Dear so-and-so, Tuesday edition

Normally this is a Friday thing, but I’m bubbling over and can’t wait three more days.

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Dear December,

I am not ready for you. Could you please wait a few more weeks?

Time-crunched, NFAH

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Dear British ladies of a certain age:

Yes, you are right in thinking that those neon colored tights with black skirts and shoes are making a statement. That statement is, “I’m not young enough to pull off this look.”

Helpfully yours, NFAH

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Dear Gym,

I know you must think I don’t love you since I don’t visit you very often. Hopefully the three visits in the last eight days will help reassure you that I really do love you. And I do plan to visit you more often in the new year.

Yours with sore muscles, NFAH

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Dear American boys,

Your shameless self-promotion is really starting to wear on me. I know this attitude would work okay in America, but here in England it’s a bit much. Why don’t you just whip that thing out, and I’ll grab my tape measure.

Glad I don’t have one, NFAH

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Dear team,

I promise you that in the next 48 hours my flat will become tidy and food and drink will be obtained. I realize that from the look of things right now, it does not appear that a holiday party will take place on Thursday.

Channelling Cinderella (but not until tomorrow), NFAH

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Dear Social Media people,

There are really only a few ways to piss me off, I swear. But you’re very good at them:

• Be a (very) minor celebrity but refuse to be facebook friends with anyone you don’t know. Send a message explaining how you don’t want to have too many facebook friends. Excellent, I will be sure to delete that post I was writing about your self-produced CD
• Actually do tweet what you are eating for every meal and when you are bathing. TMI and I don’t need to know.
• Or tweet the name of a new song every 3 minutes
• Or keep tweeting the same message day after day
• Or keep trying to advertise your latest scheme
• Or make your blog content unreadable due to advertisements

Helpfully yours, NFAH

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Dear Huffington Post,

Thanks for providing me with such interesting reads today. While I was utterly appalled with the patriarchal and heteronormative message found in “Don’t forget to have kids” I was totally and utterly delighted with the profile on my favorite Indie rock star and uber-Twitter genius Amanda Palmer. 1/2 ain’t bad.

Child-free, single and happily yours, NFAH

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I need a costume for Hallowe’en

I have the most random of Hallowe’en plans, which is that I’m going to a party at the Australian embassy in Paris. Yep. That’s me; Ms. International. But it’s going to be hard to top the costumed performance of my sister last weekend. She lives in China, as some of you may know, and she has a bit of a ‘Mando-pop’ obsession. As do I, now that she’s been feeding me things to listen to. I love music that’s good no matter what the genre, and some Mando-pop certainly qualifies (Leehom anyone?)

Over the weekend, my dear sis went to a concert for the band ‘Sodagreen’ in Shanghai and apparently managed to attract more than just a bit of attention.

Sodagreen:

Now I can highly recommend Sodagreen as a band, as silly as the name sounds, it’s some of the most innovative music I’ve heard in a while–combining pop music with classical themes, and I’m hooked. Yes, I’m hooked on Chinese pop music. Welcome to expat life. It’s a bit random and global. But you can see the whole lime green hair thing. So then we have my sister at the concert:

These images were taken from a Chinese chat website or similar, where apparently my sister had become famous for wandering around Shanghai as an Anglo wearing a lime green wig. She tells me the comments are on the order of, “I spotted her on the subway” and she also appeared on the jumbo-tron during the bid for an encore, so clearly she became a ‘15 minutes of fame’ local celebrity in Shanghai. The full concert story is archived on a blog from her friend here, along with this photo:

Now two things are true. I have never been as creative as my sis, and I absolutely adore that she was wandering around Shanghai in this wig. And using it as part of a greater plan to be the lead singer of Sodagreen for Halloween. Second thing, I still don’t have a costume for Hallowe’en and I need help, being not as creative as my sis I’m a bit baffled at the moment.

Oh and maybe a third thing, I can’t wait until spring break when I’m going to China to see my sister’s life in person! Planning must commence immediately…

Expat Blog links

One of the more visited links on this site is the “Expat Blogs” list, probably because a mini-community has formed whereas some of us in the US-UK group especially tend to “see” each other commenting on the same blogs, commenting on each others’ blogs, and even meeting up in real life (I’ve met three of the “Americans in the UK” on my list.

I’ve just updated the list with a few that I realized were staples in my blog-reader but absent due to my only updating the list every 6 months or so; but here is where I admit that I am not perfect (!) and cannot keep up with the chatter. If you know of a good expat blog, US-UK or otherwise, and particularly if it is something that you comment on and read regularly and think this little community would like, could you please post a link here in the comments section so I can add them accordingly? Thanks!!!

