Legal Alien - English Tim in New York

The End

2006-05-20T10:15:00.000-04:00

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,

2006-05-14T15:54:00.000-04:00

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:

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.
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.
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.
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:

Being 3,488 miles from Nessie.
Sharing a room, see earlier post!
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).
The food and water is shitty.
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.
TV is completely unwatchable because there are so many adverts.
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?

2006-05-03T19:52:00.000-04:00

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?

2006-05-01T13:12:00.000-04:00

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

2006-04-27T13:53:00.000-04:00

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

2006-04-23T13:19:00.000-04:00

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.

Toronto

2006-04-09T16:17:00.000-04:00

I'm in Toronto now. The bus ride was 9 hours and I had the worst hangover in the world. Threw up in the tiny little toilet at the back of the coach. Ate lots of bananas.

I know I shouldn't have gone out the night before, but you know me, I always give in to peer pressure. Had quite a good time though, managed to avoid getting IDed in a bar, then ran into a club when no one was looking. It was a free bar, but only for the next 5 minutes, so I ordered 8 long island iced teas. I know, not big or clever.

Anyway, its ironic that now I'm actually in a country where I'm old enough to drink I plan on being sober for the whole time.

The last thing any of you want to read is a diary of all the tourist stuff me and the 'rents get up to, so I guess I won't be blogging again for a week or so...

Lost and found.

2006-04-02T18:44:00.000-04:00

My parents gave me a very nice zip-up hoody for christmas, and I was quite upset this week to realise I'd lost it.

Then 5 minutes ago in the dining hall I spotted a girl wearing it.

Tim: Excuse me, where did you get that sweater?

Girl: I don't know.

Tim: Well it's mine and I'd like it back please.

Girl: Ok, sure.

So that was that, I have the hoody back but it smells of girl so I have to wash it.

Free food

2006-03-29T22:50:00.000-05:00

My halls just had a lovely, albeit totally random, free breakfast at 10pm; at which I stuffed myself silly.

Everyone knows free food is good for you no matter what it is, and you should eat as much as you possibly can. Right?

Assoxination.

2006-03-23T12:37:00.000-05:00

Hit your target with a sock and you inherit their target, get hit yourself or run out of time - you're out. The last man standing wins $100.

Those are the basic rules of assoxination, and it's causing chaos. Boys being boys, we're all taking this far to seriously and things are really starting to heat up. James has to kill a girl we dont know, but she has to kill me. I have to kill Jeff and Jeff has to kill Jen, then John then Justin*.

We've signed a floor treaty to say we'll all help out and whoever wins will throw a party for the rest of us with the cash. John was last years winner and he's already killed two people so he's masterminding everything.

Today, James is going to pose as Me to lure my attacker to go after him so he can get her. Then I'll be safe till the next round so long as I can kill Jeff before he can get to Jen. And later we're all gonna help Sabina stalk her target cos she blew her cover yesterday.

I can see things getting pretty messy in the later rounds...

*Only just realised I know so many people with names beginning in 'J'!

Yay for spring break

2006-03-19T21:58:00.000-05:00

Just returned to Binghamton from the best holiday I've ever been on. Long days relaxing on the beach in perfect weather, playing in the sea, boogie boarding, reading and sunbathing. Went swimming with giant turtles, played on a jetski... even had time for a spot of minigolf. The best thing though was being with Nessie, who I'm still crazy for.

In other news Mikey chopped one of his fingers in half over the break, so I had to get a Greyhound back to Bing today and he has to stay at home for a while to heal up, poor lad.

It's only three weeks now till the 'rents are flying out and we'll be off for a tour of Eastern Canada, so I guess I should knuckle down to some work...

Packing...

2006-03-10T10:06:00.000-05:00

I'm going on holiday!! I'm just packing now and getting nervous because I'm not very good at it. Hopefully I wont have left out anything vital, and this time in a day and a half I'll be in Barbados with Nessie.

So goodbye for now, I'll update when I get back.

