Freshman 15

‘Oooh heaven is a place on earth… where chocolate is calorie free and cake keeps you slim!’

I’m not quite sure how I’ve avoided the topic of food for so long on my blog seeing as America is renowned for its fast food, deep-fried everything and larger than large portions. So with my cheeks getting chubbier every day and my belly being the furthest away from attaining a six pack than it’s ever been, I thought it was about time to delve into my American eating habits.

My Dad warned me that the portions of food out here would be larger than at home and that when he worked at Camp America centuries ago he’d managed to put on a lot of weight in just one summer. So really there is no hope - I’m not here for summer, I’m here for a whole year, and I’m a chocoholic (aka I have a sweet tooth). Chocolate to me is a tempting treat that, the moment I give in to it, heads straight for my bum and upper thighs – I’ve heard people compare chocolate to men, but the general belief is that chocolate is more satisfying! Nevertheless, I am determined not to gain the infamous ‘freshman 15’ (even though I’m actually a Junior) and go home lighter and leaner than before.

However, with that said, yesterday something very drastic happened which made me realise I’m probably eating way too much. It was the end of class, so naturally I stood up from my chair, ready to leave, and the top button on my high waisted disco pants popped right off! Luckily I was wearing a cardigan so I could quickly hide the fact that my trousers were falling apart, but it was a little embarrassing. I’m going to put it down to the fact that the button must have been faulty because I’ve been swim training 2-3 times per week and making use of the Strom gym facilities, but perhaps my eating to exercise ratio isn’t quite even! I was taught at a very young age that leaving left-overs on your plate is rude, and that in order to have dessert you had to finish your main. So with these table manners drilled into me, I find it hard to leave half a meal sitting on my plate going cold and end up thinking ‘challenge accepted’ pretty much every time I sit down to eat.

Over the past two years at University I’ve been self-catered, whilst I tried to let the inner Delia Smith and Jamie Oliver take over in the kitchen, I ended up living off cereal, beans on toast, mountains of pasta and stodgy jacket-potatoes. So this year I’ve handed in my pots and pans and traded them for 10 meals per week at the student union. Pros of the meal plan include; I’m never really hungry or worrying about when I’m going to have time to prepare a meal, the swipes can be used pretty much everywhere on campus and the cost of a meal at the Russell House is usually cheaper than any other restaurant. But, healthy? I’m going to go with ‘No’. Some days I find myself queuing up to use my dinner meal swipe on a ginormous sprinkle covered ice-cream cone with strawberries and M&Ms mixed in. I swear the same guy always serves me as well, so he obviously just thinks I’m ‘that British girl living off ice-cream’. But I’m not alone! I can name at least one obese student in 3 out of my 4 classes this term, and I bet you they’re not fighting an on-going battle with the medicine ball in the gym!

 Here are my top 5 best and weirdest things I’ve been eating since arriving in the USA:

   1)REESE'S Mini Peanut Butter Cups – I think I maybe addicted, so this could actually be a serious problem, but I’m not sure how I’ve gone 21 years without them. Basically peanut butter covered in chocolate, these have become my go-to for stress eating. Although I’m a Galaxy girl at heart, with no Diary Milk in sight, these have become my new chocoholic obsession.

   2) Pawley’s Burgers – There’s a restaurant in town which does half price burgers on a Tuesday. Naturally, being in America there are at least 10 different burgers you can choose from, each bigger than the last. I can honestly say that I was still full at lunch time the next day!

   3) Cheesecake from ‘The Cheesecake Factory’ – Yum! You are absolutely spoilt for choice; Tiramisu Cheesecake, Pina Coloda Cheesecake, Snickers, Cherry, Pumkin, Lemon, Peppermint, Carrot Cake….. and I could go on! The list is endless! I opted for the White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Cheesecake and it was one of those ‘moment on the lips, forever on the hips’ occasions.

   4) Boiled Peanut – Probably the most vile thing I’ve tried so far, and of course they happen to be the official State snack of South Carolina.  If you're from South Carolina, you almost certainly grew up snacking on boiled peanuts and drinking sweet tea. But if you're not, don’t panic, you haven’t been missing out on anything! Boiled peanuts are soggy, salty, mushy things that taste more like weird soya beans than crunchy nuts; I think I’ll stick to my KP Dry Roasted Peanuts next time.

   5) Cookie Dough – I seem to have got into a very bad habit of buying a packet of ready-made cookie dough with the good intension to make cookies for my flat-mates but instead, I end up microwaving a couple squares at a time so they’re half melted and just eating it straight out the bowl. Ooopsie. What was that about Freshman 15?