Big announcement

Are you sitting down? I have a big announcement to make.

I am not quitting blogging (in contrast to the half-dozen bloggers out there that I used to read but who have made big pronouncements abandoning ship in the last week or two). I do not feel as though I have tired of sharing my life with complete strangers (in fact, I’ve started making real-life friends through this funny venue). I am not bored of the medium (I mean seriously, I write whatever nonsense is on my mind and a few hundred people a day read it; how cool is that?). I am not feeling burdened by some need to update this blog regularly (since I pretty much do it whenever I feel inspired to write something, which varies dramatically based on circumstances). I have not divulged too much sensitive personal information (since I’m semi-undercover and tend not to share loads of personal details). I do not need to go in a different direction (really I need to just keep the blinders on and keep working on my life, both personal and professional, with full energy and dedication, and doing that includes keeping up with my bloggy friends). I am not interested in writing fiction (someday autobiography/memoir perhaps, but that’s a-whole-nother story ha ha). I am not going to say anything sappy about missing my blog community (because with any luck you’ll continue to read and comment on the drivel that comes out of my overworked, underpaid fingertips). So to summarize, I am not quitting blogging. You heard it here first.

Whew. Hope you survived that big announcement, and that it doesn’t make too drastic of an impact in your daily lives. And now back to our regularly scheduled expat blog…

And so it goes

Came home from Australia Sunday in part because I had a workshop to attend Tuesday-Wednesday, which means I once again did the “give three talks in three weeks on three continents” thing, which I had done once before–in fact, the last time I went to Singapore, two years ago. That time it was US-UK-Singapore, this time it was Singapore-Australia-UK. In either case, giving the third talk on that much jet lag is a b*tch. But it went okay and it’s over now and today I spent the day holed up in my flat editing the last half of my soon-to-be-released book. I had gotten quite a bit of it done while on the road, and sent in the first few sets of corrections from Singapore, but then my fun times in Oz interrupted me and I did not get back to it until now. So I told myself that if I cancelled the few meetings I had today and did nothing but that, it would be a day well spent. Hooray. Done. At 9 something pm with breaks during the day to check the cricket scores.

Most amusing thing about the workshop here at “home” was the delightful woman I met. She was a retired researcher in her 90s (!) who had spent time at Yale in the 40s and 50s (!) and then made her research career here in the UK. Anyone who knows me well at all will know that OF COURSE this was the person I would end up talking to. I am soooooo much about the chatting with older ladies. (In fact, it inspired me to call my own nonagenarian grandmother today in one of my editing breaks.) And she was delightful in the way that I find older ladies to be delightful. Full of stories about being a young and female researcher in the days when that was not so very common. Full of sympathy when I confessed that I’d had a tough time socially (bloggers aside, although I did not tell her that) since coming to the UK. She actually said, “I apologise to you on behalf of my country” which was so very sweet.

The funniest thing was when she all the sudden looked at me and said, “I cannot believe the way these girls today dress for a professional meeting.” I giggled, and said something about how I hoped she did not mean me. (I was in a black trouser suit with a demure top.) She said, “Yes, I knew I could say that to you because you were not one of them.” I cracked up. Yes, it’s summer, and as such, there was a fair bit of flesh on display by the females in the audience, even those presenting at the workshop. I told her that I didn’t think it would fly in the states, that it seemed to me to be a uniquely British thing. I was, of course, secretly delighted at having my opinions on the subject confirmed by a local.

Normal day in the office tomorrow, then the weekend to catch up on the rest of the laundry and other domestic chores. I’ve been so bad lately about getting groceries that I’ve even been getting used to drinking black coffee when I’m out of milk. This has GOT to stop. But, as usual, I cannot complain about my adventures, both here and abroad.

Friendship, community and commentary

This weekend, I had the awesome privilege of getting to meet fellow American-in-the-UK expat blogger, Kat, from 3 Bedroom Bungalow. What an awesome experience. I got to escape my little urban bubble and get out into the English countryside, something which I don’t often get to do. I got to meet some of the other “characters” from Kat’s blog and life. Go have a read if you haven’t already–I don’t want to spoil any of it here! I got to see inside the day-to-day life of an expat who is here in very different circumstances in terms of job and family life, but amazingly that does not seem to matter so much. The expat experience proves to be somewhat general as I have noted before, there’s a subset of things that seem to amaze, amuse and surprise us all. (I did, in fact, lend Kat my copy of Mike’s book…) Kat and I are close in age, have a lot of coincidental similarities in background, and thus had an immediate ability to talk for hours on end, both about expat and non-expat things. Overall, I had a fantastic time, aside from a little rebellion on the part of my sinuses, who were quite taken aback by all the fresh air, pollen, animals, etc. that are not normally part of my sheltered urban bubble.

