Southern Hospitality at it's finest (even though Krista and Steve are from Iowa and Chicago!).
So this past week I have been job shadowing Crickett Oldenburg at Allegra Marketing. It was great fun, highly interesting, and I gained valuable insight into the world of an independent marketing firm, which is who Allegra are- they're hired by small businesses to help them with their marketing campaigns. Crickett was a great person to shadow as well, telling hilarious stories in the car which helped keep em entertained between meetings.
Unfortunately, that placement was only for a week, and now I'm moving onto other placements. I figured that, seeing as I'm here and want to experience as much as possible, I'd widen my horizons to encompass other types of work experience related to Psychology. For example, next week I'll be working at a daycare centre, and I am looking into some possible placements with the Psychology departments at some local universities. It's all coming together nicely, and for me, excited is an understatement as to how I'm feeling.

While I was being driven around by Crickett, I couldn't help but notice that she used her phone A LOT whilst driving. This is something I've noticed quite a few people doing since I've been here, and it's taken me a bit by surprise.
Back home, being on the phone whilst driving is like the worst thing one can do in a car.... Aside from strangling a puppy and committing tax fraud.... Never strangle a puppy and commit tax fraud whilst driving.

   











^I'm watching you...

But yeah, I guess they can do that here because so few cars have a manual gear box- so they'll usually have a hand free to use the phone. If someone did it back home, how would they change gear?
So for a while I thought everyone here must be amazing drivers, but after Crickett told me that people in Shreveport are crap drivers, and after I saw two accidents in like, two days, I started to doubt that (fair enough, right?).

Speaking of phones, I'm using a temporary, prepaid phone while I'm here for local calls and texts. This is due to the OBSCENE prices that EE charge for data roaming (i.e. using your phone abroad). Back home, 1GB of data costs £10, which isn't too bad, but over here, 500MB costs £50!!!!!! That's half the data for five times the price.
Ain't nobody got cash fo dat!!!

...

Urgh.. Blogger keeps underlining words it doesn't recognise the spelling of (and trying to correct me when I use the English spelling of something). This is getting annoying...

JDBFIBRGIWBRUG POINTLESSNONSENSE OERBGUERBOEB

There we go, that's just to piss it off.

Anyway, this temporary phone's number must be a recycled one, as I keep getting text messages from numbers I don't recognise that make no sense to me. I've been ignoring these, up until Thursday, when I received multiple messages from the same number. Here's how the conversation went:

Stranger: hows ur job goin?
James: *no response*
Stranger: r u considered at work while ur at work or r u can go out n stuff?
James: *no response*
Stranger: I think women have to travel as much as men
James: Sorry, who is this?
Stranger: iight kool
James: I think you've got the wrong number, mate
Stranger: who dis
James: The person you've been texting all morning
Stranger: Is this Chris?
James: No, this is Rupert

After that, regretfully, my conversation with this entertaining stranger ended. I guess I'll never know who my moderately illiterate friend was. Whomever he may be, I'm sure he was the pride and joy of his English teacher (who should, with all respect, be fired).

On Saturday, I had a major first world problem.

I couldn't sleep in.
I know, it's awful, I've been receiving sympathy cards since then.

...

Only joking :D

But yeah, I had to get up at 6 in the morning to go and help at a Catholic community centre. We were going to be heading out and delivering soup and sandwiches to the elderly in the area at around 8:30, so we went earlier to help them prepare the food..... or drink.... Just what is soup anyway? It's like yoghurt- it's not a liquid but you don't chew it..... One of the great mysteries of life, I suppose.

Aaaaanywayyss, the morning was actually brilliant fun, I had a great time cooking the soup with the people at the centre (which is called the Knights of Columbus), and then actually delivering the soup was very rewarding- I could tell that some of the old folks really appreciated it.

However..... some.... didn't.

One guy in particular is apparently a problem every time- he used to be a minister and has consequently decided that he hates Catholics so much that he won't even accept free food from them. And before shutting the door on us, he said "the Lord giveth and the Lord TAKETH AWAY", like it was some sort of threat!

Stupid old coot.

But other than that, it was a great morning.

Afterwards, I assumed the role of the quintessential American teenager, and went to the mall. Clothes here are so cheap that I had to see if there were anymore I liked. Unfortunately, I didn't like the fit of the Levi's I tried on, so we went somewhere called Hot Topic. Now I've heard some things about Hot Topic, most of them bad. But upon walking in, after getting over the people who work there, who all have ear lobes the size of Venus, I saw their anime t shirt collection....

My reaction?

 It was awesome!

After that, I thought I'd treat Ross and his friend, Hunter, to lunch at a fast food joint called "Cane's". Paying for all three of us would have only cost me like 15 bucks, but just as I was about to pay, Steve (who had already eaten) jumped in and, very kindly, paid instead.

