Whether Shooting Films or Pheasant

As the air got nippier, I got more determined to put my running shoes to use. It's just beautiful countryside; it seemed rude not to drag my lazy self out into the cold for a jog. And, with Bryanston's operating on the winter timetable, I suddenly had heaps of time to kill on Wednesday afternoons.

Note: The Winter Timetable (which, when mentioned among faculty here, is met with a minimum 8 seconds of groaning). Lest we forget we are in the northern hemisphere, the approach of winter means that the sun tends to set around 4:30 in the afternoon. To maximize the amount of time the kids can spend getting exercise, and (I think) to minimize the likelihood that all staff will sink into seasonal affective disorder, Bryanston moves sports practices (hereafter referred to as "games") to the middle of the day. We teach afternoon classes in the dark, but it's a small price to pay for fresh air.

What all this actually means is that on the afternoons I don't coach games, I have a nice chunk of free time. So I run near school, on gravel and dirt roads, opening the occasional farm gate and hopping over the occasional cattle grid. I'm pretty sure i'm not trespassing, but apparently I am in more danger when than I used to think.

When I jog, I'm not just flailing about in the elements, accumulating mud on my shoes. I'm also apparently disturbing the peace of avid sportsmen.

I only realized this after I had twice encountered a passel of middle-aged men in flat caps and wellington boots, who also happened to be shouldering rifles on their tweed-clad shoulders. I didn't notice them at first; they blended in so well with the undergrowth and with one another, but by the second time our paths crossed, I got a clue. Either I had stumbled upon the filming of a 1930's period piece, or I was disrupting a shooting party. I'll be more careful for the rest of the Wednesdays this season.


On a walk, I recently encountered a similarly clad figure (flat cap, wellies, earth toned jacket) who was just out walking his dog, but this guy had a pipe to boot. The whole effect was magnificent. He even said, "hello," while clenching his pipe firmly in his front teeth, a skill I'm sure it takes some time to cultivate. The effect was somewhat diminished by the presence of iPod earbuds peeking out from his coat collar, but I was willing to suspend disbelief for a bit longer and keep pretending I'd travelled back in time.

It's always worth the mud on my shoes and the wind-stiffened fingers to see an image like that. And even after a lovely holiday with my dear family, it's most definitely worth being back here at "work."

Scrabulous

"If our students could see us now," Julia giggled as she adjusted her cardigan.

I had blocked out most external chatter to concentrate on seven little tiles in front of me, but I caught this comment. She was right. Most of the kids forget we have interests outside of entertaining them, but if the odd student or two hoped we led lives of clandestine glamour, they were dead wrong.

Here we were in a fellow resident's flat, wine glasses and fine cheeses forgotten in order that we might focus on the task at hand: a Scrabble board. Across the room, four more of our fellow nerds whittled down the possibilities in a game of Cluedo (identical to American Clue, but with the inexplicable extra syllable).

Backstory: One of the lads had, at long last, acknowledged the reality that beer and a game of pool in the staff bar leave something to be desired if repeated too often as an evening's entertainment. He had thus generously arranged for an evening of which my mother would be proud, not to mention a little envious: Saturday night board games, and we were absorbed.

Even better was how competitive it got. Imagine sulking and caprice of the highest order; if it didn't happen during Scrabble, it had certainly happened three hours later, either during Charades or Guess Who I Am (that game where someone sticks a name on your forehead and you have to ask yes or no questions to figure out your own identity). Abu the Monkey from Disney's Aladdin, if you're wondering.

Scoff if you will. I was in heaven.

Back at UVa, I would occasionally hear khaki-clad fraternity boys remark on their own lives as they sat in front of a lawn room, sipping a beer and skipping afternoon classes to play bocce. This was commonly referred to as "Livin' the Dream." Now, I've done the libations-and-bocce-whilst-playing-hooky-to-a-setting-sun thing, and it is indeed a sweet transgression.


But let's never assume that all good times have to follow this formula. Consider Scrabble on the carpet, warmed by the crackling coal fire, knowing one is in England... for a words-and-literature junkie, that's the good stuff.

Let Wah Gan Yem

When I shared my plans to visit the northeast of England, most peoples' response was simply, "Why?" It was as if I had been in America and said I wanted to vacation in Detroit.

In the case of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (so named because it is situated along the Tyne River), surely I didn't want my wallet nicked, my car vandalized, my clothes covered in soot from the mines? And how would I understand a word of what was being said, what with their only speaking "Geordie" up there? And didn't I know that the women there never wear jackets? Just "bras and belts"?

But because there were apparently things to see besides chilly women and a Dickensian urban landscape, five of us foreigners went up to that supposedly godforsaken region. We trusted a few Bryanston colleagues, Northern men when they're not busy teaching and coaching, to show us the sights (and to occasionally translate).

We saw a few castles, saw the tomb of the venerable Bede and ascended the tower in Durham cathedral, walked along Hadrian's wall, strolled windy beaches in our wellington boots, cavorted through gardens, and cheered ourselves hoarse at a Newcastle football game against Arsenal.

Now, when I was a child on long car trips to Florida, my parents instituted an incentive system. For every hour my sister and I did not complain or ask "how much longer?", we could request either a toy or candy from an unseen stash in the front seat. Little did I know that we were being shamelessly bribed. Whatever. It was a good policy, based as it was on convenience as well as on the principle that travel is tiring. Sitting for a long time is tiring. Walking for a long time is tiring. Taking pictures and marveling at things is tiring. You must keep morale high or the destination won't be worth it.