Surviving Mid-Terms

Exams have never been one of my strong suits; the pressure to perform well under a limited period of time reinforced by an overbearing ticking clock just isn’t my cup of tea. So when I found out that America seem to enjoy testing their students even more than British institutions I was a little horrified. More exams? Not what I signed up for.  

Social life? Forget it.

Food? Only if cookie dough counts as one of your ‘five a day’.

Sleep? Well that’s just a good ten hours of your time wasted.

College life is all about maintaining that important balance between the 3 ‘S’ words: studying, sleeping and socialising. But it appears the stress of tests, essays and projects all due at the same time is too much for some students to handle.

Earlier this week I decided it was probably a good idea to get a couple hours of cramming in before one of my mid-term exams. I set up my laptop in the quiet group study area of the library, notes and highlighter at the ready, surrounded by piles of novels, and I began to get my geek on. I knew that my fellow classmates took these exams pretty seriously, but I didn’t quite realise the extent to how far people pushed themselves for just a small exam in the middle of the semester. A guy came and sat opposite me at the table and instead of unloading brick-like books from his rucksack, he proceeded to rest his head in his arms and fall asleep. ‘Wow’ I thought, this guy really was taking studying to the extreme. When he came to a little later, I decided to ask him if he was unable to find somewhere a little more comfortable than a wooden chair and table in the middle of the library for a snooze. Either he had trouble understanding my accent, which is apparently quite easy to misinterpret, or he thought I was mad. Clearly the library was a perfect place to nap, it’s warm and quiet. But it got me thinking, this guy was evidently exhausted from sleep deprivation - just one out of hundreds of students that continually choose studying (or partying) over sleep. But how healthy really is this lifestyle? Constant stress and lack of sleep makes me irritable and short tempered, but the guy I met in the library seemed totally transformed into a sleep walking zombie. He nearly tripped over my laptop lead as I advised him that a strong black coffee would probably help. I vote that the week of mid-term exams should be renamed to 'zombie week' instead. Students aimlessly walk around with their eyes stuck to their iphones anyway, so the connection to zombies doesn't seem that far fetched. Life, or at least life outside of the classroom, appears to be draining all energy from them, there's only one thing on their mind - must pass exam. If you survive without bags under your eyes or an emotional breakdown, congratulations and welcome to the post-apocalyptic world.

Old Kentucky Home

You know you’re road tripping in America when the satnav says ‘continue on interstate for the next 200 miles’……

Last week was fall-break, which means two things; first, I have made it alive to the half-way mark of my first semester at USC and second, that I got to go cross country to the ‘Bluegrass State’ aka ‘my old Kentucky home’.  Known for its thoroughbred horses, horse racing, tobacco and college basketball, I was fortunate enough to be invited to stay with my American self; Lindsey. After the 7 and ½ drive from Columbia I was happy that she didn’t want to throttle me after putting up with my chatterbox mouth and karaoke singing for 500 miles. But we made it, eventually, and spent the long weekend gorging ourselves on home-made cooking and copious amounts of REESE'S Mini Peanut Butter Cups. Yum! There are so many details I could bore you all with, so instead of telling you an intricate hourly account of everything we got up to, I’ll pick some of my favourite moments.

Before I came on my year abroad, I knew that it would be the people I meet and the memories I make that would make this year unforgettable. If you had predicted that I’d be spending my October break in Kentucky betting, hopelessly may I add, at the races, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. But with the sun shining gloriously, I attended my first ever horse race at Keeneland. It almost seems a little ironic, after living so close to Ascot, Windsor for over 13 years that I had to go across the globe to enjoy the thoroughbred racing industry. Pretty Fall dresses, strawberry margaritas, and $2 bets; my day at the races was certainly one to remember. Although I’m not quite sure I understand all the terminology; who beat who, who had the mount, and how to make well educated guesses, I had enormous amounts of fun putting my money on the horses with the most outrageous names. My favourites included ‘Lovesmelovesmenot’ and ‘Kitchen Police’. But don’t worry Mum, I didn’t spend all my pocket money and I’m not addicted to gambling just yet, I think I’ll need to win a little more than six bucks to get hooked!

The rest of my break was filled with cheesecake, calves, mountain hikes and roasted marshmallows over a bonfire on a starry night. Kentucky, it was a pleasure; 2 States down, 48 to go!

