Well, this past week and a half has been rather uneventful. Highlights include tie dying on Sanford Mall, where we got free t-shirts and dyed them lots of pretty colours. Mine has now dried and it actually looks quite good :) Another highlight was that me and Becca went on an adventure to find the car hire place to rent a car for the gig on Saturday, and we got the Pop 105 bus, which I'd never ridden before (basically the Appalcarts have lots of different routes depending on where you want to go. There's the blue, gold, red, orange etc. and then the Pop route which goes along route 105 which is one of the most major roads around here). The route is beautiful, it goes up to some student accommodation which is really high up so the view was amazing :) I like to ride the bus, it is fun and seeing as it is free here, even better!
Another highlight was my popular culture class. Sadly we didn't go on a field trip this time, but Larry showed us lots of old footage of when he used to go to TV shows to be in the audience and he used to ask lots of questions so he used to get on TV :) he looked funny in all the various clips from different years. He also showed us some documentary footage that students who used to go to their loft in NYC shot when they were there over a summer.
Yesterday I got a phone call from Nesibelli (from Kazakhstan) and she invited me to her room to have dinner because she had cooked her national dish. It was really good, we watched Finding Nemo on her roommate's massive TV and ate the food (which was chopped chicken and potatoes with lots of herbs, it was really good) and drank grape juice. She's really fun, and I've learnt a lot about her culture which is great.
Today I have been studying for two exams which I have on tuesday. I went to get food from McAlisters, and because everybody raves about their sweet tea I tried it. It was actually really delicious. Being British I felt kind of like a traitor to proper tea, but it was definitely nowhere near as good as Sainsburys Red Label :) Tonight I have been fingerpainting with my roomie and watching Independence Day, cos we're cool like that :)
Sunday 27 September 2009
Wednesday 16 September 2009
The One with the Fire Station
It's 7.15pm and pouring down with rain. I'm standing in the middle of King Street outside Boone Fire House. Why? Only one explanation - Larry.
I had to blog about my Pop Culture class today because I was yet again truly in awe of Larry and the things he tells us and the places he takes us to and the people he knows. We get to the usual classroom, and we take attendance. Then Larry talks for about five minutes about 9/11. He used to take students to NY city on trips and they had a loft a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center, which they sold in 1998. He lived there from 1972 to 1996 as well so he is pretty attached to it. He joked that he wanted some of his ashes in Boone, some in his hometown, some in New York City, and some in Graceland. He's got so much character about him.
Then Larry says that every year around the anniversary he shows students a documentary called 9/11, narrated by Robert De Niro and it won the prize for the best 9/11 documentary. It was made by two brothers from France called the Naudets. They were originally filming a documentary about a rookie NY fireman, but it turned into a documentary about the firefighters of 9/11 when they were caught in the middle of it. Their footage was the only footage from inside tower 1. Larry said that we were going to watch it in the Boone Fire House on King Street. We walked up there and were greeted by fire chief Reginald Hassler and fire marshall Ronnie Marsh. We were taken to their briefing room where they talked about what they do in Boone.
It was amazing because they had so many connections to the town. Larry my professor used to be Mayor of Boone at one time, and the fire chief's son actually helped out with his election campaign. The fire chief's whole family (brother, wife, two children and himself) were Appalachian State graduates, and one of the other firemen we were introduced to, Kent Brown, had a grandfather who was also Mayor of Boone in the 1960s, and when he died at the age of 101 last year, Larry actually spoke at his funeral. It was weird that they all had so many connections to the area, and it was obvious that they loved their job, seeing as most of the men who work there are volunteers. Reginald Hassler was actually the first paid fireman in Boone, 17 years ago. It was really good to meet them, they obviously care a lot about the students and the town, and would do anything to help us out. It was also nice to see the shiny fire engines :)
We watched the documentary, which was quite upsetting and sombreing, and I think that no matter how many 9/11 documentaries you see, they never get less upsetting to watch. It was interesting to see a documentary from the perspective of a filmmaker caught up in the middle of a nightmare. He focused on the firefighters of Ladder 1, and to see them in action as they tried to make sense of what was happening was scary but inspiring to watch, because the comeradery and team spirit of all the firefghters was immense.