Plus, you've got to keep fueled so that the sights you seek can retain that lustre of exoticism. My grandmother, a half-century champion of the retail scene, knows full well that the only way to stay strong and happy on a shopping trip is to pop into Starbucks for a treat, what she terms a 'little hit.' I doubt she's entirely aware of the connotations of that word. Or maybe she is. Either way, she knows the morale boost a little caffeine or sugar can provide.

Our group paid considerable homage to this wisdom, or, as my dad says, "folded like a cheap suit" whenever we saw a tea room, coffee shop, or cafe. My favorite meal was at a fish-and-chip shop in a little coastal village called Tynemouth. That's where you go for the good stuff, I was told - right by the sea.

Seated at our table in "The Fryery by the Priory," I looked around the warm, narrow room with dingy tables and plastic chairs to see dozens of people munching contentedly at crispy fried haddock and fresh, hot chips (English for thick-cut french fries). A wizened, rather angular waitress wearing a white cotton dress, green apron, and what looked like a fedora made of fine white netting took our orders.

As we ate, our local guide and respected colleague took up staring around the place himself. He pointed out the details I've mentioned, giving even the plastic chairs and the little metal pots of tea a fond shake of his head. "Proper fish and chip shop. Proper Northern meal," he sighed happily.

He had obligingly supplied us all week with facts about the castles, the football, Hadrian's Wall, and the bridges over the river Tyne. But in the Fryery by the Priory, of all places, he seemed most proudly at home. Food experiences, I've noticed, tend to furnish that fondness for home more so than museums and cool architecture and Sights.

Our last destination was our local guide's home and the privilege of meeting his family. His father's girlfriend had cooked us a huge meal, and the ten of us (foreigners and kin alike) sat around the table that night laughing our socks off. Julia and I discussed it later as the first Big Family Dinner we'd had in a long time, and how at home we had felt because of it.

It was a trip well taken. When the Geordies say, "let's go home," they say something like, "Let wah gan yem." Up to Newcastle, Back to Bryanston. Done and done.

Tennessee Mick-Taking

I was not prepared for what the British call "banter." Keep in mind, I attended an all-girls school from age 11-18, and then I was surrounded by wonderfully close female friends in college. My knowledge of How Guys Get Along, and especially of How British Guys Get Along, has been forged in the fire of the Bryanston dining hall.

The dining hall here is a large tent. It has laminate flooring and chandeliers and semi-permanent drink dispensers, but let's call a spade a spade; it is a tent. A tastefully appointed tent, but a tent nonetheless.

The real Dining Hall is being refurbished, and apparently come November we will pick up and move back to the main building, where a new seating arrangement will establish itself accordingly.

The current arrangement is this: More fashion catwalk than chapel aisle, a space cuts up the middle of the room (tables on either side) and provides a thoroughfare from the main course to the drink machines. According to habit and unspoken hierarchy, the oldest students sit toward the back, the youngest students sit closer to the front, and resident teachers sit in the first two rows.

It's at these front tables where I, sitting shoulder to shoulder with rugby coaches and rowing coaches, learned how to get the mick taken out of me. By lads, no less.

Translational Note:
"Lads" in England are like "bros" in the United States. They prize male camaraderie, brotherhood if you will, and usually forge it through mutual suffering (i.e. sport, sport training, or extreme weather predicaments), alcohol consumption, and banter. See next note.

"To take the mick" out of someone is to make fun of them, usually with pithy one-liners and sarcastic questions (the collective body of which is known as "banter"). There is a ruder version of the same phrase, "to take the piss," but I gather that nice girls don't say that. So I won't.

So the lads took the mick out of me. How, you may ask, did I stumble into the crosshairs?

I almost made it too easy.
I quoted Eminem.

And because I've established quite a reputation for pop-cultural ignorance, one of them looked at me, astonished.

Lad 1: "You know who Eminem is?"
Me: "Of course I know who Eminem is."
Lad 1: "How? Did he record a country album?"
Me: "Just because I'm from Tennessee ---" At this point, I was interrupted with an impromptu Eminem-on-the-banjo routine, at which I laughed. And that's when the floodgates opened.

Lad 1: "What's it like in Tennessee? Like, in your house, do you all say good night to each other after you turn out the lights?"
Lad 2: "Do you use a pool table for your dinner table, and just put the utensils in the pockets?"
Lad 3: "If you want to watch TV, doesn't someone have to get on a bicycle to power a generator?"
Me: "Well, I usually go outside, put on the pair of shoes that the ten of us share, walk down the road to the gas station shack where we get our chickens fried, and ask the snuff-dipping man there to turn on the power for an hour so we can watch Little House on the Prairie. And that's our TV for the month."

Over the course of dinner, I realized that they had, at least in jest, cobbled together an impression of Tennessee from snippets of The Waltons, The Simpsons (in particular, Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel), John Wayne Westerns and The Beverly Hillbillies.

Which, when you think about it, is about as fair a list as Goodbye Mr. Chips, Robert Downey, Jr. as Sherlock Holmes, Love Actually, and Oliver Twist.

My mom asked me later, "Wait - you didn't tell them what Tennessee was really like?"

Of course not. They were having far too much fun for me to have even a chance at setting the record straight. Heck, I was probably laughing the hardest.

Plus, saying, "Hang on, we've got the 42nd best public education system in the country!" doesn't really help your case when people are asking if you walk around with a wheat stalk shoved between your teeth.

