There's a storm coming.....

There were two questions I asked Omar before I came to America:

1) Does Ohio get tornadoes?

 I was assured that, while the northern parts of Ohio occasionally get tornadoes, the south of the state (where we are) never gets them because it is too hilly. I felt reassured by this seeing as we live on the first floor and don't have a convenient basement/tornado bunker. So imagine my surprise yesterday when, while sitting outside a local coffee shop, confirming to British stereotypes by complaining how difficult it is to get a proper cup of tea here, an air raid siren goes off, followed by:

"THIS IS A TORNADO WARNING. GET INSIDE IMMEDIATELY"

Hmm......

Anyways, after a little bit of mild alarm and general bemusement among the locals who assured us that this was the first tornado warning that Athens had ever had, it was agreed that there were worse places to be stuck than a coffee shop, even if the tea is rubbish. And is it happens, the 'tornado' was something of a non-event, I'm disappointed to report. Apparently some parts of Athens were seriously damaged, in the places where the tornado 'touched down', but all we saw was some heavy rain and a few gusts of wind. I mean, the rain wasn't even horizontal or anything. So that was that....

.....until we got home and found out there had been a power cut in our part of town. It was mildly entertaining at first, but 20 hours later I'm now in exile at the University (which still has electricity fortunately) and feeling a bit peeved. And we've just found out that we might not quite power back until Sunday night/Monday morning. Woohoo! Good job we have that wind-up torch :-)

But I mentioned earlier that I'd asked Omar *two* questions, the second being:

2) Are there bears in Ohio?

I watch tv, I know what bears are like. They look all cute and whatnot, but they like to eat stuff. And people*. Bears very much fall into the 'spider' category of creatures for me, they are a valuable part of the ecosystem and a vital part of natural diversity and therefore should be protected. But surely we don't need to live in the same 10m sq. area of land?

But I was informed that Ohio doesn't have bears any more, thanks to the efforts of farmers and hunters in the 1800s (I guess once they'd finished scaring off the Native Americans it was time to move on to something else). So I was once again surprised to hear that a black bear was spotted a couple of weeks ago in a Halls of Residence where some of Omar's friends live.

Awww..... doesn't it look hungry? :-) Which isn't surprising, as apparently they eat for up to 20 hours a day (Black bears are back in Ohio!)

While I would usually be in favour of bears running amok in a Halls of Residence, on this occasion it just makes me wonder how far they'll go for a snack?

Anyways, after having having two of my core beliefs about Ohio shattered, I'm starting to wonder what else forms part of this web of lies? ;-)

*This is mostly wild, unfounded speculation on my part, fuelled by too much tv and that Herzog film about the crazy guy who was eaten by bears.

Possessions....

...... are something that I don't have a lot of at the moment, which is quite liberating as it happens. It has also made moving into our new flat, sorry apartment (damn all these vocabulary changes), a lot easier and quicker, which is a bonus. There are downsides to our new uncluttered lifestyle, however. It turns out that I'm quite sentimental about random useless stuff so I miss being able to decorate the new place with what I lovingly think of as 'ironic kitsch' and everyone else (or maybe just Omar) thinks of as 'crap'. From a practical perspective, it has also been bloody annoying to have to start again from scratch. I knew this would happen, but it's still frustrating to end most sentences with "we had one of those in England, but we had to get rid of it". All in good time I guess. But I swear, I refuse to move again until we can afford to ship all of our stuff :-) 

And speaking of shipping, I'm going to take this opportunity to voice my disappointment (ok, I mean whinge) about the piss poor service provided by both UPS and ParcelForce. The second shipment of boxes we sent from the UK arrived today and again the box was battered to hell. This time was with ParcelForce and the box didn't even arrive in one piece :-(   Luckily most of the books weren't too damaged, just a bit of scuffing, and at least they didn't get wet as they did with UPS. Boo! 

But enough of all that, I can now luxuriate in my new pile of books, before putting them back on a bookcase and pledging to certainly, definitely, getting around to reading them one day...

Goodbyes

It's day 2 in Athens, Ohio, and while I wouldn't go as far as saying that the dust has settled after the move, it's certainly starting to clear and I have been thinking about all the goodbyes I've said over the last few weeks. I've decided that I feel dissatisfied with them, as if I didn't spend enough time on each one and make it as 'significant' as it should have been. Part of this is my general problem with being sincere, but mostly it was just because I was so busy in the weeks before I left that I didn't have any time. I'm starting to think that being so manic in the run up to big life events, like leaving a job or moving overseas (or both!), is a psychological mechanism to stop you thinking too much about the magnitude of the changes you are making. By the time you have the time to stop and think about what you're doing, it's too late to go back! I know that I'm doing the right thing in moving, but being busy has stopped me about being too sentimental about all the people I will miss while I'm here.         

However, if circumstances had been different, and I had had more time for goodbyes, what would I have said? I guess I just hope that people automatically know what I wanted to say.

But I'm not just looking back, there's a lot of looking forward going on as well, it's just that the future seems a lot more complicated and confusing. So as of tomorrow, the focus moves back to sorting out my new life. I think some sort of list is called for..... :-)