Homecoming

One of the things you learn very quickly about Universities is that they will use every possible opportunity to squeeze money out of you. In your first term as a fresher you're buying the campus food, picking up every textbook they recommend from the campus bookstore, and generally watching that precious student loan shrink fast. Eventually you figure out how to spend your money more wisely, but embarking on a year abroad throws that all off again. Especially here at Mason, where meal plans and health insurance and Starbucks will drain you before classes even start. The cost of student textbooks alone is shocking, I'm lucky enough that mine aren't too much and I can get away with avoiding some but some people have to spend hundreds on books they'll barely use.

So it was great to discover and make use of some of the free activities Mason provides on campus. We'd been to the free cinema before but its worth mentioning how useful it is- a decent sized screen, free popcorn (but avoid the toppings, cheddar or chocolate flavouring?) and great films from only a few months ago. I've caught up with Captain Phillips and Dallas Buyers Club so far this semester so its a good option. The Center for the Arts was a place I hadn't considered visiting until Pauline convinced us to come along to a few shows. Driving Miss Daisy was a sweet little production with just 3 actors that I really enjoyed, although the American habit of inappropriate or over the top laughter came up again. The next day saw the Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra give a fantastic performance of classic music and great Sinatra songs and it was absolutely free! The audience around us had paid up to $44 but as Mason students we got free entry, which is a decent benefit. Maybe the biggest difference is the gym and pool; costs around the £200 mark back in Leicester but free here, and the battleground for some Britain vs France badminton encounters (its 1-1 at the moment). Along with free tickets to the basketball games Mason does do some good stuff for students, although comparing the tuition fees I think us Brits still get a better deal!

As part of this effort to engage students with inclusive free activities one of the annual events is Homecoming, a week long celebration of... I'm not exactly sure what. But there's lots of things to do in the run up to the big basketball game at the end of the week, most of which were cancelled. Just when we thought we were out, the snow pulls us back in. I've seen more of it this winter than the rest of my life, but we still managed to enjoy it with snowmen and an epic snowball fight. Again it broke down to Britain vs France, with a Japanese traitor on their side (I'll remember that Yusuke!).

Do you wanna build a snowman?

The snow was bad enough that 2 days of classes were cancelled, so while the clever ones among us caught up and got ahead with work, the rest just relaxed. Its always good to meet new faces and it never fails to surprise me when I meet Americans who know their football (especially if they don't call it soccer). The work is going to get intense pretty soon and is already for some people, but there always has to be time for fun on a snow day. So when it finally cleared for a while, and the culmination of Homecoming week came with a block party, the big game and fireworks... I missed it all. But for a very good reason, I was at the airport meeting this guy!

My brother James has come to visit the States for a week, and enjoyed exploring frozen D.C. Its great and very surreal to have family here and well worth showing the capital to him, even if we're still in minus temperatures! Hopefully the weather will be kind to us over the next few days, as we head up to New York to see the sights.

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