I gathered, anyway, that the rules of banter are much like those of improv comedy: Say "Yes" to your partner; keep the scene going for as long as it will stay funny. There were five or so of these guys taking the mick, so the scene stayed funny for a good long while.

But I would like to apologize formally to those who feel I ought to have shown more Tennessee pride. I did my state no credit, unless you count fanning the flames of ridicule with an enthusiasm that equaled the lads'.

I think Tennessee can handle it. And so can I.

Say What?

In my own paltry way (since I've been reminded multiple times that Americans "can't speak proper English"), I have noticed a few new turns of phrase.

That is, I've been noticing little linguistic gems that Monty Python, Jane Austen, A Muppet Christmas Carol, and Robert Downey, Jr. as Sherlock Holmes did not prepare me to hear.

To wit: In America, if a task's outcome will not be worth the effort you put into it, you say it's "too much trouble." Or, if you're in Tennessee, you might say that "the juice ain't worth the squeeze." Problem solved. The phrases communicate that the job is too small to matter. Let's move on. What, then, shall we do?

In Britain, one says, "I can't be bothered." One utters it with a shrug, a chuckle, or an exasperated hands-in-the-air. The speaker's demeanor is humble enough; usually the phrase just signals a judicious bowing-out.

Here's my problem with the phrase: "can't be bothered" elevates the performer of the task. One suddenly thinks of all the things they have on their plate. Rather than the chore being too small, the person is too grand, too lofty.

It's a subtle change from "too much trouble" to "can't be bothered," but I'm still trying to work out why it unsettles me. Maybe it sets off my passive-aggression radar, like one might really be saying:

"I can't be bothered, I'm far too busy and important, please notice my furrowed brow and the way my neck hurts."

Perhaps I'm reading too much into it. I'll definitely allow that possibility, since it won't be long before I'll probably not be able to be bothered myself.

One more, though, before I get too busy and my neck hurts:

If something is not appropriate, won't work, or won't aid the flourishing of society, the British say "that's not on." That's all. And in three words, they've earmarked a misstep, pointed out a vexing disregard for the Way Things Are Done, or exposed a revolting stray from decency.

I find it to be a gloriously efficient finger-wag at whatever needs condemning. I'm keeping it in my back pocket for the day my students really start swinging from the rafters.

Chasing Harry Potter

Before I detail another decadent adventure, a short story from my English classroom:

Me: I'm going to give each of you a card. Write down your name, your birthday, and your favorite book on the card.
Student: (Raises hand politely)
Me: Yes?
Student: Is Vogue a book?

Ah, children. Ever on the cutting edge.

Fortunately, I was able to spend the weekend in a booklover's mecca. Five of us, freed from Saturday class, took the student coach from school and traipsed around Oxford for the weekend.

We got to be the only patrons at an Indian restaurant in Jericho (a neighborhood slightly northwest of the main city center). We wrote postcards to friends and family. A few of us purchased the necessary Oxford-logo clothing to prove our travels, and of course yours truly just couldn't resist buying a book of poems at a shop on Broad Street called Blackwell's.

We explored everything on foot, and we were rewarded with a Saturday where the sun shone as we explored Christ Church Colllege, the Oxford Museum, and the Bodleian Library (really only the Divinity School examination room, but it was beautiful and historic and at least one scene from Harry Potter was filmed there).


On the drizzlier Sunday, we browsed the Ashmoleon museum of art and artifacts. I spent most of my time wandering around the Italian Renaissance exhibit, growing slightly weary of Madonnas-and-Children, but I perked up when, in the rooms dedicated to pre-Classical Aegea, I recognized names I had learned about in Greek Mythology class. Eventually, though, I faded and required a visit to the museum cafe.

It's hard not to feel like a museum dunce when you'd rather go to the cafe than look at another hunt scene or miniature sculpture of Hercules-in-combat-with-the-Nemean-Lion. But, as my mom would say, I'm a grown-ass woman. I could do as I liked. I sipped my latte with confidence.

When, with similar confidence, we were taking goofy pictures posing in the ramparts of New College, I remembered how I love for an old building to keep getting used.

As I loved the Dome Room at U.Va. for the dinners I ate there with the Guides, I admired the wood-panelled dining Hall at Christ Church for the bustling kitchen immediately adjacent. We wandered through C.S. Lewis's Magdalen College, and I loved glimpsing hideously patterned, fire-retardant curtains behind the old windows. Venerable though these buildings are, they mean nothing without the real, live students who are learning, eating, and setting things on fire there.

The banalities of undergraduate life could be seen nearly everywhere you looked.



An ivy-covered wall may loom over a courtyard, but at eye-level a grubby little placard reads "bicycles stored here will be confiscated." (For the record, Oxford is home to approximately 100,000 bicycles). The peace of a sunken garden (probably intended to encourage scholarly reflection) was broken by a guy in a sweatshirt singing "I'm Into Something Good" to himself as he slouched along. And at night, on the winding medieval mews that have been the thoroughfares of whip-smart dons and scholars for 800 years, girls in their shortest skirts and sky-high heels tottered along to a nightclub.

Try as I might to stick Oxford into another realm of contemplative integrity, it seems it will remain a colllege town. Well done, kids; I say well done. Keep the ole place on its toes.

Junior League Fail

Let's pick up from where I left off last Saturday night, shall we?

