So remember all those novelty things I was getting excited about? Now I just hate them. Honestly, I'd give anything for a conversation about Corrie, or a massive bar of Cadburys chocolate. After 6 weeks the novelty has pretty much worn off. People asking me if I'm from New Zealand isn't cute anymore, in fact its getting frustrating beyond belief.
Conversations about Corrie, that's what I've started to miss, and I don't even like Corrie. When you're at home you massively take it for granted how you can start any conversation with some one and they probably know what happened in Xfactor or how Katie Price has managed to write another terrible book with the same story as the last one. You know things are getting desperate when One Direction is your go-to conversation maker because they are BIG out here - how they managed it, I will never understand, but I expect Simon Cowell has something to do with it. In fact I'm the only one who actually knows how One Direction came about. I watched them get put together on Xfactor at home in England like everyone else. Shamefully its become my small talk, how awful.
On a more serious note, it's less about the idol gossip, and more about the ease of talking to the people around you. At home I could start up a conversation with someone, and it'd flow easily without stopping to explain what words mean. Whats more, with your close friends you could talk without the niceties or introductions, or you wouldn't even have to talk at all if you didn't want and it would be completely acceptable. I've found myself at a real loss in this new culture where people don't know me yet. They don't know I love dinosaurs or that being a field hockey player means you love getting drunk just as much as playing (or maybe that's just being English). At home when you ask some one where they're from or what they do you get a picture of who they are pretty fast, but here that means nothing to people. They don't know what it's like growing up and living in England, and I don't know what it's like growing up here. While stereotypes are mostly seen as a bad thing, in a world where you don't have stereotypes you will find yourself completely lost. As a result, every interaction becomes hard work. The conversation doesn't flow and you have more awkward or feeling stupid moments than you would care to experience.
Luckily I have some very understanding and patient people around me, and more than that I have friends who aren't afraid to laugh in my face when I say something dumb. The people here really are friendly, even the people who work in stores and fast food restaurants. Naturally, I feel like a bad person every time I encounter these people, simply because I expect them to be like the moody English people that work in Next or Halfords. In fact I'm constantly looking for rude people in an attempt to feel more at home.
I've never been one to get homesick, but you start to miss things that you would never have considered before. When I got here, I would wake up every morning and see how sunny it was outside, and my English brain would say "I should get out in the sun today, make the most of it" as if it was one of the three sunny days we get in England. My brain was doing that for four weeks until I finally drilled it into my brain that the sun wasn't going anywhere. Now I'm hoping for a change in the weather. I never thought I'd be jealous of my friends at home telling me how cold, windy, and rainy it's getting. I cannot wait for the day I go home and it's so cold we all wrap up warm, have a cuppa, and put the fire on watching Strictly Come Dancing.
I miss wearing my onesie!
So its safe to say the novelty is wearing off. I'm very much settled into my new life here, and starting to miss home as a consequence. It's not all bad though, this place still has its moments of amazement where it just hits me how lucky I am to be here. After a week of being envious of those enjoying freshers week at home, I realised I would never choose to go back to my old uni life. I live in California now.
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