Pet Shop Boys

With the leaves starting to fall, the temperature slowly getting cooler and days getting shorter, it’s finally beginning to feel like Autumn (or ‘Fall’ as the American’s call it!) But before jeans become the staple item in my wardrobe and, dare I even mention, coats and scarf's, I wanted to take a moment to appreciate how lovely campus is on a beautiful day. As I previously mentioned in my very first blog post, this year I’m lucky enough to get to live on the Historic Horseshoe, which is the centre and hub of campus. When the sun is shining you can rest assure that every bench on the Horseshoe will be in use and a colourful array of picnic blankets will be scattered across the grassy area with students studying, listening to music, playing games or just chilling with friends. Definitely a much nicer way to spend a couple of hours in between classes with a fresh breeze running through your hair than stuck in the gloomy Templeman Library on Kent’s campus that just breathes stress and exam anxiety!

The Horseshoe not only appeals to students in need of a break, but it also attracts the canine lover’s amongst us. That’s right, dog walking central! It turns out that students at USC are allowed to have pets in off-campus accommodation, so naturally a large percentage of upperclassmen own cute, fluffy dogs. It all seemed a little bizarre at first; in the UK students can barely afford the weekly food shop at Tesco’s, let alone fending for and actually being responsible for another living thing which needs constant attention and care. And even if you could afford to keep a pet, I’m yet to see a student house or flat up for rent in Canterbury which says ‘animals are welcome’ on the lease agreement. Student Landlords have enough trouble with the humans, let alone bringing pets into the equation!

But the boys here who own dogs certainly have the right idea; they are total ‘chick magnets’. I’ll be sitting outside on my perfectly positioned rug doing a spot of reading or chatting with the girls and out of the blue, a ball or some form of ‘go fetch’ item will not-so-subtly land on my blanket, and along comes a fluffy husky or a cute chocolate lab bounding at full speed ahead straight for me! You don’t even get a heads up, all of a sudden leaves and grass are everywhere and some wet, slimy tongue is trying mouth to mouth before its owner strolls over, claiming he’s ‘sorry’. But I know the truth, he’s not really sorry, in fact he’s not in the slightest bit apologetic. I have no doubt that he intentionally threw the ball over in my direction in the first place. Total con! Getting the poor dog to be your side kick and doing all the hard work for you! I wonder if it ever occurred to these guys that they could probably afford to skip all the gimmicks and just talk to a girl? Maybe not…. Talking is clearly no fun at all. Instead, getting hit in the forehead with a saliva ridden, slobbery tennis ball, is such a turn on!

Water for Elephants

The South Carolina State Fair is one of the biggest attractions for the general public that Columbia holds every year. Organised in 1869 the State Fair combines a mixture of livestock competitions with entertainment, appealing to both rural and urban crowds of all ages. After hearing numerous people rave about how much fun it is, I decided to go check it out. Like the funfair's at home the grounds were lit up with Ferris wheels, dodgems and roller-coasters. There were candy floss stools and competitions to win enormous cuddly toys alongside various other lucky-dip and betting games. But there was one thing that really stood out as different, and no it wasn’t the fried goodies! Although trying fried cookie dough and fried Oreos was definitely a novelty, it wasn’t the Southern food that shocked me.

It was the elephant.

Plodding around a tiny penned-in area was a ginormous elephant giving rides to children for $5 apiece. Words actually failed me for a few moments whilst the image I was witnessing began to sink in. Sure, I’ve seen elephants at the zoo, but they have huge outside areas to roam around in, fit with large grass paddocks, pools, mud wallows, dust baths and all sorts of other facilities close to their natural habitat. In the UK it is illegal to have exotic animals at travelling circuses, so when I saw this beautiful elephant trapped, being used as nothing more than a money making machine, my heart went out to it. For me, there is no place in today’s society where it’s acceptable to use wild animals for our own entertainment purposes. I’m not a huge animal rights activist or anything, but I couldn’t help but think about that poor elephant when I got back to my apartment. I cannot see how being transported from one place to the next and being made to perform in loud and unfamiliar surroundings is healthy for them. Some people may argue that by having elephants at these types of fairs, the general public get to see an animal that they might not have the chance to see in the wild. But I think if you want to learn about elephants, or educate your children about them, one of the worst ways you can do it is to let your kids ride one at a fair or see one dressed up and performing at a circus.

‘Now, say you're a bird.’ ‘If you're a bird, I'm a bird’.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a huge Nicholas Sparks fan. I get super soppy over any kind of romance so The Notebook and Dear John go down as two of my favourite films. Any film with Rachel McAdams or Amanda Seyfried in it has got to be good; girls want to be them, guys want to date them. And don’t get me started on the god that is Channing Tatum! Apart from the fact that I love a good chick flick, these films have a slight downside because they have forever skewed my vision on what the perfect man should be like, giving myself and every other girl unrealistic hopes since 2004. I am led to believe that true love will probably start at first sight, almost certainly in the middle of summer at the beach or a fair or even a book store. This man will know I’m ‘the one’ and will go to every effort to get to know me and pursue me persistently. There will always be a romantic soundtrack playing in the background at every important moment in our relationship and at some point I will be kissed in the rain, danced with in the middle of the street and written 365 letters. High expectations? Nah!