The scene that sticks in my mind the most is when the firefighters get called out to a routine gas leak. They are standing over the manhole cover testing with an instrument for gas, and you can see that people on the street behind them all look up into the sky simultaneously, and then a ginormous roar is heard, which sounds like a plane but really close, and then the brother who was filming with a hand-held camera pans up to the first tower, and everything seems normal, then apparently out of nowhere comes a plane. It is surreal, and if it wasn't on a hand held camera you would have sworn it was fake. The way the situation went from a routine gas leak check to a complete nightmare was scary.
A scary fact from the film was that a fire fighter with about 60 pounds of gear takes one minute to climb a single flight of stairs in the World Trade Center. Those firemen had to climb 80 flights of stairs to get to the crash site. That's a long time. It was good to see it, because the theme of the class was about events that defined our generation. 9/11 was definitely the defining world event of my teens, and visiting New York made me think about it even more. The rest of the world can forget more easily, but the impact of 9/11 is still seen today throughout the whole of America, even here in North Carolina.
I had to blog about my Pop Culture class today because I was yet again truly in awe of Larry and the things he tells us and the places he takes us to and the people he knows. We get to the usual classroom, and we take attendance. Then Larry talks for about five minutes about 9/11. He used to take students to NY city on trips and they had a loft a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center, which they sold in 1998. He lived there from 1972 to 1996 as well so he is pretty attached to it. He joked that he wanted some of his ashes in Boone, some in his hometown, some in New York City, and some in Graceland. He's got so much character about him.
Then Larry says that every year around the anniversary he shows students a documentary called 9/11, narrated by Robert De Niro and it won the prize for the best 9/11 documentary. It was made by two brothers from France called the Naudets. They were originally filming a documentary about a rookie NY fireman, but it turned into a documentary about the firefighters of 9/11 when they were caught in the middle of it. Their footage was the only footage from inside tower 1. Larry said that we were going to watch it in the Boone Fire House on King Street. We walked up there and were greeted by fire chief Reginald Hassler and fire marshall Ronnie Marsh. We were taken to their briefing room where they talked about what they do in Boone.
It was amazing because they had so many connections to the town. Larry my professor used to be Mayor of Boone at one time, and the fire chief's son actually helped out with his election campaign. The fire chief's whole family (brother, wife, two children and himself) were Appalachian State graduates, and one of the other firemen we were introduced to, Kent Brown, had a grandfather who was also Mayor of Boone in the 1960s, and when he died at the age of 101 last year, Larry actually spoke at his funeral. It was weird that they all had so many connections to the area, and it was obvious that they loved their job, seeing as most of the men who work there are volunteers. Reginald Hassler was actually the first paid fireman in Boone, 17 years ago. It was really good to meet them, they obviously care a lot about the students and the town, and would do anything to help us out. It was also nice to see the shiny fire engines :)
We watched the documentary, which was quite upsetting and sombreing, and I think that no matter how many 9/11 documentaries you see, they never get less upsetting to watch. It was interesting to see a documentary from the perspective of a filmmaker caught up in the middle of a nightmare. He focused on the firefighters of Ladder 1, and to see them in action as they tried to make sense of what was happening was scary but inspiring to watch, because the comeradery and team spirit of all the firefghters was immense.
The scene that sticks in my mind the most is when the firefighters get called out to a routine gas leak. They are standing over the manhole cover testing with an instrument for gas, and you can see that people on the street behind them all look up into the sky simultaneously, and then a ginormous roar is heard, which sounds like a plane but really close, and then the brother who was filming with a hand-held camera pans up to the first tower, and everything seems normal, then apparently out of nowhere comes a plane. It is surreal, and if it wasn't on a hand held camera you would have sworn it was fake. The way the situation went from a routine gas leak check to a complete nightmare was scary.
A scary fact from the film was that a fire fighter with about 60 pounds of gear takes one minute to climb a single flight of stairs in the World Trade Center. Those firemen had to climb 80 flights of stairs to get to the crash site. That's a long time. It was good to see it, because the theme of the class was about events that defined our generation. 9/11 was definitely the defining world event of my teens, and visiting New York made me think about it even more. The rest of the world can forget more easily, but the impact of 9/11 is still seen today throughout the whole of America, even here in North Carolina.
