Back Again
Long time since I’ve sat down to try to write anything. And ‘anything’ has actually become quite a bit over the past two (pushing three) months.
The good news during this time was that I did quiet well in my classes, proving once again that with enough determination a genius can sleep through six courses and systematically pull grades that are neither too high nor tool low. I also got a bitchin’ laptop, Sager NP8660; this was sort of a hollow victory (more below). And lastly I got a bowler/derby/coke hat; unfortunately it has since gotten damaged during my adventures.
Now for the bad. As I some may know, and others can find out, I was supposed to go down south, to Chico CA, to study for the semester. And I did but after I got there stuff happened:
Hour 1 – Can’t get a hold of people who I’m supposed to be renting a house from.
Hour 2 – I’m taken to eat “A real American burger”; I surmise what I thought of your food after…
Hour 3 – Turns out the house was rented to someone else, I’m officially homeless
Rest of day 1 – calling random strangers of a list given to me to see, eventually found what turned out to be an incredibly nice fellow’s chesterfield. On my way to this guy’s place, I saw two groups of teenage girls start beating the bloody hell out of each other, with no provocation from either group; and some fat guy screaming at the top of his lungs into his cellphone.
Day 2 – look into an apartment, I stay here the next two days
Day 4 - Leave apartment can’t fucking sleep, train goes by ever 15-45 minutes, shacking the building violently, and blasting its horn. People of California should learn *Insulation makes your buildings more efficient, reducing heating and cooling cost, as well as reducing noise transfer and making your buildings sturdier*
Day 5-9 – Sleeping on chesterfield, applying for apartments, getting rejections from those apartments
Day 10 – meets the other international exchange students, very nice particularly the a Brazilian male, Quebecois female and three Irish lasses, all very nice (two of the Irish lasses were quite cute), unfortunately I can’t apply my recently acquired basic social skills because my days include apartments visits and refreshing my inbox over and over while sitting on a stranger’s chesterfield. Also I’m not yet 21, and therefore can’t spend time with these potential friends in the evenings.
Day 11-13 – Sleeping on chesterfield, applying for apartments, getting rejections from those apartments
Day 14 – Classes start, I skip them, say “screw it!” and drag my luggage off the to a hotel.
Day 15 – Still no housing prospects, I go to my classes if only to introduce myself to my professors. I start looking into airfare home
Day 17 – I wake up at 5 AM to a phone ringing, my parents have found me a flight home that day. I double check my emails to see if any new housing prospects look promising, none do; so I decide to cut my loses ad go home.
First things first,
Dear Americans, your food sucks, I tried all types of food down there, all price ranges, all styles. Your cheese all taste the same, like wax and have the consistency of rubber. Your pizzas are needlessly greasy, and your crusts are, for lack of a more descriptive term, cardboard. Your salads overpriced and under sized. Your meats and fatty and sinewy and tougher then a coffin, with just as much taste. Last and worst, your Slurpees are not even worth any mention more then to say that they might as well be slush I gathered of the side a road back home.
Now that I got my biggest issue out of the way I must say the weather was very desert like (Hot during the day, cold at night), and the rain there was damaged my hat.
And at last count: Houses/Apartments viewed = 30+, Applications Rejected = 6, Still pending = 5, never got back to me about anything = 16.
About the computer being a hollow victory. I had a laptop fund, quiet large, ~3000$, but I was trying to put off buying one for as long as possible, because then I would that much better of a machine. Going down forced my hand, and while I am happy with the machine, I can’t help wanting more from it.
I have to say the worst part is not having the opportunity to make better Friends with the aforementioned people. How often do the socially inept get a chance to be plunged in to a group of interactional peer, where my deficiency comes from my early life social isolation and continued introversion, and their from a language barrier.
Now that I’m home, my odessy done, I’ve turned to a new pursuit. I’m trying to get in shape by summer (that means loseing 30 pounds of fatt and significantly incresing cardio and uperbody strength) so that I can take up Parkour. Also I need to find a job.
Ciao
