What to expect when there are a lot of expectations

I don't want to do the easy thing of comparing the USA with England but GOLLY GOSH books are expensive here! If I were to buy all my textbooks for my classes from any nearby bookshop it would cost me at least $400! Loan them from the library, you may ask- well it appears the campus library holds many, many books but not a single one was an edition I needed- it did make me wonder what the books in the library are actually used for- since a not a single subject has provided an outside reading list ....?

My classes have all been very different from anything I'd have in England. It seems that it's normal for students to  barely acknowledge each other in class which meant a few of us made a faux pas of sitting directly next to a random person causing them to sit up and look confused. Teaching is also very different; there's less emphasize on interpretation and comparisons. It's considerably more straight forward, but there's still a big workload. Apparently a tropic storm is on its way, which has already cancelled 'Friday Night at the Fountain', freeing up time to make me sit down and actually read :/


This week has also been the week where I have found certain stereotypes are true or false...

GUESS THE STEREOTYPE: F or T ?

'Southern folk will never discuss Religion or Politics'

A common thing I had been told or had read about was that Southerners will rarely discuss religion or politics. I got chatting to some people at a party and within several minutes both had been the subject of conversation- and not instigated by the British girl!

'PARTY! I'll bring the red plastic cups'

A cliche I expected to only exist within movies was people drinking out of red cups! I'm not sure why red holds the front in the plastic disposable drinking utensil market but the reason behind them is to conceal alcohol with regards to drinking laws regarding open containers.

'Mississippi? You're gonna need a larger Bible belt!'

And lastly, before I arrived in the 'Bible Belt', there had been warnings on how invasive religion might be, but it appears, so far, to be another inaccurate assumption about Mississippi. There are items in a lot of shops that would never be found in commonplace England though. These 'craft crosses' were available in Wallmart; I think if any supermarket in the UK sold them, there would be complaints. I'm not sure what exactly they're for, or why anyone would need 24 of them but they're a good demonstration of the noticeable differences I think

If the Storm Lee doesn't strike too hard I should be able to report on a football match next.. Southern Miss To The Top!