Return to the States

A belated Happy New Year people! It's been a while since my last update, even having been back in the States for 2 and a half weeks. The worst of the 'Polar Vortex' had passed when I flew back on the 16th but it was cold enough anyway, temperatures staying below 0 degrees for over a week at one point. The motivation to go out and about isn't that great when there's snow, ice and your hair freezes which happened to a few people. Still, it's great to be back at Mason for the Spring semester and to see everyone again, and meet some new faces as well. One of our welcome back activities was to redistribute the doodles we had accumulated into a mural last semester throughout our floor, so the British have colonized a study room and me and Yusuke's artistic impressions of each other decorate our door.

Class-wise this time round I am doing U.S and World Power, which focuses on the United States' role in global affairs mainly in the Twentieth Century. I've studied this a little back in Leicester but it's interesting to go through it in a class of mainly American students and hear their views on events that we judge quite negatively as foreign onlookers. That perspective is also useful in my Era of the American Revolution class, where we look at the years leading up to 1776 which I've never done before. The lecturer emphasized the importance of understanding the people of the time considered themselves British subjects and how the view of the Brits was essential, which I enjoyed. There's also a module on the Vietnam war which should be good, and I'll be doing an Independent Study on Roy Lichtenstein's reinvention of kitsch art forms like comic strips and advertising as preparation for my dissertation.

I finally embraced the Patriot Pride and went to a basketball game at the on-campus Patriot Center to watch the home team take on local rivals George Washington, who are based in D.C. Varsity matches back in Leicester are pretty serious but this is a big deal every week or so at Mason, with large audiences, bands, cheerleaders, and I was pretty surprised by the scale of it. I watched with a fellow Brit from George Washington, Hannah, which was fun but turned out to be a mistake in the end as Mason were thrashed in the second half. The final score had us losing by 6 points was flattering, and sitting among the GW supporters chanting 'Thanks for Hosting' and 'Beat the Traffic' was a bit rough. Hopefully I'll go into D.C to see Mason get some revenge later in the season!

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