Having returned from our Bournemouth outing around 9:30, we readied ourselves for an event I had been calling the "International Late Night Snack Pot Luck Supper." We, the foreign teachers (Spanish, French, German, American) had each been planning for several days to cook a dish from our respective homeland.

The quiche lorraine had already cooled, the kaiserschmarrn was receiving its last dustings of powdered sugar, and somewhere across campus the Spanish tortilla sat on a tabletop, thick and hearty with egg and potatoes. Julia and I had not yet begun our dishes. Both were simple. Neither would give us any trouble, or so we thought.

Julia was planning on making guacamole and bringing chips. She was doubtful that this was "American" enough, but I reasoned that guacamole is quintessentially American, precisely because it originated elsewhere. Can I get an amen for the melting pot?

I, on the other hand, chose a more values-and-principles based approach to my dish. I decided to make cupcakes from a Betty Crocker box recipe.

What, after all, is more American than individualized cakes made from plastic bags of pre-mixed ingredients, according to instructions so simple a child could understand them? In the country that worships convenience and womanhood (hopefully not together), cupcakes-from-a-box are the holy grail of domesticity.
And I, having lived for three years in houses full of women who could pull together a dessert party at the drop of a hat, thought I could whip up cupcakes with my eyes closed.


I thought this way until I couldn't turn on my oven. The British outlets are tricky; one has to flip a switch for power to flow through the outlet, but still the oven wouldn't warm. As I say, we only had half an hour, so a French-teaching, clear-thinking friend suggested we go to her flat instead.

At her flat, I set to mixing the ingredients while telling the Classics teacher about the film we'd just seen. Cavalier and devil-may-care, I casually tossed the necessary objects into a stew pot (we had no mixing bowl): Water, oil, milk, bag of brown powder. Done and done.

While describing the themes of grace and redemption in Toy Story 3, I gesticulated boldly enough to knock a chocolate-covered butter knife to the floor, smearing the carpet and pausing the discussion. Smooth. Finally having scraped blobs of the remaining mixture into little paper molds, I flung it all in the oven and dusted my hands in triumph. I began to mix the frosting (included in the box) -- and that's when I finally read the instructions.

Ah. So the milk goes in the frosting. Not into the cupcake mix.

And the cupcakes need eggs? Aw, hell.

That is when the Irish wife of one of our favorite fellow-teachers, seeing my despair (I had slid to the floor at this point), suggested "Nah, just keep 'em in. Everyone likes chocolate. They won't even notice. To tell you the truth, I don't even think eggs are really necessary."

So we kept them in. And I served them. And every single one got eaten.

Poor Julia. Her avocados (purchased Monday) had still not ripened. So she brought good, old-fashioned, made-from-scratch Doritos to the table.

Suffice to say, I don't think we'll be starting a Bryanston Junior League anytime soon.

The Bourne(mouth) Consumerism

It had been a long third week. I had taught a Roald Dahl story to some German exchange students and put 64 rambunctious children to bed (some amid squeals of, "Can I make a seating chart for our English class so I can sit next to Jack?"). I had graded papers, coached rowing, taught surly fifteen-year-olds about the psychology of advertising, learned about Child Protection laws, and gone running on two blissful occasions.

It was time, come Saturday, to break out of what is commonly known as "the Bryanston Bubble." To do this in a pinch, one can simply walk the half-hour to the little Georgian village of Blandford and mulch around (taking note, Julia and I hope, of an excellent secondhand bookshop sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with banks on the high street). In our case, however, a truly great escape meant shopping and a movie in Bournemouth.


Allow me to explain: The Bryanston Bubble, it seems, serves as a horizon-shrinker. If one stays too long without reminders of the outside world, one starts to regard daily life as a tedious grind rather than an abundant blessing. One needs a place like Bournemouth (the footsore shoppers, the smell of the sea, the guy handling a boa constrictor in the square) in order to recall that working and living at our school is not normal.

So we shopped: Marks & Spencer (basics), Zara (trendy staples), H&M (just trends), and a shop Julia required we visit called "Mango" (expensive trends). We plundered the shelves, took no prisoners, scooped up the sale prices and skedaddled. The hunt was good and the gods were pleased. This skirt at Zara even caught my fancy, along with a striped boatneck top at H&M. My reasoning: just because all the kids are wearing it shouldn't make a classic shirt off-limits.

By the time we acknowledged our need for dinner, the movie was due to start in an hour. We inhaled our Wagamama entrees and waddled up the road to the theatre to claim our seats for (what erudite film, you ask?) Toy Story 3. In 3-D.


That's when I realized that British cinema has made advancements about which I've hitherto only dreamt.

There was a Ben & Jerry's in the lobby. Colorful. Euphoric. Gleaming with an earnest kaleidoscope of flavors.

United States movie houses, listen up: if you wish for cash to rain from heaven like glitter eyeshadow at a Taylor Swift concert, you shall not get it with $6.00 popcorn. Phish Food, my friends. Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz. Vanilla Toffee Crunch. Cherry Garcia. All normally priced, but located just before the door to the movie. I'd buy it. I certainly did on Saturday.

By the time we got back to school, it was, as the English say, half-nine (meaning 9:30). The countdown to our next big project had begun. More later.

Parcel and Prepositions

My mother is a woman of many, many gifts; assembling a kick-ass care package is one of them.

A slip of pink paper appeared last week in my pigeonhole (my mailbox in the faculty workroom, because, as you know, I'm a gainfully employed adult) notifying me of a "parcel."