The fairy tales that Nicholas Sparks and Disney have provided for every girl searching for her Prince Charming have left me wondering where my Ryan Gosling is? Perhaps he’s still building the house of my dreams fitted with blue shutters and a veranda that surrounds the outside…. When I first found out that I would be studying at The University of South Carolina last December I was very quick to discover that a majority of Nicholas Sparks’ films were set in South Carolina, and ever since I have been longing to visit Charleston. Charleston is a city on the east coast, about an hour and a half drive away from Columbia, full to the brim with history, both charming and beautiful. This weekend I finally got round to taking a road trip to the coast, and I was not disappointed!

Despite a slight hiccup with transport issues and not getting much sleep in the hostel, my weekend consisted of exploring the city, visiting museums, eating way too much food, going on a ghost tour, and even tanning on the beach! The weather was perfect; blue skies and glorious sunshine. The beaches that appear in the film Dear John are all filmed around Charleston; John (Channing Tatum) and Savannah (Amanda Seyfried) first meet on the Isle of Palms fishing pier, and Folly Beach and Sullivans Island are also used for various beach scenes. I was in my element! Not to mention the fact that the main street in Charleston, Kings Street, is where Noah and Allie in The Notebook lie watching the traffic lights change colour, but it’s also where the historic American Theatre is located where Allie and Noah watch a film, and where The William Aiken House is situated which was used for the wedding dress fitting scene.

I will definitely be taking a trip back to Charleston soon as there were so many places I wanted to visit but didn’t have time, including the old plantation houses and the slave market. Charleston is full of rich American History, apparently around one third of African American slaves came through Charleston, SC, during the slave trade and original slave houses still stand at Boone Hall Plantation in Mt. Pleasant (which is the plantation used in The Notebook as Allie’s house). My year abroad so far is proving to be very insightful, opening my eyes to many different perspectives. Now all I need is to open my eyes to a Channing Tatum look alike and everything will be perfect!

I shagged six guys last night…

‘Do you want to shag?’

The first time a guy asked me this I couldn’t help but burst out in a fit of girlish giggling laughter. ‘Did he just ask me what I thought he did?’ was my first confused question. Apparently yes he did, but not in quite the same way as I thought. Instead of asking me up to his bedroom to ‘get it on’ he was actually asking me to dance! It turns out the word SHAGGING has very different meanings in the Deep South than back at home in old England.

Oxford English Dictionary Definition: A dance popular esp. in the U.S. in the 1930s and 1940s, and characterised by vigorous hopping from one foot to the other. (rather than… well you know… sex!)

Readers, you should know that when it comes to dancing I am no pirouetting guru. I in fact consider myself to have the terrible ‘two left feet’ syndrome, unless of course, after a bottle of wine and Beyoncé is playing, then I am fearless! I have not swing danced with any ostentatious named jiving expert before. I have never ever line danced. In fact, I have never really danced at all! Unless you count ballet lessons till around the age of 5, but all I can remember from those was some rule about good toes and naughty toes and pink leotards! Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to miss out on an opportunity to learn how to shag, so I went out, eyes as wide as a deer in headlights, to a bar called Jillians, where they hold weekly shag nights. My face had fear written all over it. The bar was rammed with students paired boy girl shagging their way to the music. I suddenly felt very unprepared, these kids had been born and bred shagging all their lives as the ‘Carolina Shag’ is actually the State dance. I knew I was going to be hopeless but I was going to enjoy being hopeless all the same! Not only did I have the pressure of learning this partner, holding sweaty hands jiggle, I also had to master the synchronised dances that everyone breaks out into as if it were a pre-planned flash mob. American’s love a good line dance as much as they appear to love twerking (see previous post). At one point I found myself right in the middle of a complicated line dance with no idea whether I was meant to be stepping to the right, wiggling my butt or clapping my hands, but god it was fun, or rather funny, at least for the people watching me thinking ‘she has no clue!’ My favourites so far include ‘The Wobble’ and ‘The Cupid Shuffle’, not to sound big headed or anything but I believe I’ve got the latter dance down to a ‘T’! (Although it probably was the easiest one…)

It turns out that an evening of Southern Gents patiently showing me the ropes was tremendous amounts of fun, better yet; zero alcohol was consumed so there was no false confidence needed. However, I’m still only learning so it’s going to take a while for me to become an expert shagger, perhaps I should do some practice in the bedroom…