Month: November 2011

I am trying to put together a team for 5 a side football this weekend. It has proved to be more difficult then I realized.

First I should say … in my country guys AND girls play soccer and it is not just for tom-boys. Reallyy girlly girls play football and I would like to stay on that end of the stereotype in your heads. So as I type about football. The sport that British people think only lads play. Just think.. I like flowers, lots of flowers, and the ballet and watching the nutcracker a few weeks ago made me want to be a fairy princess. On that note…

Seriously how hard is it to find 6 people to play on a football team? First off my housemates aren’t options at all. If you wonder, just see my housemates and they will laugh at you for such a question. Running is out of the question for the three of them. Running and chasing a ball is a no go. Indeed as a last ditch effort in talking to one of them tonight.. she laughed. A lot. But I knew that would be the case and she knew I knew that.. so it did make it funnier.

Second. My friend Emeka is in on it. I was mocking him for his lack of friends to be able to add to our small but mighty team. Our text conversation went like this:

Me: Do you have any work people you want to invite?

Emeka: They’re all in Glasgow or Gosport (he travels during the week for work)

Me: Oi. And Emeka has no other friends? Hmm I can prob ask students??

Emeka: Fair point.. I was being lazy..

Me: Okay done. Students it is. I am friends with boys who love salsa. That should say it all. 🙂

Emeka: Good work Christy. I am friends with boys who love computers…

Me: Grin

Emeka: Smile.

I heard Toto’s Africa on the radio this week.

AMAZING.

How cool is that song?

But it wasn’t quite Toto’s. Someone had taken it and remixed it to some rap song. It wasn’t bad. I couldn’t find it online. So found another version of someone else’s remix. This might be cooler.

Still love Africa. What a song. I need to get myself to the continent below for a visit one of these days.

Also boys, I will accept serenaders to sing me this song. 😉 God blesssss the rainsss.. 🙂 Sigh. GREAT tune.

My sister in law has become a blogger with her best friend. It’s good.

http://mindyourbodyandsoul.com/body/minute-foods-convenient/#more-2021

There are a few things that I know I overcompensate for in being an American abroad. One is geography. It’s a mixture of being a geek who really LIKES geography (and yes I can find Tashkent Uzbekistan on a map in about 3 seconds) and secondly hating the ridiculousness of the idiots in my country who manage to get on international television and open their mouths and not know where.. ya know.. China is. Or people from Tennessee who ask people in England “What language do you guys speak over there?”

Oh the pain.

How our country managed to pass so many people through school without knowing anything about the world they live in is beyond me.

So I overcompensate because I don’t want to be a dumb American. And I am prideful. Which went over really badly when I was at a Halloween party a few weeks ago and met a student dressed as Gaddafi and he assumed I was ignorant of the world’s recent blowup of revolutions earlier this year. He also hadn’t met Americans who can do British humour. For fun, I have occassionally picked up dry humour as my humour of choice and so this conversation went back and forth with me serving him dry poker faced humour and him assuming I was as dumb as he assumed Americans were and me thinking.. “this is too funny”.. so kept playing at him but realized after 10 minutes or so my attempt at culturally British humour failed because of my accent:  he didn’t get that I was poking at him with a masked bemused smile and just assumed the worst about my general knowledge to Kimberley’s laughing amusement of the entire awkward conversation. 🙂

Anyways.. how did I get there? The other thing I overcompensate for is food sometimes. I hate it when people assume because I am American that a burger is amy choice of food. I like to cook. I like to eat healthy. I rarely eat fast food. I pummel fruit and veg like a fruitfly and hope to keep making healthier choices then the mac and cheese every American kid grew up on (check my sister in laws blog) I mean it’s electric orange. It can’t be good for you.

So when it comes to Thanksgiving.. a lot of changes have to be made to healthify the recipes. Now I realize that it is a holiday and holiday food is just not always great for you. Pumpkin pie is not going to be healthy. But I love knowing if I cut out the entire cup of sugar that most sweet potato pie recipes call for that I am doing something good for me and all of my guests.

And killing some stereotypes by making an awesome meal and fairly healthy.

And so I sleep for tomorrow.. I cook. A lot.

I have a splitting headache.

I don’t do well with splitting headaches. I want to be a big baby and moan a bit. I have come up with three options to my headache.

1.) I have caught my housemates virus that kept her off work and ill for the last ten days
2.) I am dehydrated and haven’t had enough water today (strong possibility)
3.) My addiction to caffeine is having a toll as I have not had a single coffee or tea today and now it is wreaking havoc on my brain.

Jo is very strongly in favour that it is option 3.

So I am in my new dance gear and trainers, planning on headed to the gym but instead I am sitting at the table, moaning with a large flask of water and a cafe tier in front of me and a mug of coffee hoping I can get rid of this headache asap!

Ricky Gervais on the differences between British humour and American humor

I have been here a long time so this is not anything new for me. I have in fact adapted greatly to British humour in many ways (though recently while being around 20 something year old guys for too long I was reminded that I have a breaking point when it comes to mockery.. “stop being idiots and give me a straight answer” was a phrase that came to mind.)

But for those of you who have cultural curiosities. It is a good read. 🙂