Tuesday 15 September 2009
The One with the Mountaineers
Saturday was the Appalachian Mountaineer's first home game of the season, against McNeese State who are a university from Louisiana. I didn't know a single thing about American Football before the game, so I was relying on Savannah and Alison to tell me what was going on (though to be honest, I don't actually think anyone really knows what's going on). First was a ritual the Americans call tailgating. This originated in parking lots and camping grounds when people would let down the tailgate of their pickup trucks and have a grill set up with music and drinks. This has evolved in universitied into an event where each sorority/fraternity and various other societies on campus set up their own tent and grill and have food and generally chill out around the tent. We went to the INTAPP tent (international appalachian) and hung out with the internationals and lots of other Americans who are involved with INTAPP. They were just introducing us to the phenomenon that is 'Game Day' - it really is a big deal here, and considering the game is so boring I think they tailgate and get drunk beforehand to make it more bearable. Alcohol is allowed at tailgating for over 21s, as long as it is only in cans (no bottles or kegs allowed) and the cans have to have a sleeve over them so you're not seen to be advertising the fact that you're drinking. They are pretty strict on the rules on alcohol, especially on Game Day where violence could easily break out, so no alcohol is allowed inside the stadium, and you're not allowed to bring your own drinks inside, even water.
Before the game, the marching band and the cheerleaders put on a show, which was quite spectacular :) The whole game atmosphere was pretty cool actually. There is a giant inflatable tunnel with a giant football helmet at the end for the team to enter the stadium through. Then there are fireworks and it was so pretty :) There are so many people on each team because the offense and defense switch pretty often, so it seems like hundreds of players are running out onto the pitch.
So the game is split into four 15 minute quarters. Somehow though, because of various rules and the fact that they have to get back into position every time the ball stops or goes out of plan, they manage to make a one hour game last over three hours. We were sitting on the grass bank, flanked on both sides by the stands which were pretty packed. McNeese state had a small section at one end, but the rest was full of people wearing various App shirts of different colours and designs, the predominant colour being yellow. It was a beautiful sunny day, so plenty of suncream was needed. We were having a good time just chilling and talking, not really paying much attention to the game because it was boring. The internationals were not impressed, and much as the locals tried to tell us it was good, we were hard to please :)
The last quarter was actually pretty intense though (it was almost dark by then the game had gone on so long). We were up, then down, then up, and then in the last eighteen seconds McNeese scored a touchdown with a two-point conversion, meaning they were up 40-35. After the last ten seconds had been dragged out to about ten minutes, the Mountaineers were defeated by the Cowboys. We weren't that bothered, but it would have been nice to win the first home game of the season, especially seeing as they were ranked about 14 positions below us in the table. We came back to the LLC and ordered in food, and sat around talking. We were all pretty tired.
Before the game, the marching band and the cheerleaders put on a show, which was quite spectacular :) The whole game atmosphere was pretty cool actually. There is a giant inflatable tunnel with a giant football helmet at the end for the team to enter the stadium through. Then there are fireworks and it was so pretty :) There are so many people on each team because the offense and defense switch pretty often, so it seems like hundreds of players are running out onto the pitch.
So the game is split into four 15 minute quarters. Somehow though, because of various rules and the fact that they have to get back into position every time the ball stops or goes out of plan, they manage to make a one hour game last over three hours. We were sitting on the grass bank, flanked on both sides by the stands which were pretty packed. McNeese state had a small section at one end, but the rest was full of people wearing various App shirts of different colours and designs, the predominant colour being yellow. It was a beautiful sunny day, so plenty of suncream was needed. We were having a good time just chilling and talking, not really paying much attention to the game because it was boring. The internationals were not impressed, and much as the locals tried to tell us it was good, we were hard to please :)
The last quarter was actually pretty intense though (it was almost dark by then the game had gone on so long). We were up, then down, then up, and then in the last eighteen seconds McNeese scored a touchdown with a two-point conversion, meaning they were up 40-35. After the last ten seconds had been dragged out to about ten minutes, the Mountaineers were defeated by the Cowboys. We weren't that bothered, but it would have been nice to win the first home game of the season, especially seeing as they were ranked about 14 positions below us in the table. We came back to the LLC and ordered in food, and sat around talking. We were all pretty tired.
