TW: Spoilers, but I mention incidents involving shooting, read at your own discretion pls.
Guys. Where do I even start??? It is so crazy how much I imagined being at UNC and now I'm actually here. Sometimes I have to remind myself of that, "you are in America, you're in North Carolina, you made it here". Like that's a big deal! Wow. Maybe American exuberance rubbed off on me.
As a small preface before diving on in, I have a running bit on the site that I'm using writing as a venting space but not as any sort of cry for help, this isn't writing therapy...funnily enough, now I've DONE writing group therapy. It went well, thanks for asking. Essentially still not a cry for help.
I'm now mostly (!!!) through my term at UNC and I would looooooooove to say I'm loving it. In reality, the experience of studying abroad is both more and less like regular life than you'd expect, but on the "more" side of things, it's still life, there's still highs and lows, I'm busier than ever (!) and constantly my mind is racing, love me some chaotic "thoughts going too fast for me to process". So if my non-American readers (I say that like I have viewership) were expecting an incredible American fantasy where I kill it academically, spend all my time at frat parties, soak up the American South, make friends for life without even trying, you'll be ever so slightly disappointed.
Which is not to say I'm not enjoying it! I am, I think I've gotten into the flow of things at this point and I only hope to do so even more. But I think maybe I had those expectations for myself....and I'm so disappointed in myself for doing that! I literally attended a webinar, where I met with the Bristol Abroad team and discussed with other study abroad students how to keep expectations realistic, and I knew from my early days at Bristol how NOT useful it is to hear "oh my gosh you're gonna have the best time" constantly-like, maybe I will, but give me some time to. But I don't know, as things got closer the nerves and excitement got bigger and bigger, and maybe I expected a lot...though my first four(ish) days I think were also cause for my expectations being too high, because they kind of were a little fantastical, you know, all the fun of being at uni in America without actually having to go to classes.
Let's start with classes. Work hits you like a ton of bricks over here! I am busy all the time and I sometimes love it and sometimes hate it. Let's just say that recently I've felt like a bloody academic weapon, over the past couple of weeks I had a couple exams, I had to finish my already extended article for UNC's main paper, the Daily Tar Heel (this is gonna need its own section!), I had to write and record a podcast for another midterm, and it felt BRILLIANT finishing each of them. Well, except for one of the exams. I'm not jinxing anything.
At other times I've felt like ....how do people do this??? The truth is that as with social life at Bristol, I expect people aren't as comfortable and killing it as they imply. I will say that as someone with social anxiety, it sucks to see when other people are constantly contributing in class, seeming to come up with points that are better than mine. For my shy folks, these guys aren't smarter than you, they're just more vocal than you (notice I don't say loud, because it's good that you're vocal). But back to me being unserious, do you know how infuriating it is to be thinking in your head of a point and because your brain is a wanker (excuse my English), you think to yourself "no, that's a stupid point, don't say it" and then someone says it??? And the prof will be like "oh that's a great point well done".
In terms of work, there is more but I'm mostly on top of things. I definitely prefer the academic side of things here to Bristol, or most other UK unis actually who do Classics and Ancient History. Y'all (I love this expression by the way) know that I didn't feel super challenged by the academic life at Bristol. I like that here the readings are really relevant to the classes instead of just being footnotes, I like that I'm more frequently assessed! The academic side of things for Ancient History in Bristol now kind of feels...uninspired to me. That weirdly wounds me to say. It's (maybe) a top 10 university in the UK, and it has a great Classics department, but slide after slide, plus one or two discussions, every single lecture is just relentless when those lectures aren't really necessary to even pass. It's somehow too boring AND too intense to write a large essay at the end of term because your knowledge isn't being reinforced, you just jam pack one or two week's content into the end essay. What I will say is that at both Bristol and UNC I actually think to myself that the topics I write about are actually very interesting WHEN writing about them. Yet I also manage to complain about them. But overall I think I have passion for classics and ancient history again, which feels great.
I also got to take a wider range of classes! I didn't go crazy with it, two Classics classes (Ancient History isn't really a degree here), one Archaeology class and one English class.
As for The Daily Tar Heel, I guess I probably didn't envision myself at UNC writing about parking maximums, but low key it's so rewarding when you get a story done. My latest one is on a local cheese shop's expansion. This was by far my favourite. I even took a trip to get some cheese! And it was my first ever print published article, which I am very proud of:)
It's not like writing for The Bristorian, which feels a lot more creative to me, but they're very different. The Bristorian is a creative space, it's primarily about history or other humanities, and its only print publication is seasonal, so deadlines are for online articles. The Daily Tar Heel gets more attention, it feels like working for a real newspaper but less intense. That said I've been very paranoid I'll get sued for libel ever since orientation, when they brought it up.
The counselling service is also much better over here. Sorry Bristol. Maybe give me more sessions.
Chapel Hill itself is nice enough, quite natural, it's honestly gorgeous to look at. I'm gonna miss it when I go back home because city life is different! But I also miss London and Bristol. I somehow miss clubbing?? Ugh, have I become the thing I swore to destroy?
When I actually stop to think about my time here, I realise that I've done consistently cool things here. I've started journalling again, which helps document that, I think. And I've added a bit in a little mini calendar I have where I just kind of summarise the cool things I've done during the day, that's definitely helped. So with this in mind I have put together a list of some of the cool things I'm glad I've experienced or consistently done!
North Carolina state fair (this was a blast, deep fried oreos? Are you kidding? Genius.)
Going to various sports games-American football, my football a few times, hockey (field), volleyball, and hopefully a basketball one soon. We're also getting into knockout season so that's exciting. Unrelated, but it's weird that I've seen three different kinds of football match where UNC have played Syracuse. (American football-UNC won 40-7, men's football/soccer-lost 1-0, women's football/soccer-won 6-1.)
