Update!

Hey everyone!

I've haven't posted anything on my blog in ages. Mostly that's because when you're unemployed (even in an exotic new country) you life becomes pretty dull. And then when you find employment your life gets all busy. But I wanted to write a post to bring anyone who's interested up to speed, then I'm going to be a little more regular in my writings.

Right. So since I last posted the following things have happened:

• Passed my driving test
• Finished watching the X-files
• I appeared on the radio
• Started volunteering with a suicide hotline
• Found a job
• Got a little bit political
• Joined the gym!

So.... my job is pretty cool - I'm working for a non-profit that helps elderly, ill and disabled people stay cool in summer and warm in winter. It's called EnergyCare. Temperatures in St Louis can get pretty extreme: the city has the 4th highest rate of heat related deaths in the USA and winter temperatures get well below freezing for extended periods. It's a fun job - I do most of the agency's fundraising, plus some program management and then a load of standard dull work admin stuff. There's only six of us working there which means I get involved in everything we do, and most of them are pretty cool people.

Volunteering with Life Crisis Services hasn't been fun exactly, but really rewarding and apparently I'm pretty good at it. I got promoted from 'Crisis Worker' to 'Crisis Worker Plus', which means that I now have a cup holder arm-rest. Because of my accent I also get asked questions like "are you from China or something?" Anyway - I've really got a lot out of it, and I'm thinking a bit about social work as a future career direction.

I've been driving since February, and I'm a safe, if not elegant driver. Touch wood. I've started getting agitated about the price of gas (i.e. petrol) and wince when the price goes up even though it's really only 61p per litre. And it was less than that a few days when I last filled up - score! 

I find it very difficult to feel apathetic about politics in the US. There's so much crazy stuff that goes on - e.g. Congress just repealed the law that banned them from insider trading. e.g. guns. e.g. poverty. On the one hand I feel like I'm a foreigner (I still feel like a foreigner rather than an 'immigrant') so I wonder whether it's any of my business, but on the other hand it's people in the city where I live that are getting murdered by gun fire, it's my neighbors who are living in abject poverty, and simple human empathy says I should care about that. I've signed up to work with the St Louis Young Democrats, which I'm excited about and will hopeful help me feel like I'm being a good citizen (even if I'm not a citizen).

So... there's the highlights. 

Scream

There are some events that make one ask oneself, "am I a man or a mouse? There are others that make you wonder whether your life is just one extended Monty Python skit. This was one of them.



I was playing anonymous, antisocial internet chess when I heard the first scream and jumped like I'd been cattle prodded. My first thought was that it was some kind of domestic incident occurring in the street outside our building. This was a regular occurrence when we used to live in Truro (the county town of Cornwall) where fairly frequently some angry and intoxicated altercation would cause us to peer from the window, and on one occasion call the police. But this scream had a different, agonized and urgent tone.

I went straight to the window, but nothing was moving in the street outside, and from here it seemed the noise was coming from inside the building. The screams came in two second bursts and had a regular pattern that slightly undermined their agonized pitch and volume, but it was still worrying enough that I briefly considered taking my kukri with me as I ventured into the hall way.

I left the flat and met some of my neighbors - two college girls who live in 2N and an artist who lives in 2S. They were in the process of calling the 911. It was clear that the noise (which continued along the same pattern) was coming from 1N on the ground floor. I hesitated, because I hate awkward situations, but then I thought about how it would look at the inquest and stomped down the stairs and knocked on the door.

A solidly built, toothless elderly lady opened the door at the second knock and looked askance at me. Behind her, at the other end of the room, was another lady (a little younger, similarly proportioned) sat at a large desk with a laptop open in front of her. "Is everything okay? Because it sounds like someone's being brutally murdered in there?" In reply a vague shrug/murmur of reassurance that all was well escaped the door opener; a two second burst of agonized screaming came from the otherwise unruffled desk sitter. Other than the intermittent screaming the woman with the laptop appeared to be in no immediate distress or danger, so I pulled a face and beat a hasty retreat trusting to the police to investigate further.

Later on the artist who lives downstairs knocked on the door and reported that after a significant delay (given that you can see the police station from our apartment building) a police office had arrived. When he commented on this slow response he received the reply "sorry, I just woke up".

Driving the car

Hello there! Driving update! I have got my permit and now I'm on the open road. Currently my main issues are:

1. Which peddle is brake and which is go
2. Drifting to the left when I look at the mirrors
3. Speed limits
4. Being in the right lane
5. Being in any lane
6. Reversing
7. Going backward
8. Understanding when to go at the lights
9. Getting nervous and jumpy whenever I see a police car
10. Getting nervous when there's someone driving in the lane behind me
11. Straight lines
12. Pedestrians
13. Keeping the brake on when starting the car (see 1)

Photos of the new apartment

Hi everyone, just thought I'd post some photos of the flat now that I am in it.I'm struggling to think of stuff to say about these pictures that isn't blindingly obvious like "this is the bedroom", so... this is the bedroom:

This is the vehicle known as The Golden Bullet. It's fast(er than walking) and it's gold(y looking).

Me eating soup.

Another photo...

Poop poop!

Fanfare please!

I have today taken my first step toward becoming a motorist by successfully taking my written driving test. Anyone from the UK is going to baulk at this slightly: I read a leaflet, walked into the testing office (with no appointment), took the computer test and was given my practice permit papers. It was scarily easy. I could have gone straight out to take the full driving test right away, but I opted to wait until I'd had a little practice. I think 45 minutes should suffice.

But things are never as easy as they sound, because while being allowed to be in command of half a ton of speeding metal required only the most rudimentary of capability, printing a permit that says you passed requires a half ton of bureaucracy and a Social Security Number (which is still being processed). So unfortunately I'm going to have to wait to get behind the wheel.

Give me a week and then, People of St Louis beware!

Setting the scene

When Alistair Cook moved to America in 1946 he started an iconic weekly series of over 900 radio addresses to his native country called "Letter from America". I cannot recommend these programs enough; their insight and gentle style made the letters a remarkable source of transatlantic understanding. While the title of this blog is something of a muted tribute to Mr Cook, I doubt the content will be of any significant interest to anyone other than those that know me and want to keep a track of my comings and goings. I'm going to try to write regularly and actively seek out interesting content when nothing is readily at hand.



So anyway, I've moved to St Louis (a mid-west city on the Mississippi about the size of Manchester in the UK, St Louis is famous for Beer and it's Arch) and live on Heman Avenue. Aside from Sparta and Chuck Norris Street, Heman Avenue is the most manly place to live in the world. It's a nice part of town, and well worth a visit (house guests are genuinely welcome and greatly anticipated here!). I'm not going to try to write a whole lot about St Louis right now because I don't really know a whole lot, but I'm going to blog about my exploration of St Louis and of America.



I arrived in the USA on November 5th 2012 - the day before the re-election of Barrack Obama. I'm not trying to claim credit,  I'm just saying - it looked pretty ropey for Barrack for a while there, then I showed up and suddenly he won. Those are the facts, draw your own conclusions.



So, that's pretty much the scene set.