I walked out of Mass Com today.

They were about to have a guest speaker, this guy who is part of this one study abroad program specifically tailored for com majors. I walked out because I'd already heard his spiel in Com Theory last friday.

It made me depressed the first time. Yes, I shouldn't whine. I got to go to England. I loved England. Not everyone gets the chance to go to England.

But the man's description of Austria (where his program takes place), as well as such accounts as this and this make me wonder if I got everything I could've out of it. The only English person I really interacted with was Wanda, who I'd known anyway. And the poor girl barely got a word in, with my nervous babbling.

On my free time, I never went out. I stayed home and watched crappy English TV. (Not that English TV is crappier than American TV. I'm just saying the English TV I watched this summer happened to be crappy English TV) When I did go out apart from the group, it was touristy English places. I never really ended up experiencing English culture. About the quirkiest encounter I had was with this guy on the bus who told me everything, everything he knew about the U.S.

I probably got even less out of Ireland.

Also, the Austria man makes me feel bad that I didn't get an entire semester to spend in England, or the time to chunnel into France. He touts Austria as the center of Europe, and goes on and on about how cheap/easy it is to get to Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Hungry, etc. from Austria. I'm the biggest Europhile ever, I LOVE how old things are. Americans...we have such little history. What little history we have, we disconnect ourselves from. But there's pubs in London that have been there hundreds of years, that you can still go into and do pubby things in. Places that the doorstep is worn down to a scary slope. How many people does it take to wear down a doorstep like that? We went to a pub where Samuel Johnson used to frequent.

London predates the Roman empire. Not only London, but places like Bath, which also predates the Romans, but has been built on layer by layer as each new civilization discovered the healing minerals. It's awesome to think of the sheer amount of years and people have gone into the shaping of a place. Even more striking--remnents of old civilizations preserved, like Stonehenge. Sure, some army knocked down some of the stones, and there's a HUGE tourist facility surrounding the place. But it's still awe-inspiring.

I would love to see places like that in a country like Austria, or maybe visit the surrounding countries. I doubt, however, that I'll have the resources to do this. I don't mean just money, I mean time. When you get a real job, unless you're a teacher or someone else who gets a seasonal "time off," you're lucky if you get two weeks a year to do anything. It's hard to see a large part of Europe (or other places I'd like to see--China, Japan, India) in two weeks. And I AM talking about money to some degree. It's a million times cheaper to do things as a student than it is to do them as an adult. And of course, the Austria man hammers this home. He makes me feel like I'm never going to go to Europe again, much less Asia.

Also, he makes Europe sound so great. This actually annoys me a little--he talked about how much better their education and crime rate are, etc. I believe their education system is superior --in some respects. I can easily believe their crime rate is better. BUT, I can't believe some of the other crap he said, at least in respect to England.

--Less car accidents. Because, "When people actually see a red light, they stop. And pedestrians only cross when they're supposed to, even when there's no one around. There's no jaywalking in Europe." Bullshit. I saw people jaywalking all over the place in London. And not just tourists. And several of those damned double-decker buses tried to run me over, even when I did have the right of way. Though I do admit it's much harder to get a driver's license in Europe than it is here.

--Everything's cleaner and better. No one litters. Fuck that. The sidewalks were covered, I mean COVERED in old discarded gum. Now, I can't compare to a large city like New York or Chicago, but there was certainly more gum on the sidewalks of London than there were in my somewhat small town. Also--it was old gum. Not because people have stopped dropping gum, but they have these street sweepers that get rid of the gum. And other litter. So, while I didn't see too much litter in England, it might be because they SWEEP UP THE DAMN LITTER. Plus, in Canterbury I saw a trash can that specifically entreated the reader NOT to litter. Why would it ask people not to litter if no one littered in the first place? Oh, and also in London--I didn't litter, but I knew several of my group did, because there's about a MILE in between public trash cans in London. I definately bet it makes it a million more times tempting to litter if there's no trash can around. (Though I do realize London is short on trash cans because of IRA unpleasantness)

Anyway, I hate being told that Europeans are better than us. I mean, I know most of the world thinks we suck, because of the way we handle politics. Which, we do suck the way we handle politics. But I won't stand by and be told that Europeans are superhuman non-litterer/perfect pedestrians and drivers.

So I figured hearing this again would not be fun. I missed some of class too, but it's not like I find class fascinating anyway.