How great to find out that a fellow blogger is within striking distance and thus a real-world friendship can develop out of this forum, not just a “Yes, I have friends, they are all inside my computer” circumstance. And it is for that reason, the connections with real people, that I continue to blog, even though I think the last few months have seen a bit of harsh and unfounded criticism in the comments here, and at times, even personal attacks. I believe the problem is mostly the very crux of the Brit-American communication conundrum, in that subtleties of language in tone and humor are missed when a literal read is made of every thing that gets written, be it by me or by others. Without tone of voice and eye-contact, it becomes easier to misunderstand the intentions of the writer. I shall carry on, but with a more careful eye to both what I write and also on the new comments, with the aim to keep the discourse open and free from personal attacks. (Although I think you’ll find that I most often comment on “the locals” as a group, whereas some recent comments have been directed solely at me specifically, not American expats living abroad.) The idea is NOT to remove dissenting views, in fact, I continue to particularly welcome input from UK locals on the questions I have and puzzles I encounter, as well as expats who have resided in other locales. However, more than one person has recently mentioned being put off by the negativity in the comments, and I’d rather have more opportunities to meet fellow-bloggers, both here and in the US, by more carefully fostering the sense of friendly community that shows itself here on occasion. I don’t *actually* set out to be provocative with what I write, really my intention is no more than mildly ribbing or on occasion genuinely venting frustration, but clearly that is not coming across. And for the readers, try to read this (or any expat blog) in the spirit in which it was written; an outlet for frustrations, a desperate cry for help to find others in similar circumstances, and a genuine desire to try and understand the things going on around a befuddled transplant. The average expat writer is likely both homesick and substantially outside the comfort zone associated with typical working and family life, and if you feel the need to attack that writer personally, perhaps you should stop and think about why you’re so angry at someone you’ve never met.

Expat blogger book review

I picked up a book at Glasgow’s Waterstone’s for the train ride home on Sunday, and it was a good read.

The book, Petite Anglaise, as usual shares the name of the blog that inspired it, but this was a book with a different story than the usual blog book: instead of being a compendium drawn from blog posts, the story was a narrative about the blog, the blogger, and how the blog changed her life. Well, up to a point: the real story got going right at the timepoint when the book finished, when the author was dooced, revealed in terms of previously anonymous identity, successfully took legal action for wrongful dismissal and won, wrote about this in several major newspapers, and generally got her life sorted out and embarked on a new career as a writer.

The memoir was excellent, honest, and funny; the stories about the blogger’s/author’s daughter had me in stitches. Her (Catherine Sanderson’s) novel is due to be released this summer, and there is lots of big news lately on the personal front (as I discovered when I obsessively read the blog for several hours after returning from Glasgow). I “became a fan” on facebook and highly recommend that you do too, after you’ve read and loved the book After all, we expat bloggers have to stick together, and musing on one’s life in a strange land should not be a reason to lose your livelihood.

On the cross-culture divide

It would never occur to me to hate Britain, nor would it occur to me to hate “the British”. Such a concept is actually quite, ahem, foreign to me. But yesterday I did something I have never done before, and sent a comment on this blog to the great spam pile in the sky, for suggesting both of those things (along with the also useful suggestion that I go “home” and spare my work colleagues from having to put up with me. Nice.) Leaving aside the fact that I am home–I have no ties in the US aside from memories, family and friends, as my beloved job, my worldly belongings and my life overall is based here in the UK and has been for several years–it was a really odd thing to have my departure suggested to me by a total stranger. It caused me to stop and think about why it is that it is not terribly likely that someone in the US would hate Brits (in fact, we tend towards the Anglophilic), but yet it’s somehow seemingly perfectly allowable in Europe to generally hate Americans. It also made me very curious as to how I could have hit such a nerve with, what are (in my own head at least) drolly amusing observations about the cross-cultural divide, with no more venom intended than “taking the piss“.

Yesterday’s tongue-in-cheek commentary about a British “stiff upper lip” versus American “venting” seems to have been the trigger for much unpleasant expression, to use a British understatement. There are only four comments listed, as noted the fifth is in comment heaven, and even there in the remaining comments are some interesting thoughts. Perhaps it is because I am from the midwest, but I am the only person I know, friend or family, who has ever been to therapy. That stereotype seems to be borne of an East Coast/West Coast thing, because in the heartland people are more likely to go to church than to a psychiatrist. So the idea that a little bit of American “blowing off steam” is the same as habitual therapy couches, well, it does not resonate with this American. I have, in fact, been open about the fact that it was trying too hard to “fit in” with the “stiff-upper-lip” phenomenon that caused me to bury my personality on first arrival, and I have settled into a medium me–not as forthright as I was in the US, but not completely silent either. And I think this is a good compromise. I don’t think a “stiff upper lip” is always healthy, nor do I believe that saying every thing you think the moment you think it is a good idea in any context, workplace or otherwise.

