Greetings to all of you who are or will be following my blog over the course of this semester! Before I say too much, allow me to give you a little background. My name is Peter Schaefer, and I am currently a senior who is pursuing a degree in economics. I am from just outside of Orlando Florida, and I have never been to any country across either the Pacific or the Atlantic Oceans. However, in the coming days, I will be making my first trip across the Atlantic Ocean to study in London at Queen Mary University!
With all of this being said, I have been doing my very best to try to prepare myself for what I think living and studying in another county for an extended amount of time will be like. But it seems that the more I try to prepare, the more I find myself realizing that there are still many factors that I might not be able to prepare myself for. For example, due to the fact that I work in the theme park industry, I figured that I would be well enough off handling the language of the English (or maybe it’s a dialect?) as I have been able to pick up on some terminology and colloquialisms such as learning to refer to “friends” as “mates,” calling “French fries” “chips,” and “chips” “crisps,” and even (tied for the most important position) referring to the “bathroom” as a “wash room” and using “cheers” to express gratitude and good wishes. However, I was humbled when I watched a fire safety instructional video issued by Queen Mary University and realized that I have no clue what certain terms they used refer to.
This video humbled me in more than making me realize that I will have difficulty understanding English people at times as the fire safety video (which took place in a residence hall) highlighted some areas of their residence halls which will be quite different from residence halls here in the U.S. While England is not completely different given that they will have a lot of items and products we have over here, the style of their products are unsettlingly different as they are differentiated just enough that one recognizes a difference just as a pair of scissors made for left-handed people would disorient a right handed person. For example, their video highlighted fire alarms that were green buttons on the wall versus the red units which require multiple steps to activate here in the U.S, and their emergency exit signs had green lights and were more oval in shape than the familiar red rectangle most commonly seen here. On top of this, I will certainly have to get used to watching for cars coming from my right side instead of my left when I attempt to cross a street.
While I might have some concerns about adapting to the culture and maybe even having enough money to last me given the conversion rate to USD, I am certainly excited to be given such a great opportunity to not only see another part of the world and experience a different culture, but I am eager to study economics at a university which will have professors who will approach the instructions from a different angle. Not only this, but I am also eager to be in a room with electricity as I am unfortunately without it at the moment due to Hurricane Irma.
Hopefully you found my first blog post tolerable; but if not, I hope to include photos in additional posts so as to have you checking in every once in a while.
Until I am in London,
Peter Schaefer