I collected the box from the porter's office, took it to my flat, and left to coach rowing practice. I played it cool. Things like parcels seem better, after all, if you let them sit on your kitchen table gathering a little hard-earned dust and anticipation. Like a nice sauce, simmering low on the stove, marrying flavors. I thought, "maybe I won't even open it until tomorrow. Then it would be even more fun!"

Lies, all lies. When I returned from the river, I used used my teeth on the packaging tape. Thank you, sweet Jesus, that the metal coffee can inside hadn't set off the alarms and delayed delivery.

Inside I found exactly what I had longed for: instant grits, Cafe du Monde coffee, chocolate, and a few surprises in the form of clothing that my mom had picked out. Like I said, the woman has a gift. Right down to the thoughtfully composed card, which I displayed in my kitchen window.

The Parents and I even got to skype a few days later, talking for about two hours before I finally acknowledged that yes, it was one in the morning my time, and I should probably go to sleep if I wanted to remain sane for the children.

Speaking of the children, I have realized that teaching grammar is a great way to catch mistakes in one's own speech. I can't very well harp on their ending sentences with prepositions if I do it myself.


But don't despair, fellow recovering perfectionists. I justify the occasional grammatical gaff by just not caring.

Moral of the story: Praise the Lord and split my infinitive; the real coffee has arrived. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

The Bryanston Bestiary

Julia calls our time here the "Best Life," and rightly so. Bryanston just propels us from one pleasure to another. Rowing practice, tea time, team teaching, morning runs along country lanes, and drinks at the Head's house. It all seems too good to be true - a scholastic Camelot.


Thankfully, we have found a chink in the armor: badgers. They are the "short-legged, heavyset omnivores in the weasel family" scruffling through rubbish bins all over Bryanston. Translation: These suckers are bigger than a breadbox and ugly as homemade sin.

Of course, the grounds and surrounding acreage teem with wildlife of several (if not all) shapes and sizes. Rooks nest in the one tree where they won't be fired at by local farmers, pheasants warble and flap in alarm if you jog past their covey too quickly, and squirrels dart from tree to majestic tree, pleasantly small and skittish.

None of the local fauna, however, excites as many stories or powerful emotions as the badger.

The conversation last Friday evening had been chatty and jovial until we inquired about the weasel's cousin. Spectacles were swiftly adjusted, eyebrows were furrowed, and our interlocutors grew deadly serious.

We learned that despite their proximity to the school, badgers are staunchly feral; they are the illiterate lumberjack of rodents. They are allegedly "only violent if cornered." Most importantly, they move more quickly than one would assume.

Later that very night, I saw one galloping / undulating / scrabbling up a hill. Approximately the size of a runty thirteen-year-old, its talons glinted in the moonlight.

A somewhat braver colleague, who had actually named this badger "Phil," suggested that, in the event of a confrontation, I simply drop-kick it. Right. Like I'm going to drop-kick an animal the size of Julia.

Perhaps I exaggerate. Suffice to say, although I have left the land of poison ivy and copperheads, I still have to keep a watchful eye out for Nature.

By the by, I find that the advice for encountering the great outdoors runs close to the advice for teaching a class. Say it with me now: They are more scared of you than you are of them.

Bits and Bobs and Bedtime

In England, "bits and bobs" describes an assortment of things. For me the phrase conjures the image of spools of thread rolling higgledy-piggledy across a kitchen table, then being swept into a neat little basket.

I tried to tell my ninth graders that a good way to organize their folders is to have one divider labeled, "Miscellaneous," a word which of course they couldn't spell, and of which they didn't know the meaning. After I explained that "miscellaneous" could refer to a variety, a mishmash, a hodgepodge, or a gallimaufry of items or ideas, a thatchy-haired boy in the front piped up,

"Can we just label it 'bits and bobs'?"
I paused. "You can label it whatever you like, as long as it makes sense to you." Bits and bobs, I thought. Well, it does make sense. Plus it's shorter, easier to remember, and more fun to say. Knock yourself out, kid. Less is more.

When I was putting the girls of my boarding-house to bed, the youngest ones attempted to distract me from turning the lights out by telling me to See certain things.

See that I'm almost finished getting ready, I just need a glass of water?

See how big my hair gets when I brush it?

See how I have to put away my dance-lesson bag before I can clean my teeth, which means I'm trying to go to bed, I just can't yet, but before I do, see how I can flop onto the bed like a penguin?

And of course, they all have to try and flop on the bed like a penguin.

But once they're actually in bed, my hand pauses at the light switch as one of them asks me what my "other names" are. I tell them.

"Sarah Kate," she repeats, smiling. "So American." And then, "Can we call you "Miss"?"

They know so little about me (my name, nationality, and that's about it), and now they call me even less.

I hope that, here too, less is more.

Well, they didn't eat me alive.

Of course, they needed explanations and repeated instructions and more time to retrieve their favorite pencil. They took every split second of silence as a command to ask One More Question. They like to talk the way you and I like to breathe.

I had them do a five-minute writing exercise where they described their summer holidays. It seems half of them went to their villas in Paraguay, and the other half "just drove to France for a few weeks," which was evidently "quite nice," but that taking their new pony to pony camp was better.

So in some ways, they live on another planet, and in other ways they are each the quintessential early adolescent. Oh, the insecurity is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

And after Lesson 1, I floated out of that classroom.

I know it's premature to say (ask me again in two weeks), but I think I may love teaching.

