Hey Walker!

I halfway decided to take it easy this weekend and not make any real excursions. The other force in my decision was that i keep waking up too late to make it to the train station. Anyway, it’s been an interesting weekend. I went to the other (Catholic) cathedral in Liverpool; went to a club in Southport with five Brits and an Italian girl and watched the birthday boy down 25 shots in an hour, puke all over the dance floor and get kicked out; and explore my home of Ormskirk. Tomorrow, i’m gonna earnestly try to make it up to Blackpool, the biggest, brashest, and tackiest of England’s resort towns.

The only real difficulty i’ve had since being here is the other American students. In many ways, they’re in the same boat as i am, although they seemed less prepared in terms of geography, cultural understanding, and willingness to meet new people. The Americans are all right people–don’t get me wrong–but to me it seems more of the same…i can get all this at Morningside and not have to go to extremes to impress everyone else (that’s about all that’s been going on the past two weeks…even i at times find myself embellishing my persona in hopes of acceptance). That creates a unique difficulty with meeting people, since the English culture is very different and trying to sit in on a conversation among Brits reminds me of listening to Spanish and trying to understand everything. Fortunately, the college has piled all the Americans in three halls…and although the Brits in these particular dorms seem a bit burned out by all the New World excitement, there are other dorms where many residents have never seen a real, live American. So naturally, it’s good to go over there for a break and try my hardest to get to know…but not try too hard.

With one exception (which is only moderately difficult) classes are ridiculously easy–like high school level. I don’t think i’ll have any problem academically, which is a nice burden to be relieved of. The IT department doesn’t want to create “techies,” so they go to great depths trying to avoid challenging the students. I’ve been told by the professors in both the computer science classes i’m taking that i’m over-qualified. And so it goes.

It was good hearing from you and i’m glad that you’re capping off your college career with a nice semester. Make sure you keep writing comment cards to the food staff and thank them for the hot veggie dishes so they’ll still be around when i get back.

I’ve realized what you were talking about when you came back from France–that Italian girls are nothing but trouble. I haven’t gotten myself in trouble by any means, but I’ll explain more later on just in case someone else is peering over your shoulder while you read this.

Check ya later,

Bazarnes