Very nice of him (thanks, Steve!), but I was just standing there like

Later on, we went for dinner at a Japanese steak house called "Shogun's", where the Cook cook's the food right in front of you, as well as doing cool tricks with his cutlery and fire.

The whole thing was utterly kick ass.

BUT NEVERTHELESS

It's getting on, and I've been at this for a while now. I know you all love to read my blog, but I do have a life- I've got very important stuff to be getting on with at 4:30 in the afternoon!

*opens anime website and Facebook*

Before I go, Ross introduced me to this awesome song, check it out!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cnQCk0u49w

Until next time

Jya ne

James x

A pleasant culture shock.

Howdy y'all!!
...
Nope, even after a week of being here, I still sound inexcusably white and English saying that...
Nevertheless... Hello!!!.

This, I imagine, will be when these blogs will start getting remotely interesting- as I have come to the end of my first week in Louisiana (or as the natives pronounce it; Loosiana), and have real, "different cultural experience" stuff to report on! Hooray!

Around the time of year I got here, in this part of the world, they celebrate something called 'Mardis Gras'. As far as I can understand, it is a final "let's get stupidly drunk" festival before Lent- that they only seem to celebrate in Louisiana (I expect they do mark it in other parts of the States, but it's no where near as big as it is down here in the Bayous). The main activity that people partake in (besides excessive alcohol consumption and dramatic lowering of standards) is catching beaded necklaces that people throw at you from floats (the floats being the main bulk of any parade), and as trivial as it may sound, it is actually incredibly enjoyable. The seemingly trademark phrase of this activity is "Throw me some beads, Mister!", a tradition I honoured for a while, before resorting to "THROW US SOME BEADS, MATE!", which, in my strong English accent, attracted a fair bit of bead throwing. I find it very interesting how people can go crazy trying to get some plastic beads (Steve actually got into a bit of a tug-of-war match with some woman trying to get the same set of beads), which they're only going to throw away in a couple of weeks time. Funny how people get carried away in an atmosphere of joy.
Of course, with the festival being as big as it is, not only beads are thrown. Oh no, the mighty talon of American commercialism has a firm hold of these parades and the items thrown, with many of them being simple toys with the name of a company on them. I, for example, caught a stress relief ball with the phone company, Metro PCS's logo on it, and a foam finger with " Number 1 healthcare fan" written on it- an item I immediately used to crudely imitate Miley Cyrus.











^A truly 'sophisticated' Englishman.

In total, I went to two Mardis Gras parades. The first was in the area just outside of Shreveport, and is considered the main parade of the Shreveport/ Bossier City area. This is the one that attracts an older population, as opposed to the second one I attended (based in the Shreveport suburbs) which is more for children. One also gets WAY more beads from the second one, perhaps because there are less people to throw beads to.

^A VERY small part of the collection of beads I obtained

A few hours before the first parade started, I got my first true experience of the incredibly notorious; American fast food. I experienced Wendy's; a fast food chain that is very popular here in the states, but one that we do not have back home in Blighty.
So this was some pure American fast food.
Straight up.
We went there after Ross and his friend, Hunter, exclaimed great shock at the fact that I'd never had Wendy's before, and thus concluded that I had to try it.
Getting dragged to a place that sells cheap burgers and chips?


Looking at the menu, I once again resorted to my Pavlov's dog state, with a side of utter amazement.
The Baconator.
The Son of Baconator.
Wow.




















^See that one at the top with three burgers in it? Yeah. America.

Something else I discovered in Wendy's which got hammered home the more fast food places I visited, is that most sodas have unlimited refills. That's right. Unlimited.
I know, in England, Nando's do unlimited refills, but they're pretty much the only place.
In America, almost every place does them. It's awesome.
This, for me, really demonstrated how much lower the cost of living is in America, compared to the UK. This point was further demonstrated when I visited Hollister.

Now, a few of my friends may describe me a a bit of a Hollisterite- I have been known to wear outfits comprised entirely of apparel from Hollister, often without me realising it. I have been trying to reduce the frequency of Hollister clothing appearing on my body, but I'm afraid that this effort may soon cease, due to the prices of Hollister clothing in America.
At home, a hoodie from Hollister is about £40.
Here in America, I bought a hoodie and a denim shirt for $38.
38 DOLLARS.
That's about £22. So I'm getting double the number of items of clothing, for almost half the price.
That makes me very happy.

Unfortunately, when I jokingly warned my beloved Father that I may require additional funds to replace those that will probably be spent in Hollister, I (quite rightly) received a less than positive response.
James: "Daddy- kins, I may require more $$$$"
Daddy- kins: "The bloody 'ell you will"
James:

*runs away*

ANY HOOOOOO

In order, to continue my guitar practice while I am here, I bought an acoustic guitar.
For $70.
Again, ridiculously cheap considering it's surprisingly good build quality and play-ability. The one downside to it is that some of the fret posts had quite sharp edges, so when I was practicing Andy McKee's 'Drifting', I ended up doing one of my fingers a bit of damage.