PS: Have changed the countdown timer to my touchdown in good old Blighty, only 71 days away!

Weekly update.

2006-03-06T00:18:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't updated this week, but I couldn't be arsed. Here is a little round up of my week's activities.

Saturday - Wednesday:
Nothing interesting I can remember now.

Thursday:
Lots of snow, 10 inches of it in fact. Classes cancelled. Some friends and I stole trays from the dining hall and went sledding. Big fun but my jeans froze solid and the feeling didn't return to my arse for a couple of hours afterwards. Got drunk on wine, gatecrashed the 'art party' outside my halls and drew a big cock on one of their projects. Got that feeling of being a true comic genius that one can only obtain when drawing cocks on things.

Friday:
Went to a party but was positively gentlemanly in my restriant from idiotic behaviour. Met some cool people and got to know a few friends-of-friends better, pleasent evening really.

Saturday:
Hungover tired and annoyed for most of the day. Downloaded Dune II (what a classic) and killed most of the day getting to level 7. Dan tried to teach me hacky sack but I appear to have the co-ordination of a jelly fish.

Sunday:
Shaky start to the day when some twat set the fire alarm off at 4:30am. Funny how much standing in the snow for half an hour will wake you up; didn't manage to sleep again till gone 6. Finally started serious work on the proofs due tomorrow that I've had for a week. I've done 5 of the 6 now but they're a bit hand-wavy to say the least. One day I'll actually blog about the work I do. Then no one will comment and I'll never do it again.

So thats another exciting week in America over, but on the plus side my handy countdown timer tells me its only 5 days and 14 hours till I'm in Barbados with my very lovely and hopefully very naked girlfriend.

Right, I'm off to find homeomorphic quotient spaces of the unit length quaternions. You stay classy San Diego.

You had to be there.

2006-02-24T13:26:00.000-05:00

So I was having a cuppa tea and a few games of chess with my friend Mikey last night when the phone rang. Mikey said, "Word... Sure, I'll bring my English friend... Word. Word word word word word word.".

Ten minutes later I'm sipping beer with Mikey, Nick the Greek, and a couple of lads called Matt and Pete. Nick the Greek is a riot; a self-styled lothario with a thick accent, more hair gel than all of Blazing Squad and the weirdest sense of humour I've ever encountered. Over the course of the next few hours he told the most offensive jokes in the world, only made funny by the fact that the punchline of every joke was "Chicks love that.".

I dunno, I guess you really had to be there, but I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Beer was coming out of my nose.

Out in the cold.

2006-02-20T17:56:00.000-05:00

I used to have a magic keycard that let me into both my old building and my new one. It was great cos it meant I was free to wander back and forth and see my friends (all 2 of them) from my old halls.

Today I returned from class to discover that my magic key card had died and wouldn't let me in. So off I trot to residential services to get it fixed. Only the guy who does the fixing has gone home so they just give me a new one. But this card is totally retarded and won't let me in anywhere. Brilliant.

So I have to hang around in the cold waiting for someone to let me in whilst I wait for a third keycard tomorrow.

Yes, I know this wasn't the most interesting post. But whatever, we can't all have lung infections.

Barbados!!

2006-02-19T00:10:00.000-05:00

Me and the gorgeous Vanessa are going on holiday to Barbados in March and I'm really excited. To show you all exactly how excited I am, I've added a countdown clock to the blog. Cool huh?

Thanks to Ian for the technical wizardry.

Edit: Seems that if you look at the clock long enough, it comes up with a message encouraging you to worship Ian. Which is just lovely.

Edit 2: Oh and now the banner at the top says 'Ian is rather cool'. What a cock.

You know you've had a good night when...

2006-02-18T16:22:00.000-05:00

...you wake up with pink nail polish all over your toes and you have no idea how it got there.

I'm pleased to announce that I'm finally back on form when it comes to getting wasted and doing random stuff. Some lads on my floor have started a gentleman's club (you know, sitting around in fancy hats calling each other 'sir' and drinking lots of wine), and it's a good springboard for an evening of chaos.

