Left and Right do battle in UR

While we didn't get a visit from any Mid Eastern dictators this week- we're already well aware that Iran is gay free, thank you very much- we did get a visit from two witty political hacks who spent 2hrs discussing the '08 race. Its all about fostering a culture of 'debate' and 'communication'.

On the left,we had Prof Susan Estrich. A smart lady who's only sin was running Michael Dukakis's '88 campaign.......into the ground. Funny stories from it though. Turns out she was aware that the campaign was going southward so was dishing out posts to every donor. Funny shit, eh? On the right was FoxNews contributor Richard Lowry, an equally smary guy who regaled us with witty tales about being a Republican in Liberal New York.

I wont be doing them justice by repeating all their jokes. Suffice to say they involved Bill Clinton's next role as First Gentlemen, Rudi's kids and Southern Baptists. It'll all be on webcast shortly, I'll try and post a link to it.

One of the questions from the audience was from a Mitt Romney supporter, who told the hall about the 'Romney '08' support group on campus. He was a bit weird, but four of his five wives seemed lovely. Other then that, the election is going by relatively unnoticed on campus. I'll post if anything exciting does happen here.

Mr Murphy goes to Washington

I spent all of Saturday in Washington. And not just any old Washington, it was Washington DC! There's a picture of me beside the White House. Look, I got closer to it then John Kerry!

Luc kindly drove us up, which didn't take long as Richmond is quite close to the nations capitol. Indeed, parts of the capitol city, including the Pentagon, are located in Virginia.

We saw it all! The Capitol, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Memorial (no jokes please!), Georgetown and The White House. There was a massive anti-war protest on that day, with a counter 'pro-war' protest on to,well, counter the protest. We got some photos with some funky 'peace vans' and saw some rednecks talk about surrender.

I fully recommend going to Washington DC, its a beautiful city (whatever about what goes on inside the buildings). Especially Georgetown, which has a European flavour to it.

Commemorate innocent victims with chicken

Remember September 11th 2001? The day the world looked in horror as thousands of innocent people were killed, the day that lead the French to declare 'we are all American', that lead to a National day of morning in countries across the world? No?

Worry not, the Campus Republicans are here to remind you! Most commemorative ceremonies have a touch of class and dignity to them. A flag at half mast, a single trumpeter and a minutes silent.

But 'class' and 'dignity' clearly aren't in the Republican gameplan. I mean, these are the people that attacked a war veteran who lost three limbs in defence of his country. Tastefully dressed in "Coulter '08" t-shirts, they decorated the park outside the library with tiny American flags [pictured above]. Just American flags of course, because the victims from the 36 other countries can organise their own fucking ceremony!

Missing a few flags is a minor issue. If the campus Republicans don't remember the one Irish citizen, or the 3 Brazilians, I'm sure someone else will. Its the posters they had beside the ceremony the had me stunned. They used this wonderfully planned ceremony to advertise their first meeting of the year, with, wait for it, a FREE CHIK-FIL-A dinner! When it comes to the tough world of student politics, one must use the deaths of whoever they can use to get a few more members.

A showing of "World Trade Centre" and free chicken? I'm sure when the towers collapsed the people inside would have thought this a fitting tribute of their life. Certainly they were all Republicans and would have loved to see their memory being used to try and scare a few more people to vote for their party [and for chicken, or course]. Don't you remember those last desperate voice messages left on their loved ones phones? I'm pretty certain they were along the lines of 'I love you, and the kids, but I hate that bitch Hillary- don't let her be President. PS Please invade Iraq.'

I won't make my posts this political again, but couldn't let this go by. Freaks.

University of Richmond- best International Programme in the US

If you weren't jealous enough about me as is, you will be now! Every year , US publications do rankings of Universities. This year, Newsweek named University of Richmond as having 'the best international programme in the country'. Yes, that's right, I'm in the best international programme in the country that has the best Universities. Therefore, I am literally in the best International Programme IN THE WORLD! Certainly compensates for the lack of mashed potatoes. Here's a snippet of what Newsweek said:

During the past two decades at Richmond, the number of courses with international content and the number of faculty with international research, teaching and experience have all increased significantly. In addition, study-abroad participation has blossomed and the number of international students attending Richmond has grown from 15 to more than 200. Currently, international students represent more than 70 countries on campus.

To add a dollop of butter to this academic mashed potato of greatness, US News & World Report have listed UR as one of the top tier National Liberal Arts Universities. Not that I'm bragging, of course.

One potato,two potato....... no potato?

I promised ya'll a post on the food here. But this isn't it. Instead, its a post on the humble spud [pictured left during happier times]. I've had my runs in with the food here, but nothing like what happened today. Advertised was mashed potato, but what I got was some sort of watery paste. Certainly nothing I've ever tasted before. I can understand them f**king up meatloaf, but who can't manage mashed potato?

Let me put this in context. This place boasts of a $2.2bn endowment, but they can't afford a few potatoes? This place has a Greek theatre, but can't afford some cheap migrant labour to peel a few spuds? This place can afford automatic blinds for each classroom, but apparently could spring for a bit of milk and butter for the potato paste crap they served up.

I'm being egged on to action by some fellow URians. Not so much because they dislike the potato paste, but more because they find the sight of an Irishmen being upset over potatoes to be quite amusing. But I don't care how many stereotypes I reinforce, I ain't going to stand for this! I'll keep you posted on my actions.