I suspect that most expats find that there is a compromise position in the end: you retain some of what makes you uniquely “you” (including your heritage and the country of your birth and/or upbringing) and you adopt new pieces of your adopted homeland (like saying “bloody” all the time, or loving how many differently-sized spoons you now own). You become a citizen of the mid-Atlantic, when a US/UK transplant, in that you are never quite one thing or another, and having experienced the adventure, you can’t go back. There’s a recent guest post from Mike of Postcards from Across the Pond that mentions something I’ve also discussed previously (but am not easily finding the link!) that everyone should try this–everyone should live abroad for a while and take a chance to see yourself, your country of birth and your host country in a different light.

I will happily accept any constructive challenges to my opinions, which are, as noted previously, only my off-the-cuff observations on my life here. I am not an investigative reporter, and I doubt I ever will be. Because I live in Britain, the subjects of my musings are more likely to be about what I find to be surprising in Britain, as opposed to my views on the faults and foibles of America. It’s not that I don’t have issues with America–dinner with an American expat tonight revealed that we both love the UK tax system as simple compared with the US, but we both have serious concerns with two-tap sinks for hand-washing. I will continue to cling to little pieces of America when I feel homesick, and delight in the fact that there are other bloggers in my predicament (thanks, Iota, for finding me another Minnesotan in England!) I will not, however, accept the idea that my bemused commenting on the cross-cultural divide is worthy of deportation. And so if that’s all you have to say in response to my thoughts, don’t expect your comments to appear on this blog.

Manna from heaven

This amazing gift arrived today from Almost American (a Brit in the US) and it absolutely made my day; nothing is better than a bit of home, especially from a fellow blogger. I have been stunned in the last few months by the sense of community in the expat blogging world; I’m always amused when I comment on a post in the general category of UK/US expat blog exchanges that I read, and I realize that I know several names or handles within the commenters. What a pleasant surprise it has been for me to find that the expat community can be so strong; I have several “facebook friends” within as well as sympathetic voices commenting when I need a little pick-me-up. But let’s face it, four boxes of Cheez-its will last me for several weeks, especially if I ration them like a responsible adult, so I will be reminded for weeks to come of the kindness of not-quite-strangers. To me, cheese-flavored crackers from America truly equates to Manna from Heaven.

A rave review

I just finished the utterly fantastic book, “Postcards from Across the Pond” (link is to the blog of the same name) by Michael Harling.

I have read a number of books on the US/UK expat experience as well as on the Brits/England in general, but this one takes the cake–it is hands down the best overall summary of what an American living here would notice and find amusing. And I say amusing, because it’s Harling’s light-hearted tone and wry observations done in the context of admiration, unlike, say, Sarah Lyall’s frequently condescending tone. The book is laugh-out-loud funny in places, the writing is crisp and the stories are brilliant. Of course, I now realize that I could never turn my blog into a book, as many of the same things seem to amuse and confound me and Michael, perhaps providing a reminder that there are some generalities to the expat experience, especially for an American in the UK.

After two and a half years here, I feel as though my overall attitude is similar to Harling’s, in that I am mostly amused at the crazy things I notice and that surprise me; in the early days I was admittedly frequently angry and disgusted because life was proving remarkably difficult (e.g. the whole bank account/credit card fiasco). Yes at times I am critical of the locals, especially on topics about which I care deeply (access to quality education regardless of parental income) but most of the time I too am wryly amused. Reading Harling’s book brought back a memory from last week that I neglected to blog about, which was wandering aimlessly around Manchester in the dark because there are frequently no stand alone street signs in UK cities, and you have to hopefully look for the names of streets to be on placards on the side of buildings, which are not always there on each corner. I had a map and still ended up making two wrong turns, which is quite unusual for me, normally pretty good at navigation (and having won orienteering medals in girl scouts!) but the streets being unlabeled and not at right angles definitely did me in. I know I keep getting off topic here so I’ll conclude this ramble with one more bit of praise for the book; almost every single anecdote made me feel like nodding, yep, I agree, been there, done that, wondered that, rolled my eyes at that, so for any new American expats in the UK or those considering taking the plunge, this book is mandatory reading.