On thursday I ended up on the other side of campus talking to a guy visiting from Brooklyn. After a few beers he declared me to be his new homeboy and if I needed anyone shot he could have it done. I have no idea why, but I decided to say "Guns are for pussies, who do you gotta shoot that you can't stab?". I'm so gangsta.

Whilst all this drunkness is great fun, and it's brilliant to finally have some decent mates to piss about with, it does leave me in a bit of a mathematical pickle. I have a shit load of hard-as-nails proofs due in on monday and I can't even think straight. I think I may have to play the "I'm a undergraduate and I'm from England and I'm very polite, please be lenient on me!" card at some point soon...

Placenta

2006-02-16T12:56:00.000-05:00

Someone left their stuff in the shower today - one bottle of 'Pert' and one bottle of 'Suave - For Men'.

Reminded me of my Turkish roommate's shampoo called 'Placenta'. I tried to tell him he was washing his hair with afterbirth, but he wasn't very impressed!

The greatest beverage on earth.

2006-02-14T16:28:00.000-05:00

Time for a bit of culture people... I give you BUBBLE TEA!!

Your basic bubble tea like this is a sweet, milky iced tea with massive lumps of tapioca sitting on the bottom. As you suck hard on the thick pink straw, occasionally a juicy black ball pops into your mouth. Sounds like heaven, doesn't it?

Bubble tea is available in literally tens of different flavours, and each one packs enough caffine to make you think there are communists under your bed.

Some may say the price is too high, especially as I paid $3.60 for this and had to walk a mile through a blizzard to get it, but for me bubble tea is the single greatest beverage known to man.

Thank you for listening.

Lovely

2006-02-14T12:35:00.000-05:00

I used to hate Valentines day with a passion. Mainly because (like must teenage boys) the whole day was just a giant reminder of how I wasn't quite cool enough to have a girlfriend. Remember those little bits of red paper you could send? Well the only one of those I ever got was from Matt Eldridge. I mean it was very sweet Matt, but didn't really make up for me never getting any action.

Anyway, now I'm an old man of 20 I'm very cool indeed, and I have a beautiful girlfriend called Vanessa. So I get to spend today feeling all loved up, which is nice. On another note, if any of you remember how I used to be with girls and money, it might surprise you to hear that I actually enjoy spending money on Ness.

So there you have it, I'm a smug git. Happy Valentines day all!

I'm still alive...

2006-02-12T11:33:00.000-05:00

...just struggling to do anything interesting enough to post about. Sorry!

Link of the Week 2

2006-02-04T18:41:00.000-05:00

Another music related one this time. Apparently, in Russia it's legal to distibute copyrighted material over the internet. It's also legal to import legally purchased items. Egro, it's legal to download cheap as chips mp3s from the Russia-based site Allofmp3.

It's bloody great, I just got the Arctic Monkeys' Album for the princely sum of $1.15.

Isn't this the coolest thing you've ever seen?

2006-02-04T13:14:00.000-05:00

Waterballoon

Car vs Library

2006-02-04T12:59:00.000-05:00

Shock! Something vaguely exciting actually happened yesterday!

Some poor sod was asked to move a professor's truck. Apparently he pressed the accelerator instead of the break and drove the damn thing down a hill and straight into the library.

This was the result:

We have a winner!!

2006-02-02T15:15:00.000-05:00

Amazingly, the only person who entered the competition managed to win it.

So here he is, the man of the hour, IAN MAIR!!

Ian is quite simply the most awesome man alive. He once saved me from wolves. Here he is with a ladle in his mouth:

So here's to you Captain, Hip Hip Hooray!

Competition time!

2006-02-01T13:28:00.000-05:00

Everything in America is lovely. So lovely, in fact, that even your dinner offers you inspirational life tips... but which common grocery product is this taken from?