I had a lesson plan, but I got plenty of chances to improvise. I got to make dry remarks that went over their heads, I got to tell them to be quiet and see them obey (we'll see if that ever happens again), and most novel of all, I got to tell them things they didn't know before. (usually I'm talking to adults who have more life experience in their little finger than I have in my whole body). Oh, it was such a rush.

But it wasn't just teaching them. As soon as I started grading that stack of nigh-illegible paragraphs, I fell in love with the kids who wrote them. At my most selfish, I probably loved the prospect of seeing them improve because of my guidance. On the other hand, I don't think that's the whole story. I think I just want to see each of them, as a person, flourish, period.

So when I walked into that classroom, I'd set my mouth in a thin line and was prepared to draw a hard one with these rambunctious hellions. One lesson, 35 minutes later, I was all in. Signed, sealed, delivered.

Batten down the hatches, kids; here comes Miss Neall.

Among Schoolchildren

As I write this, the girls of my boarding house just been put to bed. I shadowed the other resident as she roamed the hallways, admonishing the youngest girls for being rambunctious and clarifying to the older ones that yes, indeed, it's time for lights-out, yes, your bedtime's 10:30, yes it's 10:30 now, go to bed, Poppy, turn off your fairy lights, good night, girls.

And tomorrow I actually teach them. Several of the ones I just put to bed are in my first class, actually. We'll see how that goes.

For my lesson, I have a little course description all typed up, along with their first assignment. They are to write me 400 words on the following question(s):

Are stories safe? Can they be dangerous?

I got the idea from a Eudora Welty quote, which I include on the assignment, about Welty's mother being relieved Eudora had chosen to be a writer of stories, "for she thought writing was safe." It may be a bit abstract for 14 year olds, but I'd like to see how they handle it.

I also have to administer a spelling test, which slingshots my memory right back to fifth grade (spaghetti, if you're wondering which word I'll never get wrong again).

I've been told by other teachers to be Very Strict for the first fortnight. Minimal smiling. Get right to the lesson. None of this chatting about where-you're-from and learning of names. Children love boundaries, and if I'm not abundantly clear about mine from the get-go, they'll walk all over me. I get the sense, from others' advice, that the ideal first lesson would be a rather grim and abrupt one. I will try to find a balance between me and the "ideal."

Wish me luck, and we'll hope for a well-oiled machine of a lesson.

Arriving

And, just like that, I have arrived.

I've stepped into the best of foreign lands where they say things like "chock-a-block" and "knackered" and "jolly good." More importantly I've landed at Bryanston, where one could walk around Dorset for hours, swinging a walking stick and smelling the wheat.



But first things first. I like nesting almost as much as I like handwritten letters, so I've got to get these suitcases unpacked. My flat, which is mine, all mine for the year, has two stories, all the basic furniture I need, and "heaps" of natural light. As I lug my worldly goods up the stairs, I can hear the fountain in our little courtyard sing and spill over the bricks, and it is a calming soundtrack.

I did ask my housemistress, in a fit of elation, "Don't you just love living with such a beautiful courtyard?" but judging from her, "Ah, yeah, well..." she has chosen to be joyful about more important things.

That was probably my biggest American Moment today, gushing about the courtyard. But give me time; it's only 2:30.



Sometime this afternoon, Julia and I are going to go for a walk to keep ourselves awake. Given that jet lag is real, and that Julia didn't sleep at all on her plane ride, it may be more languid saunter than brisk stroll. But, as if it's taken pity on us, the Dorset sky has brightened and the sun beams (in contrast to two weeks of solid rain before we got here).

As Julia says, this is the "Best. Life."

Oh, hell!

One of my favorite bands is playing in Chattanooga. In ten days. As in, ten days after I leave. Have a listen, feel my pain.

Pick Up, Ship Out

Well, the day has arrived. I am packing a year's worth of worldly goods into two suitcases, a mandolin case, and a backpack. I depart tomorrow.

Of course, there's squaring away the necessaries (clothes, travel-sized toothpaste, too many shoes), along with the safeguards against deportation (visa, british bank statement, police background check). Check, check, check.

Occupying my thoughts right now, however, is the non-essentials packing list. After all, I have a flat to decorate and homesickness to ward off. So I've decided to stuff the following items into reluctant nooks and crannies:

1) A color photograph of the Rotunda at sunset. Don't judge.

2) Pictures of friends and family. I will summon my minimal craft skills and wrangle these 30 prints into a tasteful collage when I arrive.

3) About a dozen books. You may think, "how excessive! Rick Steves would be ashamed." but if you'd seen my bookcase at Virginia, you'd applaud my economy. A few titles:

- To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee.
- Complete Stories, Flannery O'Connor.
- Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Three Short Novels, Katherine Anne Porter

4) Trail maps of the surrounding regions (Smokies, Appalachian Trail, Blue Ridge Parkway), to be tacked on the walls as posters, and to serve as helpful guides to the schoolchildren about Where Exactly It Is I'm From.

5) Stationery. I love snail mail; I think it reaffirms our value as individuals when we send and receive handwritten letters. Also, one of my grandmothers proudly sniffs that she "doesn't have an Internet," so packing envelopes is as much about utility as it is about my principles.

6) I had asked the housemistress of my dormitory if my flat would have a coffeepot. She replied that this must be an area where UK and US vocabulary differ, and that it's "usually it's just a kettle and instant" over there. My normal breathing pattern returned, I now have a small stash of that Starbucks Via stuff, which is reportedly the least like poison one can find in the instant-coffee aisle. It will have to do until I can get a french press and start making the real deal.