Thursday 10 September 2009
The One with the Three Cups of Tea (part 2)
Today is when an event the Americans call 'Convocation' occurs. As far as I can tell, it's just a gathering of various alumni, staff and people important to the university sitting together and having a sort of ceremony where various awards are given out. It takes place in the Convocation Center, on the East side of campus. This is also the venue for basketball games.
First there was the processional, with the brass band playing and all the alumni and staff dressed in robes and caps, and everyone had to stand while they filed in and sat down. Then the chancellor of Appalachian came and spoke, and handed out various awards including student employee of the year and a couple of honorary doctorates.
Then came the big event. Every year, the university has a book which all the freshmen have to read over the summer, and then they have various discussions about it. In a previous blog I talked about how I sat in on a discussion about the book 'Three Cups of Tea' by Greg Sorenson. Every year they get the author of said book to come and speak at convocation. It just so happens that since Greg is nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and has been on the Times top 100 books for 134 weeks now, he is in high demand to go and speak at various events. We were extremely lucky to get him to come, seeing as he had just returned from Afghanistan 2 weeks ago. Because of his popularity, people from all over the state came to see him, some people even drove 10 hours to come. There were about 7 different school groups there too, all in all about 3000 people.
He spoke extremely well, mixing stories from his life and his incredible experiences with motivational speaking and a little bit of humour. He kept everybody's attention and was extremely humble considering all he had achieved. He was very up front about his failures, and modest about his successes. He had me teary eyed in quite a few places, and I truly felt like I was priveledged to be sitting there listening to him. It's not every day that you get to hear a Nobel Prize nominated person speak. So anyway I was quite inspired, and it was lucky because I wasn't even going to go originally but my Pop Culture professor Larry is giving us extra credit if we write a one page response to his speech. Even more reasons why I love Larry :) Everything else is fabby, first football game and tailgating on Saturday - very excited!
First there was the processional, with the brass band playing and all the alumni and staff dressed in robes and caps, and everyone had to stand while they filed in and sat down. Then the chancellor of Appalachian came and spoke, and handed out various awards including student employee of the year and a couple of honorary doctorates.
Then came the big event. Every year, the university has a book which all the freshmen have to read over the summer, and then they have various discussions about it. In a previous blog I talked about how I sat in on a discussion about the book 'Three Cups of Tea' by Greg Sorenson. Every year they get the author of said book to come and speak at convocation. It just so happens that since Greg is nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and has been on the Times top 100 books for 134 weeks now, he is in high demand to go and speak at various events. We were extremely lucky to get him to come, seeing as he had just returned from Afghanistan 2 weeks ago. Because of his popularity, people from all over the state came to see him, some people even drove 10 hours to come. There were about 7 different school groups there too, all in all about 3000 people.
He spoke extremely well, mixing stories from his life and his incredible experiences with motivational speaking and a little bit of humour. He kept everybody's attention and was extremely humble considering all he had achieved. He was very up front about his failures, and modest about his successes. He had me teary eyed in quite a few places, and I truly felt like I was priveledged to be sitting there listening to him. It's not every day that you get to hear a Nobel Prize nominated person speak. So anyway I was quite inspired, and it was lucky because I wasn't even going to go originally but my Pop Culture professor Larry is giving us extra credit if we write a one page response to his speech. Even more reasons why I love Larry :) Everything else is fabby, first football game and tailgating on Saturday - very excited!