It's the little things that make life special. Unexpected laughs. Last second Victories. Good times with friends and family. You savour the good stuff, wherever you find it, however you choose.

The winner gets a whole blog entry written about how wonderful they are.

Trees and lamps

2006-01-31T22:58:00.000-05:00

I spent most of last night proving that trees have leaves (or rather that acyclic connected graphs have and at least as many endvertices as the maximal vertex degree of said graph).

Today I exchanged a malfunctioning desklamp for working one.

It seems writing a blog really does ram home exactly how boring ones life is in a very unceremonious fashion.

Link of the Week

2006-01-29T15:00:00.000-05:00

Whatever, I know I'm a geek.
Pandora

Beard Envy

2006-01-28T19:00:00.000-05:00

Well the first week of classes are over, and if I've learned anything it's this - beards are very much in fashion this season in the world of mathematics. Taking a glance around Alegbraic Topology I notice that everyone expect the two girls and myself have beards.

I wouldn't really mind too much if it weren't for

b) I can't grow one.

So there you have it, I'm destined for a life of working with bearded men in Star Wars t-shirts.

Typical Douglas genius:

2006-01-26T16:08:00.000-05:00

Tim: What could be more pointless than a chocolate teapot?

Doug: A teapot made of soup, I suppose.

Quality.

The worlds largest retirement community

2006-01-26T10:48:00.000-05:00

Why is it that cab drivers always have the weirdest stories to tell?

I had one the other day who used to run a company that delivered concrete. As part of his duties as manager he would always drive the truck himself for the first delivery to any new job. Anyway, one day in 1965 his company starts work on the worlds largest retirement community, to be built on 25,000 acres of Florida swampland - all of which needed to be concreted. Apparently it wasn't untill the rollercoasters arrived that they were told they were actually building Disney World.

In recognition of being the first person to make a delivery of anything to Disney World, this guy recieved a lifetime free pass to the resort, and he spends two months there every summer.

Oh, and he once visited England and crashed his hire car seconds after leaving the airport - he couldn't work out why everyone was driving on the wrong side of the road.

Swimming

2006-01-24T23:56:00.000-05:00

Gemma, put your personal trainer hat on, I need help. I've just been swimming for the first time in ages and thankfully I didn't sink. I was, however, completely shit at it.

Why is it that everyone else in the pool can glide along effortlessly, whereas I seem to bob up and down like an idiot, spending half my energy on getting back to the surface to breathe? Is there something I can do to get better, or do I belong on the Sunshine Bus?

Welcome Winter

2006-01-24T10:35:00.000-05:00

Here in Binghamton the temperature outside is -9°C. Everyone knows that in a cold, cold winter like this one's mental health can really suffer, so it's good to know that the kind people at Sodexho Dining Services are looking out for me. They've produced a lovely freestanding table decoration for the university's dining halls giving tips on how to enjoy winter:

Eat seasonal winter foods.

Listen to music with a wintry mood.

Purchase or swap clothes that fit your lifestyle now.

Create or participate in rituals that are meaninful to you.

Take a few moments to imagine the earth on its axis making another slow turn, knowing your part of the world will soon face the sun again.

...And if you're in a warm climate, put yourself in a cool place.

How lovely.

Here goes....

2006-01-23T21:50:00.000-05:00

I always promised everyone I would start a blog when I came out to America. I know I'm 5 months late, but it's better than not doing it at all so don't complain!

I suppose I ought to think of something to write about now; some whimsical observation about those crazy yanks that would make this whole fish-out-of-water Englishman in New York thing worthwhile, and here it is:

Toilets. Honest to god, what is it with the size of the toilet bowls in this country? It's like shitting in the bath there's so much water in there! A great big lake with a couple of happy brown friends slowly circling each other, just perfect.

Well, I hope that pristine example of travel journalism has whet your appetite like it has mine. I'm not making any promises but I'll try and follow in the footsetps of Matt and post loads. Anyway, I'm off to drop the kids off at the pool now...