This is the first of many blogs about Ruth and I's time here in the USA. We are studying at Ole Miss University in the college town of Oxford.Oxford is about an hour from Memphis and this is where we spent out first night after many hours of travelling. We made it to the Radisson hotel late on Monday night and were thankful to have a shower and get to bed after so much travelling!
Travelling is an interes
ting experience when you pack as much as Ruth and I, we managed to fill two suitcases each, two hand luggage bags and laptops in cases....lets just say we were thankful for airport trolleys! Our visas and documents made sure we didn't have any difficultie
s with getting through the security gates and despite me getting shouted at a few times for crossing lines, taking photos or hovering in a restricted area we made it...!On Tuesday morning we were picked up at 11am by a shuttle bus to head down south to our home for the next few months. First impressions...cowboy boots...a thick Southern drawl and our driver threw our bags around as if they were full of air. Driving across the country was nothing spectacular and apart from being on the other side of the road nothing looked especially 'American.' The journey made us aware of the very many stereotypes associated with the Irish here, basically thinking we just sit and look at sheep all day or are in paramilitary organisations. Ruth and I assured them this is not the case and yes we do in fact do other things aside from farm sheep!
Arriving at college was a bit overwhelming to say the least. I don't think I've ever seen somewhere so big. We were given a short tour around campus and I think Stran is about the size of the Law building alone so it's going to take some time to get used too. Maury from the Study Abroad Office met us upon arrival and we quickly discovered we had a lot to achieve in our first day at college. He introduced us to 'the square,' the town centre and we enjoyed hearing all about Oxford over lunch. After lunch we felt as if we were on a treasure hunt around campus, armed with maps we went from one building to the next trying to get as much done in 2 hours before everywhere closed.
When we had fi
nished all our tasks for the day we returned to our room pretty exhausted and began making our room look a little less like a prison cell and a bit more like home! We had our first meal in the cafeteria style restaurant, 'the JC' and went to bed really tired and overwhelmed.On Wednesday we started into our first classes at Guyton Hall which is the school of education. I really enjoyed getting stuck into classes, it was nice to meet more students and also just learn more about what we're going to be doing for the next four months. These were introductory classes, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday we will be taking Special Education and Planning and Teaching Strategies for Effective Education. On Tuesday we will take Effective Classroom Management for Teachers and Experiences in Early Childhood Education and we take this on Thursday as well. We will also do 30 hours of classroom practice in Lafayette Elementary school over the next few months where I will be placed in Grade 1 and Ruth in Kindergarten. Being labelled the 'Irish girls' was a bit embarassing and we realise we're a bit of a novelty to the people here. We've started to count the amount of times people have said 'So you're Irish...that's like the movie PS I love you isn't it?!' I haven't seen this film but apparently it has a bit of an association to Ireland...!
On Wednesday we also took our first trip to Walmart, it's only about 10 minutes from campus but public transport really isn't big over here so it took a bit of time to get there. Everyone here has a car and this is a totally isolated town so to get around you have to have a car or be an amazing walker. Money plays a big part in the students lives and there is a large representation of students in the sorority/fraternity groups, something alien to Ruth and I but interesting to learn about and also look at the huge houses with Greek lettering on the doorframes.
Walmart was a bit stressful but we made it through. We bought some duvets/comforters for our beds and they came in plastic cases, on the way out of Walmart our trolley beeped but it was full of stuff so the man, who got carried away with telling us about relatives coming over on the Mayflower, let us go and dismissed the beeping. We got home unaware of any problems until I op
ened my duvet and discovered about 15 Xbox/PSP games hidden in the duvet! So it was an interesting first experience to say the least. On Thursday our Professor Dr Chessin called Walmart and brought us back to the store and explained the situation which was great.On Wednesday night we ventured out of halls and went to an RUF meeting, Reformed University Fellowship, it is a Christian Union here at Ole Miss. We enjoyed this meeting and afterwards went with some students for doughnuts. We were thankful we'd bought cellphones that day and were able to exchange numbers with them so we could meet up the next night.
Thursday we felt like we knew a little more what we were doing. Class was cancelled for the day but we had a meeting with Dr Chessin which was really fun, she's so lovely and I think will be a great help to us here. She took us to 'Rebel book store' where we could purchase our ridiculously overpriced textbooks!!! Thankfully we can share these books and so half the cost, we need them for our classes as there is a lot of background study expected for each session. On Thursday night we went out w
ith some of the people we'd met the previous night and enjoyed being out on the square, meeting so many people was a bit daunting though and we realised how long it will take to build up friendships with people. The cultural differences are greater than I expected. I think I just expected Americans to be like us but with a funny accent but more and more the differences are becoming clear. They have been so friendly so far and it's great to start to feel as if we will make some friends when we're here in Oxford, especially because it looks like we won't get to do a lot of travelling around the States when we're at college. People in the South are very laid back and friendly, they love the Irish which is great for us! There is also still a lot of joking that goes on about Northerners, dating back to the civil war and we've noticed segregation is still a big thing here. White people tend to stay together and black people the same, it's a generalisation and not always the case but from what we gather at this stage it seems to be how things are.On Friday we had our first proper experience of class and we learnt a lot. Teaching styles are very different to Stran in that our classes are more like interactive seminars rather than lectures. Classes consist of about 30 students and the professors build up more of a relationship with students than at home. Our special education class is really interesting because we have just done a module of this at Stran. We looked at it from a totally different perspective, at home the focus began and ended with inclusion, yesterday we began our class back in the 1600s talking about periods of 'Hide and Forget' or 'Protect and Pity.' They still use terms like 'Mental Retardation' which is no longer acceptable in Northern Ireland. I like to compare the methods and content of teaching in this area and learnt a lot from this professor. In our class with Dr Chessin we are starting to look at goals and objectives in lesson structures. The class was well planned and student participation to her lessons is a focus. We are beginning to look at the Mississippi Curriculum frameworks next week which will be great to look at in terms of comparisons with our curriculum.
This mor
ning (Saturday) our friends took
us o
ut for breakfast to the 'Bottletree Bakery' and I had the biggest cinnamon roll imaginable!!! It was a really nice morning and we enjoyed chatting and getting to know people who are from Oxford, looking forward to doing lots of fun things with them. They took us to a famous book store 'Square books' and we had a look around the vast amount of books available. William Faulkner came from this town as well as John Grisham focusing much of his work in and around here, so books are a big part of Oxford.
So our first week here in Oxford has been busy, exciting, tiring, overwhelming and daunting all at the same time. I think we're both looking forward to what the weeks will hold and thankful to have so many helpful and hospitable people around. It's been a funny week, the funniest question was perhaps...'Do you know any REAL Leprechauns?!' ...It's going to be an interesting few months....!
