Updates and Observations

When Penn State beat their nemesis Ohio State in one of the greatest moments in Penn State history I wasn't there.  Life has a way of throwing curveballs at you when you least expect it. I got thrown one that night and it hit me right in the centre, knocking me out on the way down before the first football had even been kicked. But even though I couldn't be there it's an exciting story I have to share !

Going way back in time, that is to 2011 when I was 15 and One Direction was all I thought about a little thing called the "locker room scandal" fractured the spirit of Penn State.  Jerry Sandusky, an assistant football coach was convicted of molesting and raping children. Not only that but there was clear evidence the school knew that this had been going on and failed to notify the authorities about it.  Of course, once this story was leaked to the press it became an international news story and the football program at Penn State deteriorated fast.  Head coach, Joe Paterno resigned. The President and Vice-President of the school were forced to step down, leaving an entire community of die-hard Penn State football fans aghast.

The fact that Penn State beat Ohio State, the second ranked team in the country this year was HUGE. After many years of struggling, paying fines and being unable to recruit the best players it was incredible the team had been able to pull this out. Not even bolded capital letters can do this victory justice. I'm not even sure words can. Only the tears, the sweat and the angst of the thousands of fans can really illustrate what this means to people.

You would think that after such a monumental victory the students would continue the party, hit the bars, celebrate in their apartments.  But no, they decided to riot in the main streets of State College instead !  We are learning about rationality in economics and I'm not sure being so happy you decide to rip down lamp posts can be described as rational behavior !

Check out this video to see more ...

Football is only a very small fraction of what has been going on at college though.  I could probably write an entire essay about everything I've done - the quintessential American experiences I've had and all the weird quirks of trying to fit into American life.  Because there are some seriously strange things Americans do.

Like drinking iced coffee for instance.  Nothing looks more repulsive to me than drinking cold coffee that's been sitting in a vat all day, flavored with caramel or vanilla sitting in a pile of ice in your cup. And you drink it with a straw ! Straws are for fizzy drinks, not caffeinated beverages !

Fashion is another weird American college quirk, or should I say lack of fashion. Yesterday a boy in my history class wore slippers and Nitanny Lion pajama pants to class and no one even battered an eye.  The cool kids aren't wearing designer jewelry and heeled boots, they're wearing sweat pants, Ugg boots and headbands. The "I just rolled out of bed look" is trendy. Looking sophisticated is not.

Moving on to quintessential American experiences a couple of weekends ago was Homecoming ! The idea behind Homecoming is that all the alumni return to campus for a weekend of celebrating Penn State school spirit.  This includes a huge parade around campus where all the sororities and fraternities have built floats, the military marches and all the "stars" of Penn State wave to the fans.  It kind of reminded me a little of a Christmas parade back home, although with Nitanny Lions rather than Santa Claus's.  

Finally I went to my first American political rally ! Tim Kaine, Clintons VP nominee held a fleeting visit to Penn State and we all had the opportunity to hear him speak.  He spoke for over an hour to the crowd, without notes and without fault.  Of course he said the some of the stirring patriotic mumbo-jumbo all American politicians say but it was interesting watching him defending Clinton and stirring up the audience emotionally.

My politics class also heard Ed Rendall, the former Democrat governor of Pennsylvania speak. I really enjoyed the refreshing way he spoke - he was not scared to criticize his own party or even predict their losses in the election to come.  He is actually an aquainance of Donald Trump, despite being a Democrat and even attended Ivanka Trumps wedding.

See Mum, I don't spend my whole time partying abroad, I'm becoming a politicized and well read college student !

Getting Political

For a while now I've been telling you anecdotes about how my politics classes are going.  From my stories it's safe to imply they aren't going well.  It's always going to be problematic taking classes about subjects you didn't realise existed. Like for instance that states have different laws to one anotehr. Do you know under Californian law if you commit three criminal acts you can be sent to prison for life ! Life in prison, for traffic violations ! But if you did the same in Pennsylvania your stint in prison would be considerably shorter.  This is just one of the things that make studying politics in America so confusing !

Anyway since I do study politics I thought I would give "explaining the election" a go. There's probably a class you take on this, but ambitious as always I'll try to explain it in 500 words. 

The US presidential elections work very differently from our parliamentary system at home.  Candidates must first be nominated by their party by competing in primary or caucus election against other wannabe candidates from the same party.  Primary elections are held by each state and the states government deicides who is allowed to vote and when these elections will be held.  For example in Pennsylvania you must register your political affiliation with a party in order to be able to vote in that parties primary.  Yet, in other states anyone can vote in a primary. Republicans even encourage their voters to participate in Democrat primaries to vote for the weakest candidat. 

‘Caucus’ elections on the other hand are run by political parties and involve members making a more informal vote on their preferred candidate. This happens in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada -most of the states hold primary elections.  

What people abroad (and even voters in America) don’t realize is that the presidential election is not the only election taking place on November 8^th.  1/3 of the 100 seat US Senate is up for election, including one of the senators for Pennsylvania. Three rounds of Senate elections take place over six years, this is because the  US has a continuously rotating Senate membership, a system designed by the founding fathers to stop a single group being able to control the government and "dispel personal liberties" ( i.e. take away people's rights).  

As well as the Senate, 86 state legislature chambers (most state governments) and the House of Representatives are also up for re-election. The results of some of these elections is already known because many districts only have on candidate standing ! 