Monday 7 September 2009
The One with Girl's Night
The rest of the week went pretty normally. On Friday, Becca and I went to International Coffee Hour where we hung out with lots of the internationals and INTAPP people and ate yummy free food. We also went to the doctor's to get our TB tests checked, which were thankfully fine. We then went on the red route to Walmart, but we ended up going on the wrong route the first time, the one that went to one of the main car parks. When we got on the correct bus, we spent an hour and a half wandering round Walmart. I then had my first ever Subway, which was sooooo good :) They have a Subway in Walmart, which is always handy :)
Saturday was fun, because we all went out for Emma's 21st birthday. We had a meal at Portofino, an Italian cafe at the bottom of Bodenheimer Drive. The food was excellent, I had a grilled chicken foldover, kind of like a soft pitta. We stayed there for a few hours, then moved on to Macadoos, a bar/restaurant on King Street where people had some beers and ice cream, and we just hung out and talked until about 2am. It happened to be College football day, so all the television screens had the Alabama vs Virginis Tech game on. The whole bar was cheering for Tech, but there was a couple sitting behind us with the most obnoxious woman ever, cheering for Alabama in the loudest screechiest most annoying voice, screaming 'LET'S GO BAMA' every 30 seconds. Sooooo annoying! But it was a fun night, and then we walked back up to the LLC.
Sunday was spent sleeping, then watching television until five when Becca and I decided we were hungry. Becca knew she had seen a KFC along Blowing Rock Road somewhere, but couldn't remember how far down it was. We met at the statue of Yosef, and walked down Blowing Rock Road for what seemed like quite a long way. We eventually found KFC, which was pretty much next to Walmart. We ate, then walked back. I looked up how far we had walked, just out of curiosity, and it turned out that it was 2.5 miles to KFC, and then 2.5 miles back. 5 miles for a KFC seems pretty extreme, but it tasted ten times better after the long walk :)
After the walk, we went up to Shada's apartment. There were about 12 of us, and she had invited us for a girl's night. Shada is from Yemen, so she was playing us lots of Middle Eastern music, from Lebanon and Yemen. It was really good to hear different music, and the Arabic language is actually really beautiful when you hear it sung. We had food, (pizza, chips, cookie dough and frozen yogurt) and soft drinks, and talked about girly things, generally having fun. We played music from all of our different countries, and also learnt some native dances. Shada tried to teach us how to belly dance, and we learnt a traditional Ugandan dance, the macarena, the cha cha slide, the salsa, and also a version of the Meringue. It was really nice to hang out with the girls for a night :)
Saturday was fun, because we all went out for Emma's 21st birthday. We had a meal at Portofino, an Italian cafe at the bottom of Bodenheimer Drive. The food was excellent, I had a grilled chicken foldover, kind of like a soft pitta. We stayed there for a few hours, then moved on to Macadoos, a bar/restaurant on King Street where people had some beers and ice cream, and we just hung out and talked until about 2am. It happened to be College football day, so all the television screens had the Alabama vs Virginis Tech game on. The whole bar was cheering for Tech, but there was a couple sitting behind us with the most obnoxious woman ever, cheering for Alabama in the loudest screechiest most annoying voice, screaming 'LET'S GO BAMA' every 30 seconds. Sooooo annoying! But it was a fun night, and then we walked back up to the LLC.
Sunday was spent sleeping, then watching television until five when Becca and I decided we were hungry. Becca knew she had seen a KFC along Blowing Rock Road somewhere, but couldn't remember how far down it was. We met at the statue of Yosef, and walked down Blowing Rock Road for what seemed like quite a long way. We eventually found KFC, which was pretty much next to Walmart. We ate, then walked back. I looked up how far we had walked, just out of curiosity, and it turned out that it was 2.5 miles to KFC, and then 2.5 miles back. 5 miles for a KFC seems pretty extreme, but it tasted ten times better after the long walk :)
After the walk, we went up to Shada's apartment. There were about 12 of us, and she had invited us for a girl's night. Shada is from Yemen, so she was playing us lots of Middle Eastern music, from Lebanon and Yemen. It was really good to hear different music, and the Arabic language is actually really beautiful when you hear it sung. We had food, (pizza, chips, cookie dough and frozen yogurt) and soft drinks, and talked about girly things, generally having fun. We played music from all of our different countries, and also learnt some native dances. Shada tried to teach us how to belly dance, and we learnt a traditional Ugandan dance, the macarena, the cha cha slide, the salsa, and also a version of the Meringue. It was really nice to hang out with the girls for a night :)
Wednesday 2 September 2009
The One with ???