Other than playing the guitar, I've spent my first week here doing a variety of things in my down time, including: being introduced to Minecraft (which is so addictive), and playing kinect golf with the Piraino's (which as incredibly fun).
On Friday, I spent the day with Rick Gates at his office, and running errands with him- job- shadowing really, kinda in preparation for next week. Aside from an awesome double cheeseburger, the stand out moment of that day was as we were driving through a somewhat down- trodden area of Shreveport. I joked that this would not be an area to leave one's car unlocked, and Mr Gates, with a smile on his face that soon spread to mine, said "That's why I have this" and brandished a large handgun. This was my first real encounter with the gun culture here, as when I told the story to Krista, she showed me her concealed weapon license and one of her guns, and then promised that we'd go shooting sometime.
Now that I'm looking forward to.
On the whole, stereotypes are inaccurate, and should be dismissed. But since I've got here, I have come to understand where they come from, for example, Louisiana is in the "Deep South" of the USA, and one of the main stereotypes of this area is Redneck culture. Now, NONE of the people I've met here are what most people would consider "Rednecks", but I did see quite a few people at the first Mardis Gras parade who were wearing sleeveless shirts and cap hats, driving sand buggies and quad bikes, and listening to loud country music where the only two audible words were "Beer" and "Gun". But, I never interacted with any of these people (luckily?). So, perhaps this stereotype has some truth to it, but, the term "southern hospitality" is nothing but the truth. Every single person I have met has been incredibly friendly and accommodating. I am so lucky to be staying with the Piraino's- they've made me feel truly at home and I look forward to the next two months staying here.

Anyways, this has been going on for a while now! You're initial interest (if it existed at all) as probably drained away by now, and you're probably impatiently skim reading like:

So without further ado, I shall cease this post. I've chosen Sunday as my blogging day, so y'all can expect the next one then!

Jya ne!

James x
  

Welcome to Shreveport.

AT LAST! I'M HERE!!

Finally, after months and months of anticipation, the Brit is at last in the USA (in the likely case some of you didn't get it, my URL address is a play on the Bruce Springsteen song- BORN in the USA, funny right? Right? Aahhh never mind).
So I'm finally here in Bossier City (which it turns out I've been pronouncing wrong- it's actually pronounced 'Boushia' as opposed to 'Boss- ia' which is what I've been calling it). My connecting flight from Dallas Fort Worth (which is a cool-as-hell name for an airport) got in at roughly 19:10 local time- which is about 3 in the morning back in Blighty, so I was crazy tired. The Piraino's were waiting for me at the airport, and gave me an awesome welcoming! I even had my own sign!

(that photo was so hard to take!! I gave up trying to hold the sign with both hands and pressing the button with my foot as my knee kept blocking the sign! >.<)

I was somewhat worried on the plane that, because I was so tired, I would lack the energy to be my usual chatty self, and the conversation would often enter an awkward lull. But this wasn't the case! The Piraino's are such friendly people that we were talking constantly, and I seemed to almost forget about my very long, busy day and I was very excited when they said we were going to a restaurant called 'iHop' to meet Rick Gates from the Benton Rotary club. iHop stands for 'International House of Pancakes' and it seems to be a chain of restaurants across the US that specialise in, well, pancakes (shocker, right?) Rick told me a bit more about my first placement at Allegra Marketing- and it's sounding more and more awesome by the minute! Rick also told me to expect to put on at least 20lbs while I was there, and I could see why! Chocolate chip pancakes?!?! That's crazy. Delicious- sounding, but crazy (in a good way). Putting on weight back home isn't exactly the hardest thing to do- just have a kebab and a beer every night, but over here it's on a whole other level. The amount of awesome food that would make Jamie Oliver cry in a corner is insane. But don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, this morning I had peanut butter and chocolate cereal for crying out loud! I'm loving it! (to quote the slogan of a company that has quite a lot of relevance to this). Louisiana is famous for it's food- especially it's sea food, and my mouth was watering all Pavlov's dog style when Rick, Krista, and Steve were telling me about the BBQ ribs and cray fish meals I'd be having over the coming weeks- I cannot wait to wholeheartedly indulge my taste buds while I'm here.