This may all seem a bit confusing but that's the point of it.  The US political system is chaotic with different types of elections happening left, right and centre. Voters don't walk into a booth on November 8 and tick either Clinton or Trump they make about twenty other choices at the same time! This is not something that only happens every four years either, due to the rotating system of the Senate and House Americans go to the ballots every single year.  Can you imagine dealing with billboards, advertisements and voting every single year ?

I expected there to be a lot of discussion and hype about the upcoming election when I arrived but this discussion is not happening between ordinary Americans.  Media outlets blast the election in all directions but there is disconnect with real voters.  There is a general sense of disillusionment by ordinary Americans – people seem feel let down by the political system and the political parties that are supposed to represent them. To me this is concerning ! You don’t get the sense that American voters understand how their decision on November 8 will have a chain reaction around the world and will seriously impact how other countries. Personally I'm worried Americans are not going to head to the polls on Novermber 8 and we will have a President that doesn't truly represent what they people want. 

In other political type news NBC nightly came to my senior politics class the other day to film a segment about young people in the election. They spent an hour filming our professor explain redistricting and us, the students ask questions and take notes.  Unfortunately we never made the NBC news because the next day the FBI announced the were opening up Clintons case again, and bam our news story got taken over by Hillary again ! 

So there, that was an attempt at trying to use my politics degree in real life ! Let me know what you think in the comments.  

Concert in Philadelphia

When I was younger I skipped a whole day of school to enter a Harry Potter dress up contest. Hair teased, Dad's tie around my neck and stick painted black in hand I proudly strutted my stuff as Hermione Granger.  My friends told me I had wasted my time and my teachers told me I didn't have my priorities straight.  But I lived with no regrets.

Last weekend my gorgeous London friend Elle and I made a bold move similar to my badass Hermione truancy days. We decided to skip the Kanye West concert at Penn State, which was happening for free, instead going to Philadelphia to see the much more indie, more hip and more English James Blake !

Regrets - none.

I knew we had made the right decision when we stopped at the train station in Philly and there was a barista coffee stand.  You have no idea how much I miss good coffee - imagine not having a mocha or cappucino for two months ( Starbucks is no where near as good as coffee at home). That is me, the struggle is real. Several minutes later, freshly made mocha in hand we were in an Uber on our way to our Air Bnb in the old quarter of Philly, only to be amazed once again by the little retro, indie apartment we had booked.  The word hip is going to be a common theme in this blog, but I'm telling you it sums up most of our experience in Philly. In our apartment there were photography lined walls, vintage stereos, retro bikes and two cats called Gin and Tonic.

There would have been no vintage stereos or cute cats at Kanye that's for sure !

Hipster Air BnB

After a sushi dinner nearby we headed to the concert which was held in an abandoned warehouse turned nightclub. And the theme of hip continues. These concertgoers were not Kanye West college students dressed in minimal clothing, reeking of vodka. This sub species of student wore crushed velvet, doc martins and ripped jeans, reeking of weed, rather than alcohol and occasionally turning to one another to discuss the finer points of post-modernism.  And when James Blake came out at 9.30 they knew every word to his songs. James Blake is incredible ! I'm not just talking about how incredibly handsome but he is also such a talented musician, running a one band show playing piano, drums, looping and of course singing.  We both walked out of the concert two hours later a little bit in love with James and his dreamy tunes.

The next day we explored Philadelphia, first of all stopping for real coffee and brunch at One Shot Cafe. I needed all the real coffee I could get before heading back to the coffee drought in central Pennsylvania ! We then walked to the centre of Philly doing the tourist trail along the way -  the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall ( where the Declaration of Independence was signed) , the remnants of George Washington's house and Reading Terminal Market. Reading Terminal Market was half a square mile of heaven and I drooled over the freshly made donuts, waffles and cookies that permeated every corner of the building. There's no wonder I didn't win the Hermione Granger dress up competition, I couldn't get into character because unlike Hermione I have no self control. Twenty dollars later and probably several pounds heavier I still felt like I could bought more.

Unfortunately we had to return to State College to work. I'm sure Hermione would have written her six page politics report before heading to the forbidden forest to tackle monsters but not me, I had left myself a mere 12 hours to do it.

So was skipping Kanye worth it ? Absolutely. I'm sure Kanye was incredible but James Blake was very special, plus it was fun pretending to be a  New Age traveller and not another college student for the weekend.

Love was all around this weekend

James Blake in action

Smoothie at Reading Street Terminal

Independence Hall

Side note ! I thought it seems relevant to mention how much travelling you get to do on exchange – as my posts seem to imply I am getting to do a lot. 

Travelling and exploring a new country is definitely a huge part of a being an exchange student – particularly at college when you have a lot more freedom to do so.  However, I think how much travelling you get to do really depends on where you go to school. Penn State is only hours away from many tourist destinations on the East Coast making the incentive to travel that much greater. However I imagine that studying in the Mid-West or in the South might make travelling more difficult simply because of the greater distances involved in going from place to place. 

How much travel you do also really depends on how heavy your course load is.  For myself VUW only requires that I pass my classes at Penn State and my grades will not go on my transcript. Obviously this makes the incentive to work hard less, but I can imagine if my grades did count I would probably be spending more of my weekends in the library and less so attending concerts four hours away!

Finally in regards to travelling abroad from the USA you can only do so with the permission of the exchange coordinators at Penn State.  You must gain a ‘travel signature’ on your visa from Penn State in order to leave the US and come back again.  Although I haven’t done this (yet) I have heard it can take several weeks to get a signature so pre-planning of these trips is absolute!