Going to frats (the first night)-this was like a movie I'll write about it another time.
Tennis-I've kept up with it!
Oct. 27th-Cat's Cradle concert and meeting BEL (Isabel Whalen)-I saw a singer called Gatlin who I discovered on Spotify earlier this year and given this was half an hour away
Halloween-it was fun dressing up and going out while still putting in minimal effort, what can I say? Everyone was dressed up for Halloweekend, Halloween itself was mediocre. I tried investigating two supposedly haunted buildings, but they were both locked, which devastated the wannabe detective in me. I had a midterm the next day so spent the evening studying. Meh.
Epilogue Books-really fun independent bookstore who serve generally okay but occasionally very good hot chocolate, I think you have to try different kinds honestly. I've read a few books from there that I just would never have if not for them promoting smaller writers, LGBTQ+ writers, local writers, etc. Epilogue is great.
Writing group therapy-therapy where you don't have to say what you feel, just write it? Yes please. But also, actually? Found out some very cool new techniques.
Consistently reading (somehow!)- in particular for my English queer literature class, which has been a lot of fun, but also reading for fun, which is nice.
Daily Tar Heel articles-I was legitimately close to quitting because of my already high workload, and I dug myself out, which is maybe my best achievement here??
Insomnia Cookies-I'm genuinely confused if you don't love these guys.
So I'm trying to feel proud of myself IN the moment, instead of looking back at this time sometime in the future and feeling proud of it. But seriously, is happiness supposed to come after the good thing happens? Cause honestly I romanticise the past so much it truly my tragic flaw. (Cue for someone to go off and write a Greek tragedy about me.)
I didn't mean to freak my English friends out with that shooting mention at the start, by the way. The long and short of it is that there was an incident on August 28th where a professor was shot and killed, and then two weeks later (I can't at present remember the date) someone pulled a gun at a student union cafe, no shots fired. Both people were arrested, incidentally.
I don't want to say too much about this. In doing therapy (one-on-one this time rather than writing group) I expressed that I felt selfish in the aftermath of the actual shooting for feeling sorry for myself because a professor had been killed in a clearly targeted attack. I've kind of come to realise that I'm allowed to have felt shaken by it. It's morbidly ironic, but this is the one thing that you think "worst case scenario" of when you study abroad in America. And it's ironic because Chapel Hill hadn't had a shooting for-I want to say 7 years? Before the shooting.
From the perspective of an exchange student, it feels unfair, in the simplest terms. You come to study abroad for a different academic life, a different social life, a social experience, and you get the ugliest part of the US. I would go on a rant about gun control in the country and in the state, but that argument has been done to death, I don't write about serious stuff usually and it is blindingly obvious to me that people not being killed is more important than a person's right to bear arms, but you know, that's just my "woke" opinion. Super radical, I know.
I don't mean to bring down the mood but it'd honestly be disingenuous of me to not mention the worst parts of this. It's actually incredible writing about this now in November, because it feels so distant to me. It's definitely a sign that I've done a lot, developed and grown a lot since then (not to sound corny) but it felt odd typing this up now. I started a post after my first month in Chapel Hill that was a lot more bitter. I'm unsure about how wise that was, but in fairness, this is my site. I just didn't want to vent about something that made me so angry and unhappy. And after a gun was pulled in the second incident, my absolute worst fear was that the incidents would define my experience here.
And they didn't! Things change, life goes on, not to sound insensitive but it was best for me to literally make the best of the rest of my time here. I went to American football games, I explored the town, I actually got off my arse and did some work and caught up on everything I was behind on, as I'd kinda slipped understandably behind after the events that happened. I went to all sorts of sports games, I feel I kept in touch with people fairly well, I miss people so much though! It's definitely harder to make friends in second year.
I'm still awkward, English-ly sarcastic, bad at socialising and making conversation, funny when you get to know me and-I suppose wholesome in my own way?-and all that jazz, so don't expect a smoothly transformed George when I come back. If you see me when I come back, which I hope as many of you reading this as possible will. I would say the worst thing that I've done here is hide my accent. Not that I put on an American one, I do a great American accent but it only works when I'm confident. Or inebriated. I kind of just skip over some phrases so it's harder to tell. When I talk to English people or when I have to talk for a longer period of time, my accent is there, so don't worry, rule Britannia, still English and proud (well, still English).
** through my parentage I'm actually Australian-Canadian-American, which probably is a shock to those of you who have heard me speak in the accent of a posh English w*nker.
So when the guy cutting my hair said I sounded like I'd lived here all my life, I wanted the ground to swallow me up and take me back to the land of jammy dodgers and fish and chips. I remain too shy to use my greatest, most endearing, and most attractive asset. *sigh* But I digress.
Studying abroad is not always magical, it's often messy. (Put it in my autobiography.)
But I do know about myself that I always appreciate things looking back at them more, as I've mentioned. And I know for a fact I'll look back on this experience as a pretty damn incredible one, if solely for the fact it's been so incredibly different from the rest of my life. But I've also had some really great individual moments, and with other people, whom I tend to avoid mentioning in these posts for...well, I don't know, I just kind of do, except referring to them anonymously. Privacy mostly. I think if I were to mention people by name it would just bring up the people I didn't mention by name. This is the problem with writing in a stream of consciousness.
Yes, I do recommend studying abroad. Yes, I'd potentially recommend it here. And yes, I will be coming back to Chapel Hill when I'm a grown up:) I've always thought Kenan Stadium could use a concert! I'm kidding. Mostly.
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