Introducing the posse Part II

Living in America for a year wouldn't be much fun if there wasn't people here to share it with, so I thought I'ld show some of these people off to you. I've already told you about Luke, so today I'm telling you all about Anna, the 'British Chick' I referd to in an earlier post. That's her in the photo, on our way back from 'Chipotle' which is a salmonella-free version of 'TacoBell'. I'll do a seperate post about food here sometime, probably after I've hit the 15 stone mark on the scales ;)

Anyway, back to Anna. Me being Irish, we bonded over our love of tea. Her Being British we fell out over Marmite, and neither of us being American meant we built a solid foundation on hating the sugar laced Carrots they serve here.

This post keeps going back to food, I should probably get dinner after this.

She's an 'American Studies' major in Edinburgh, hence her being on this side of the puddle for the next year, but her interesting sides extends beyond liking Marmite [and being proud of it]. She was a Hong Kong native for most of her life, and still retains residence rights [ and checks what the weather is like there, oddly]. She also shares a cycnical side, meaning we have many a good chat discussing our temporary home.

Don't have a bad word to say about her, meaning this post will be short and dull. In fact, its going to end right now.

I'm off to get food. Bye!

What am I studying?

Just finished my International Relations class, which is one of four courses I'm doing. The others are
Crime & Justice in Post Modern Society, Constitutional Law and Sociology of Immigration. Needless to say, courses and college are way different here then they are at home. But thats what you get with an endowment of $2.2bn dollars. Thats right, 2.2 BILLION!


We all have several large lectures back home and a couple of small tutorials. Here, its tutorials all the time. Every class is small (between 12 and 18 people) and can be anywhere between 50mins and 170mins long. The structure isn't one lecturer talking endlessly and students taking notes. Instead, the lecturer [called a 'Professor' even if they aren't technically one] talk for a few minutes and then open the floor to discussion. Participation counts for anywhere between 10 and 40% of your grade, so staying mute isn't an option!

Reading is assigned for each class, and since they form the basis of the discussion then you have to do the reading. Papers, presentations and pop quizes all make up a large chunk of your final grade. So if I'm slow responding to e-mails, you'll understand why!

The good news is classes are kinda easy. The perception of Americans being uninformed is somewhat true, especially in Sociology and Politics courses [which are the ones I'm doing] so the Professors take it quite slow. I'm not saying American students are stupid, just that when you have FoxNews as your primary source of information then getting a sane grasp of the world can be hard.

Right, thats all for today. I've gotta get some reading done for tomorrow!

Why a blog, Andrew?

There's a little upset among some over my setting up of a blog and my discontinuation of my e-mail updates. If you were one of the offended few- you're an idiot. I dont mean I dislike getting e-mails from you, or want you to stop e-mailing. I'm simply stating that I dislike sending out bulk e-mails about the ins and outs of my day. I'll keep internet harassment the preserve of viagra companies, if you don't mind.

This way, if you're interested in my voyage through American life, you can simply log on and check what I'm up to. You can still e-mail me (and please do, I enjoy hearing whats going on back home) . Alternatively, you can post comments on my blog.

There, this should clear up the confusion.

Introducing the posse

Thought you may like to know who I'm sharing my life with here in Richmond, Virginia.

I thought I'd start with the person who's a few feet from me, my roommate Lucien Lensen. He's from Belgium/Germany but studies in Holland, giving him something of an international flavour.

That's him on the left [Anna is the chick behind him, but she's worthy of her own post so I'll discuss her later]. What can I say about him? Well, not much since he'll be checking this site. He's very well dressed, dislikes poor people, is determined to escape this campus as much as possible and has a knack for not keeping ANY opinion to himself. Its fun for now, but will probably get us killed.

We mange to get on quite well, which is a surprise since most international students dislike their room mates. It probably helps that we're both from Northern Europe and have a love of Sarcasm. Unfortunately he's only here for one semester, and will be absent for many weekends visiting his lady in San Diego [who he never shuts up about] so I'll have to enjoy him [and his car] while I have him.

He's pictured in our dorm room, which like Anna is worthy of its own (very long) post which I will attempt to write this week.

My second post will be better

Right, lets hope this post is a little better [Don't know how Deputy Cuffe and other 'hip' pols manage this internet stuff and manage to get elected, kudos to them!].

That's a pic of my good self at Colonial Jamesburg, the first settlement here which was founded in 16o4. I managed to voyage there with the assistance of my room mate, Lucien Lennsen, aka 'Luke', aka 'Politically incorrect German dude'. You'll be hearing a lot about him over coming months, mainly because I hear a lot of him each day. If you're wondering why I look so dopey in that pic its because I'm wearing a metal hat which was popular in the day. There'll be no more photos of me from this trip due to chronic helmet hair I suffered as a result.

Luke purchased a motor vehicle last week which means we're liberated from the confines of Richmond campus. The gas guzzling monster is totally against everything I stand before, but I do love it so. The Dark Side calls............

We've pimped it out with some US flags and an 'I support the troops' sticker. That would help us blend in, but unfortunately Luke's Prada sunglasses pretty much undo all of that. Oh well, I'll make him ditch them if we ever go to the deep south. Right, that's all for now, I've do get some reading done for class tomorrow.

Bye!

Welcome!

I hate e-mailing people, so I've set up this blog so if you want confirmation that I'm still alive then you can log on here.