Hi again! I´m posting this in English in honour to Terry, my new American friend, who is now 27!
Mik, I think you posted in English when you met your dear dear dear bff Alex, but I´m not copying you! Just for the record.
So, today I´m writing about a "lenguage exchange" event we attended yesterday. It was organised by the site Couchsurfing and it was supposed to be a muticultural social event (which actually was). So Mar proposed me to go and I proposed my Swedish flatmates as well, so there we went the 4 girls. And as I have already hanged out with my mates I think it´s time to introduce them! So, their names are Sarah and Kasia, they are 20 though they look like 25. Photos coming soon.
So, back to the party. As we arrived there, we were given a stick with our name and country on it, and we started to talk to people. That was great, because from the very beginning we were so open to any kind of conversation with everybody. So, great experience. And also, cheap drinks.
The music was not very good but nobody seemed to care about music anyway. People were talking to eachother instead of dancing, which I found great as you can imagine.
I met an American guy named Terry who suddenly remembered it was his birthday, and who is reading Red and black.
Now, a question: do you think it´s right that we use the word "American" for people from the US? I don´t. I remember we used to say "estadounidenses" some years ago, but Hollywood movies made us change to "American" because that´s how they call themselves.. In fact, take a look at this:
Well, changing topic, I didn´t tell you much about my experience in the lab!
Ok, so lab work is boring. I mean, it´s very interesting to understand how things work, what chemical reactions need to happen for you to know the exact genetic sequence of a certain gen, but mixing reagents and adding microlitres of things into other things is not what I always dreamt of.
Plus, people here plan their work depending on their stomachs. So they start at 9, but then there is the coffee break at 10, and then they work until 12:30 which is lunch time, and then they stop at 3pm for the tea break, and all those breaks usually happen in the most sepulchral silence. They read a paper, check on their phones or just close their eyes and do nothing. In a 4x4 room. Which is awkward.
There are two people who break the silence. One of them is Richard, a guy who talks, and talks (and talks) like forever, about certain topics that last the whole week. Last week it was "UK laws". This week it´s "uses of English". And he laughs. And he talks in hyperspeed so most of the times I don´t understand what he is saying but I think he hasn´t noticed yet, because I just laugh when he does, I pretend to be surprised when I think he is expecting so, and he always talks and never asks, so...
The other one is Jen, a very nice girl from Holland (the one that taught me the right way to say "2" in the UK). I told you about her in the last post. Really friendly.
And I think that´s it, so far. These days are very cold but at least it didn´t snow today, and I am already capable of walking from my flat to the lab without getting lost. So I´m proud of that.
Now I thing I´ll go downstairs for a little socialising, because one of my flatmates, which I thought was gay, is not. And he brought a girl for dinner. And also the other Italian gay guy and the Swedish girls are having dinner together. I´m not antisocial... I´m just tired.
1 comentario:
Re: Is it alright for the United States to call itself America?
Australia calls itself Australia and South Africa, South Africa. Yet in neither case are we offended by the appropriation of a continent's name for a country's own. New Guineans too are Australians. Namibians too are South Africans. And yet not a soul has raised alarm about the injustice of this state of affairs. Never mind whether, in fact, any INJUSTICE subsists in this situation; it's the word used by certain crusaders of justice in relation to America calling itself America, and, in sympathy to their untenable position, I will use the word as well. But my charity goes no further. I wish to know the principle that analytically separates the case of America from that of Australia. No stretch of logic can satisfy this wish, I think. (Admittedly, the problem maybe that my mind is not sufficiently elastic.) It is only by means of hocs pocus, outright illogic that an answer to this question may even begin to emerge. Logic having thus failed us, it might do us well to examine the passions. I can't speak to the psychology of this, but there is something that moves us to condemn America in instances that pass beneath our notice when other countries are involved. Perhaps we emotively hold America to a higher standard on account of its global dominance. On the point of names that standard, near as I can tell, is this: it's not in and of itself bad for a country to name itself after a continent, but there is a manifest injustice in the United States calling itself America because it's the United States. This strikes me as being a tad arbitrary and plenty unfair.
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