Clearly I'm procrastinating. But before I finish packing, I still plan to go on a hike with the Parents. It's a beautiful day, and I'm going to miss this kind of heat.

Goodbyes and Better News

A professor of mine remarked a few weeks ago on the University student's pathological attraction to tradition. It seems that if people plan an event at U.Va, it's the "First Annual" Fill-in-the-Blank. If it happens twice, it's a tradition. If it happens three times, Jefferson said it should always be so.

I'm not sure when Swansongs started, and I'm not going to waste your time speculating whether Jefferson would approve. That happens enough around here, and I enjoy listening to the history buffs bandy back-and-forth. But I am not a history buff. I am merely someone who, last Saturday night, partook in a University Guide Service tradition that helped to seal my experience with some of the coolest people I've known at U.Va.

Hearing my fellow fourth-years hold forth on the things they've learned, the trends they've disliked, or the people they've respected in college was educational, hilarious, and touching. I'm glad that with so many strong personalities in the room, we even managed to keep the whole thing civil. For my own part, I was nervous to speak publicly for one of the few times in my four years here. Ordinarily I love being in front of a crowd, but this was different - I was trying to distill and deliver wisdom to the people who had taught me everything I knew. I was orating in front of those I regarded as modern-day Ciceros. I was trying to honor some of my best friends, but I only had twenty minutes to stand and deliver.

My hands shook as I took my hastily-scrawled outline to the podium. Oh, that's the other thing - though Swansongs are significant, very few people compose their speeches fully, or even on time. Mine had been written between 9:20 pm and 9:48 pm, for a speaking time of 10:00 pm. So much for practice making perfect. I was, effectively, winging it.

And I can't tell you from an objective standpoint how it turned out, of course. I do know that somewhere in there I made at least one or two points.

One was not to sacrifice people and relationships to your agenda or your pride. People, more so than your degree and far more so than your accolades, are the ones to endure beyond the Lawn. So let go of your pride and, oh, I don't know, streak the Lawn with your best friends.

The next point: college is very similar to streaking the Lawn. It's dark, you don't look your best, and you're dodging tables and chairs that have been set up for a picnic the following afternoon. Figuratively speaking. Even so, you're running with people who love you anyway, and that is a thrill nothing (not exams, not internships, not postgrad anxiety) can take away. And maybe, to lend the situation some much-needed dignity, you're wearing your pearls. Hypothetically speaking.

The Guides have been very gracious to me for three and a half years, and I'd like to believe that I left on a positive (albeit slightly inappropriate) note. Then again, those two adjectives are apropos of my time with the Guides, so I won't worry too much about my choice of illustration.

One more thing: I also got to share with the Guides something I will now share with you.

On Friday afternoon, one of my dearest friends Julia called me up to meet her after I finished giving my last historical tour. Now, a word about Julia before I tell you the news: She is kind, generous, wildly intelligent, hardworking, and so. much. dang. fun. She is the sort of woman I hope to be when I grow up.

In fact, she was one of the people I knew I'd miss most as a result of this teaching fellowship.

Well, she had also applied to this fellowship. She had also interviewed at Bryanston. She had initially been told no.

On Friday, miracle of miracles, she received a phone call from the school. The other girl to whom Bryanston had offered a fellowship had recently declined, and they had seen fit to reconsider Julia. Julia told me this as we sat on a sloping lawn by the Rotunda, cried, and then we both called our mothers to share the good news.

This means that Julia and I will be together next year. I cannot begin to tell you how much fun we will have. Britain, get ready. There's trouble coming. And by trouble, I mean tea parties, elaborate explanations of American culture, harmonizing to songs on the radio, and more laughter than you can shake a stick at.

As you can tell, I have a good feeling about this one. Thought you'd enjoy rejoicing with me.

Well, Hello There, Antique Bookstore.

In sudden panic that I might have missed out on a treasure, today I stopped by a bookstore close to my home. I came away with some new purchases and a fresh appreciation for the local character that many a Charlottesville business offers.

Now, if you said to me, “Groceries and bourbon,” I would reply Jeopardy-style, declaring, “What are things you put in brown paper bags?”

To that ordinary yet life-giving list I now submit the addition of “stuff from Heartwood Books.”

Heartwood Books offers its gracious little stoop to Elliewood Avenue, a leafy side street which itself offers quiet respite from the bustle of the U.Va. Corner. Ever the gentlemanly establishment, however, No. 5 Elliewood does not insist on one’s notice, but waits patiently until the wayfaring customer recognizes what she was missing. Too often, Take-It-Away Sandwich Shop played the harlot across the street, luring me away from Heartwood with promises of exotic potato chips and sunlit picnic lunches. Today, however, was different.

Stepping across the threshold, I noticed first the four-foot-high stacks of books about the Civil War, Jefferson, and Albemarle County obscuring the facade of the clerk’s desk. I got the message: Local heritage gets prime real estate

Nostalgia, however, isn’t the place’s only forte. Past display tables in the front, the room extends a good thirty feet, opening up to the left and to the back of the store to reveal further caverns of books. With its own antechamber, History is an unsurprising specialty, but I still wandered goggle-eyed through the rest of the shelves, tilting my head uncomfortably, the better to scan neat rows of titles on every topic.