 

Speaking of food, isn't it normal for food on planes to suck? Like, it's tradition, right? Well, I thought that was the case up until my British Airways flight yesterday- they served a delicious chicken tikka masala and an AMAZING chicken coronation sandwich. I was in two minds while eating that food: on one hand, I was in love with the food itself, but on the other, it was so out of the ordinary for me to enjoy the food on the plane, that I thought it was an omen for the plane to crash! So I was terrified when we went into some heavy turbulence over the south of Greenland, so terrified in fact, that I actually 'went to my happy place'- something I then realised I hadn't yet decided on- so my mind darted from one though to the other, and the technique failed. Oh well, I'm still here, so I didn't need it anyway.

Upon entry to the Piraino's home, the main thought going through my mind was: 'size'. Their house is huge, they don't have an upstairs, so I guess the house compensates by making all the rooms gigantic- and Krista said that their house is actually kinda average compared to some of the houses here!

I got very excited about two things my first night here, the first was that Ross was a fan of one of my favourite Animes- Shingeki no Kyojin (or Attack on Titan, as it is sometimes called). I found this out when he was showing me his bedroom and I spotted his rucksack, which had the scouting legion (something from the anime) logo on it. I then proceeded to jump around in sheer elation- I never would have thought that Ross would be a fan of Anime- I thought that I'd be alone in my sad, loserness and get funny looks if I was open about it. BUT IT WASN'T SO! How cool.
The second thing was quite simply- M&M's ice cream. It's ice cream (awesome), with M&M's in it. What does the scooter say about it's tastiness levels, Vegeta?

Soooo....
My work experience doesn't start until next week, so this first week is just for hanging out with my host family- which is great! Today Krista was at work and Ross was at school and Steve was on the phone a lot, so I took the opportunity to... well.. do what I usually do at home; browse the web, watch anime and listen to nightcore. But all the time I'm thinking:
'This is America'
'I'm sitting on an American chair'
'I'm using American Wi- fi'
I still find it too cool to believe. But I'd better start believing it soon- cos it's REAL :D

Anyways, look at the time!

I've been at this blog for a while now, so I'd better sign off, or 'power down' as they say over here.
I'll be updating the blog weekly- although I haven't decided on a day yet....

Jya ne
James x

And so it begins...

Greetings all!
(by all, I expect I'll be addressing my parents, and a few of my friends.... But if you don't fall into these categories, thanks for checking out my blog!)

In the likely event that you don't speak Japanese, I should clarify that the title says 'I am James'. I don't speak Japanese fluently, I just felt somewhat inclined to make the title what it is. Now that I think about it, it makes no sense putting the title in Japanese, as this is going to be a travel blog about America- guess I've been watching too much Anime. Oh well, 'Watashi wa James desu' it shall stay!

ANYWAYS

As aforementioned, I am starting this blog as an account for my trip to the USA, more specifically, Louisiana, even more specifically, Shreveport, EVEN more specifically, Bossier City (that's as specific as I can get without giving away my host families actual address!). I'm going as part of the Rotary club's Youth Exchange programme, and I am sooo looking forward to it! This is going to be the most exciting part of my gap year so far, not that my gap year so far has been uneventful, it's just that what I've done so far (resit some exams, have limited success at finding a job, and act incredibly unsociable when visiting unis) aren't anywhere near as exciting as this!
As excited as I am for this trip, I am also pretty scared. I'm sure that once I'm there, everything will be fine- I'm proud to be an ambassador for my country, and from the Email contact I've had with them my host family, the Piraino's, seem like incredibly friendly people! But I've always had a somewhat irrational fear of going through airport security. I know I've got nothing to hide (what threat is a skinny English kid anyways?), but I always find myself getting stressed out by the whole 'metal detectors and men with guns' thing, which leads me to think that the security staff will think that I'm up to no good, and I'll end up backed into a corner screaming...

(forgive the grammatical error- it should be 'Please I am too young to die'. But who really cares when it comes to memes anyway?)

I've always wanted to visit America- mainly because my Dad has been watching American films (particularly Westerns) his whole life, and so he has sort of passed the 'tradition' (if you can call it that) onto me. Most of my favourite films are American, and set in America (I'll refrain from listing them to save myself from any possible judgement!), so the US of A has always been this kind of, fairy tale land of amazing scenery, kick- ass cops, and loud, raunchy muscle cars.

But not just that.

Whenever I've seen real life footage of American life; whether it be in busy city streets, friendly suburban areas, or even striking desert ranches, I got the sense that that is somewhere I wanted to be, or at least explore. And now's my chance! HOORAHH!!
All I can say is a great, big, MASSIVE thank you to both my sponsoring and hosting Rotary clubs!

I expect this particular blog has been incredibly boring thus far, in which case I apologise- I'm really trying my best! I swear my blogs will become infinitely more interesting once I'm actually in America, documenting my trip, so please, PLEASE keep reading them. Perhaps some puppy dog eyes will help persuade you...

Well, I think that is a decent enough introduction, I'll be signing off for now- I shall resume once I'm in Louisiana! :D

Jya ne!! (see ya)
James x