The End

As you can see from the sexy countdown timer, my stay in America is over. I've had a pretty crazy up and down few days with my birthday and exams and job offer (don't ask) and everyone leaving. But I don't really feel like blogging all that.

Instead I have thought long and hard about out how to sum up this part of America in one word, so all of you can understand what it's been like for me here for a year. And the word?

Peteborough.

A pair of short lists,

With 6 days to go, It's about time to look back on a year in the land of the free and home of the brave.

Things I will miss about America:

1. I will miss my friends. In my first semseter here I only really made two proper friends, but now I have a group of about 10 or so very good friends who I spend a lot of time with.
2. I will miss being a minor celebrity. Honestly, I just have to open my mouth and people are immediately interested in me. It's fun.
3. I will miss graduate math classes. Professors tend to teach grad students in a much more relaxed manor, and that suits me down to the ground.
4. I will miss having money. Dollars are like monopolly money to me, everything is just so cheap here!

Things I will not miss about America:

1. Being 3,488 miles from Nessie.
2. Sharing a room, see earlier post!
3. Not being old enough to drink. Goddammit I like drinking! And I'm a bit of a wimp in real life, so I don't like using my fake ID (Charles T. Jonas).
4. The food and water is shitty.
5. Whilst getting all the attention for my accent is cool, it does mean I have the same bloody conversation at least 5 times a night when I go out.
6. TV is completely unwatchable because there are so many adverts.
7. You can't go anywhere without a car. No pedestrian friendly town centers here, all the shops are on roads 6 lanes wide with no pavement.

Thats all for now, sure I'll think of more...

Where's Tim?

I was on the cover of the school newspaper this week... but where am I?

Click for bigger, I'm definately there and you can tell it's me.

Are you fucking kidding me?

I'm not an idiot, so when I was booking my flight home I looked at the university calendar to see when the exams would end and the halls would close. Residence halls close 11am on the 20th of May. So thats when I book my flight for.

Anyway, on friday I get an e-mail saying all students have to vacate their rooms 24 hours after their last exam (mine is on Tuesday), by 11am on Friday the 19th at the latest.

So I send an e-mail back explaining my situation and asking nicely for an extension.

I got a reply today. Apparently if I want to treat the university like a hotel, I need to work for Residential Life (i.e. cleaning rooms) between my last exam and when I leave.

I'm fucking livid.

My Roommate

In America, every college student who lives in University dorms has to share their room with another student. The rooms aren't exactly massive so this can be a pretty uncomfortable experience if you and you roommate aren't best buddies.

My roommate is a kid called Nnamdi, he's from Nigeria via Queens, and on the whole he's not a bad kid. For the past 6 weeks or so he has been pledging Malik, the black military fraternity so the most I've seen of him in all that time is the occasional glimpse of tall black guy with a mask on marching round campus.

He's finished pledging now and is back in the room, and I have a number of issues with this. Firstly, he stinks. I mean he smells worse than Pakka. I have to keep the window and door open the whole time he's in the room.

Secondly, I cannot fucking sleep anymore. I'm a troubled sleeper at the best of times, so when I want to go to bed at 2am, but my roommate stays up using his computer till 5... I have no hope. Then when he finally goes to bed, he snores loud enough to wake me up despite my earplugs.

I'd carry on, but I don't want to sound like a whinging idiot.

Penn State

Friday night was pretty chaotic, and I slept until 2 on Saturday. I was woken by my friends John, Justin, Sean and Bob pounding on my door shouting "Get dressed we're going to Pensylvania!".

We drove for 4 hours to Penn state university to see RX Bandits and Talib Kweli. We had no idea where we were going, we didn't know anyone there and we had nowhere to stay. In the words of John, "All we have is a car full of hopes, dreams and alcohol".

It was an awesome trip, but I won't bore you with the details. RX were amazing, Justin got on stage with Talib Kweli and we all got filthy muddy. That's all I'm prepared to say, after all, what happens in Pensylvania stays in Pensylvania.