I was in the fiction section when I saw it – a hardback edition of Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf from the year it was published. I flipped its gorgeously yellowed pages, finding them unblemished by listless undergraduates brandishing ballpoint pens. How this lovely thing had escaped annotation, vandalism, and overpricing was beyond me. I marched to the cash register, picking up along the way a P.G. Wodehouse anthology and The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, and I paid a whopping $16 for the lot.

I practically skipped back into the sunlight, clutching the brown paper bag the clerk had used to wrap up my purchase. What a joy it was, later gifting Woolf’s masterpiece to my seminar friend Danny, who had labored for a year on an undergraduate thesis with Mrs. Dalloway at its center. Needless to say, he was ready for a clean copy.

Heartwood Books restored dignity to my paper-bag associations and depth to an acquaintance. I sought out the humble and, as is usually the case with both emporia and people, I encountered the priceless.

Re-Discovering UVa

Well, I've been fairly busy these four years of college.

Before I go, I'll slow down a bit and savor the stuff I shan't repeat. That is to say, I'm paying close attention to the experiences that won't repeat themselves - especially the ones that are only possible here, now, in Charlottesville, with the friends I've made, the classes I'm taking, and the spring at last emerging.

My only qualifier: there are far, far more experiential gems than those I'm listing. But you could have guessed that.

1) Porch-Sitting

I love sitting on my front porch with my housemates, watching our fellow students saunter back from classes for a night of revelry. (I might merely be reading Dylan Thomas, but these kids on the street think they're ready to rage). If it's the right kind of afternoon, the breeze is balmy. The last, insistent rays of sun are lingering on the pine floorboards under our chairs. I have obviously skipped class to enjoy this day and feel absolutely no regret. Couple that with the inevitable suggestion that we go for frozen yogurt, and you can see why I'm going to miss this.

The porch is a mighty good people-watching, housemate-heckling, out-loud-laughing place. Even better with a novel and a nap on the swing.

2) Picnic Lunching

Portable lunches were made for the Rotunda steps, and vice-versa. Seems like there's nothing better than wrapping up a sandwich, shouldering my backpack, and heading up the huge hill that elevates the Rotunda from the rest of Charlottesville. I'll sit on the steps of that Pantheonic masterpiece, gaze at the temples that line the Lawn, and remark to myself what a wonder my Ordinary is.

Again, the really fine weather makes the picnic lunch a doozy for those of us given to premature nostalgia.

3) Tour-Giving

"Once more with the dang Rotunda!" you might say, but it's true. I love leading visitors through its oval-shaped interior rooms, explaining Jefferson's character and ideals even as we wind up the narrow stairs to the Dome Room and talk about the Great Fire of 1895. I love their squinty eyes as they gaze down the sun-drenched Lawn and take in the majesty of those pristine colonnades. I love their questions, their reticence, their awkward pointing at the walls and asking about trivial matters like the number of bricks that comprise the building. Yes, even those.

Southern girl that I am, I can't resist a strong sense of place, nor can I resist a chance to ham it up for a bunch of strangers. I definitely owe this one to U.Va. itself, for being historical in the first place, and to the University Guides, who taught me every rhetorical trick in the book.

Discovering the Bryarpatch

A stranger told me what to do after I graduated.

Well, she was sort of a stranger - her name was Katie, but I don’t think she knew mine. I was a first year with “rookie” still tattooed on my forehead, and she was a fourth year in my English discussion section with a life to figure out, so naturally we never spoke. One day, though, I overheard her talking to a classmate about her postgraduate plans to teach biology to British boarding school students.

Well hello there, so nice to meet you, I’m Sarah Kate.

As if electrocuted into unabashed sociability, I introduced myself and inquired about the post. She sheepishly grinned, telling me she’d been awarded a teaching fellowship through U.Va. It would allow her to spend a year in the middle of the English countryside, calling students “pupils,” eating crumpets, and wearing tweed (or so I assumed).

For the next three years, the UK Fellows program remained in the back of my mind as a shining opportunity to immerse myself in the land of Austen, Harry Potter, and understated humo[u]r.

The dream did suffer a setback at one point: UK immigration standards at one point instated the "No Americans Working Here Anymore Ever" policy, or something to that effect, thus crushing my aspirations. A few schools, though, wily devils that they were, had managed to work through the red tape.

In the spring of my fourth year, I chased after that opportunity like a dog after a three-legged cat.

My housemates were conscripted into prepping me for interviews, I researched the participating schools' websites as if I were a teenager and they were the latest cinematic heartthrob, and I won’t even tell you how deeply my thesis probably felt the neglect. To avoid putting all the figurative eggs in one basket, I had also looked seriously into moving to Boston and volunteering for a year before law school, but they sent me the most welcome rejection letter I’ve ever received - thank you, thank you, thank you Admissions Coordinator.

After a few interviews, I had the great good fortune to be awarded a teaching fellowship at Bryanston School, a co-ed boarding school for students aged 13-18, located in Dorset, UK.

The school's name also evidently gets shortened from Bryanston to "Bry," hence the awful "Bryarpatch" pun for which I now heartily apologize.

Stupid wordplay aside: I am immeasurably jazzed to learn whatever this year has to teach me. I look forward to keeping a record of the experience, as it may be the coolest thing I ever do.

The blog may include the following: stories, sayings, and customs I learn about while in Britain. It may also include things I miss about my family, my homes (Chattanooga and Charlottesville), and the folks at dear ole U.Va.

Either way, I hope you like it.