The last couple of days have been pretty normal. I got an email from the international coordinator and she told me that my immunization records weren't up to date. I went to the health center and apparently I needed another MMR jab and a TB test jab. So I got those, which were painful but I'm the least squeamish person I know so it was fine.
Today I went to the library for an orientation tour. I am officially in love with the AppState library. One of my favourite things is the cyber cafe downstairs which smells like fresh coffee all the time = amazing! It has five floors, including a basement level. The atrium is an amazing cylindrical 'hole' in the building so you can look up all the way to the ceiling where there are beautiful sky murals painted, and around the edge are painted mountain landscapes. It's such a nice space to be in.
The bottom floor is the education library, but it also has really cool chairs and sofas which look like open books :) Also downstairs are amazing moving bookshelves, the writing center, the library for official government documents and the DVD library. The first floor houses lots of computers and the reference book section. The second and third floors house the main books, and the fourth floor has a more formal library which is also a silent floor. It seems like the library caters to every need, including a media center in case students need help with multimedia presentations and making documentaries, study rooms with smartboards for group study and also rooms with cable televisions in seven different languages for students who study language and culture so they can watch tv from a different country. It's a pretty special place, it has such a nice feel to it with comfy chairs all around, and each floor has its own colour scheme so everything is bright and cheery. The building's only about four years old which is great.
Then I had my 5.00 Popular Culture lecture with Larry Keeter which I can tell is always going to be interesting because he's a quirky guy. Today he started off by asking the class a series of questions including:
1) Who was voted the top entertainer of the 20th Century in a Time magazine poll?
2) What is the second most visited house in America?
3) What is the number one visited grave site in America?
4) What is the most collected stamp in American history?
5) Who is in the most requested picture of an American president in history?
I can tell you that the answer to all of them is the same. We talked about this person for about half an hour, then Larry announced that we were going on a field trip to Crossroads (which is a coffee shop in the Students Union) and we were going to watch a documentary on this person. Also to pay homage (as on January the 8th of next year he would have been 75 years old), we were going to eat one of his favourite foods - donuts. It was an extremely good documentary, showing clips of his life and how he got to be so famous.
Answers on a postcard people - who was it?
Today I went to the library for an orientation tour. I am officially in love with the AppState library. One of my favourite things is the cyber cafe downstairs which smells like fresh coffee all the time = amazing! It has five floors, including a basement level. The atrium is an amazing cylindrical 'hole' in the building so you can look up all the way to the ceiling where there are beautiful sky murals painted, and around the edge are painted mountain landscapes. It's such a nice space to be in.
The bottom floor is the education library, but it also has really cool chairs and sofas which look like open books :) Also downstairs are amazing moving bookshelves, the writing center, the library for official government documents and the DVD library. The first floor houses lots of computers and the reference book section. The second and third floors house the main books, and the fourth floor has a more formal library which is also a silent floor. It seems like the library caters to every need, including a media center in case students need help with multimedia presentations and making documentaries, study rooms with smartboards for group study and also rooms with cable televisions in seven different languages for students who study language and culture so they can watch tv from a different country. It's a pretty special place, it has such a nice feel to it with comfy chairs all around, and each floor has its own colour scheme so everything is bright and cheery. The building's only about four years old which is great.
Then I had my 5.00 Popular Culture lecture with Larry Keeter which I can tell is always going to be interesting because he's a quirky guy. Today he started off by asking the class a series of questions including:
1) Who was voted the top entertainer of the 20th Century in a Time magazine poll?
2) What is the second most visited house in America?
3) What is the number one visited grave site in America?
4) What is the most collected stamp in American history?
5) Who is in the most requested picture of an American president in history?
I can tell you that the answer to all of them is the same. We talked about this person for about half an hour, then Larry announced that we were going on a field trip to Crossroads (which is a coffee shop in the Students Union) and we were going to watch a documentary on this person. Also to pay homage (as on January the 8th of next year he would have been 75 years old), we were going to eat one of his favourite foods - donuts. It was an extremely good documentary, showing clips of his life and how he got to be so famous.
Answers on a postcard people - who was it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)