Growing things!

Spring has sprung! It is delightful. The sun shines almost every day (apart from when it's thundering), and suddenly there are people everywhere - walking their dogs, mowing their lawns, waving at me when I go by. It's so Wisteria Lane. I love it.

So, now that everything is in bloom, I have vowed to grow myself a garden. I am not a natural gardener. In fact, most plants I touch seem to die. The only thing I have success with are those peace lilies, the virtually indestructible ones, which droop terribly and then you water them and they perk immediately up again. However. Despite my obvious lack of green fingered-ness, I'm going to give it a go.

I've already started, in fact. Last week I planted a bunch of sees - courgette, tomatoes, coriander - in little pots, ready to transplant, and they have sprouted! It is very exciting. Now I just need to remember to water them.

Alas, with gardening comes hard work - I need to dig over the soily bit and also do a fair bit of weeding. But I hope to become almost entirely self sufficient this summer (cue visions of me wafting outside to pluck a few sprigs of mint in order to whip up the perfect mint-flavoured something). Whether this will, in fact, work out, remains to be seen. I'll keep you posted.

Just returned from a weekend in NYC. Arriving there on Thursday evening, straight into the heart of the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, was like waking up from a drug-induced haze. It was so cosmopolitan. So alive. There were people walking, running, talking, shouting, laughing. No-one asked me where I was from, or commented on how much they loved my accent. Nobody looked at me strangely when I strolled down the street. We sat outside in the sunshine, at cafe tables on the edge of the pavement and people-watched. It was fascinating. So many different shapes, sizes, colours, races. It was wonderful.

Would I want to live in Manhattan? Yes, yes and yes again. Although only if I had enough money. The friend we were staying with lives in the heart of Soho - in a one-bedroom apartment that is about the size of our bedroom, bathroom, walk-in wardrobe combination. His sitting room window looks onto a wall. His kitchen is almost small enough to be able to touch all four walls at once. And it's bigger than his old apartment. I found myself feeling almost smug about our enormous bedroom, plentiful spare rooms and spacious garden.

But I did love just being able to pop out - to a cool bar, or a great restaurant - and being able to walk around the city and explore. Not once did I wish for the car. Not once did I miss the slow pace of life.

We arrived back to a flooded kitchen floor (the tap had been knocked by something propped against it) and a clean--up operation that lasted until midnight. My brain was buzzing when I finally flopped into bed, so I did pop a sleeping pill. Today I'm back into the drug-induced haze again. How much of it is drug induced I'm not sure. But it is rather restful to be surrounded by green fields again (in our absence, the world seems to have turned green), and to hear birds, rather than cars. Am I turning into a country girl after all?

So, that hot tub...

... Well what can I say? There I was expecting my life in America to be all housework and homesickness, with everyone expecting me to grow up and cease being childish. But then I found myself last night line dancing, microphone hogging and hot tubbing. How did that happen?

The line dancing was an 'International Wives' event. Sounds terrible on paper; the most fun without alcohol I've almost ever had in real life. Our teacher, a lady in middle years with more than a bit of a bulge got onto that microphone and worked her booty showing us how it was done. She really knew how to move. Two hours later, we were all yodelling, swinging our hips and sashaying round the dancefloor.

Onto the High Noon Saloon, possibly Leavenworth's most dodgy establishment (primary clientele: soliders and prisoners), but definitely one of the most fun. Several beers and a massive burger later we were on the dancefloor showing off our newly learned moves and dancing dangerously close to a 60-year od man with a long ponytail and a penchant for head to toe denim. Excitement. Karaoke. Shots. Back to Mrs Williams' house for more drinks. Into the hot tub. 'I have Never'. Champagne. Wrinkeld skin. Weeing on the lawn because we couldn't be bothered to go into the house. Finally we climbed out. 5.30am. The sun was about to rise. The Major must have been getting up as I finally flopped into bed. Today: massive hangover. Stinking of chlorine. Gearing up for the next International event tonight: the Spring Food Fair. Who knew Kansas would be this fun?

On the differences between American and English students

I write this, pondering, with a monstrous hangover. Last night was a lot of fun, and involved line dancing, karaoke and a hot tub until 5.30am. A separate post. But now I am in front of my computer and replying to anxious students' emails about the assignment they are due to have in by 5pm today.

Is it just me, or are American students a lot more conscientious than we Brits? One student had emailed me last night (when I was on the lash), hoping I would get back to her by a certain time as she was working most of today. Another of my students only has two evenings a week free, because she works every other night. I teach an 8am lecture. All the students are there. There are no obvious signs of hangovers and they all pay attention and participate. When I was at university, no lecturer would have been foolish enough to schedule an 8am lecture. Even when a lecture began at 10am, barely half the students would turn up because most of them were still in bed, sleeping off the effects of the night before - or getting back on it. Since arriving here I suspect I have had more hangovers than my students have.

Of course this is partly down to expectation. They get graded for their attendance record - so missing a few lectures could end up in being points down. They have several assignments to turn in per week, so have to keep on top of it. And of course they pay - thousands - which means they often have to work just to feed themselves after paying tuition fees.

But their expectations are different too. American students are graded on a cumulative GPA (Grade Point Average) score - and out here, a C is a fail. Which means they are all desperate to do well and can't rely, like we did, on cramming furiously the week before finals and scraping a 2:1.

I'm not sure what I think about all of this. On the one hand, I love how involved everybody gets at Americna universities. I spent four months on a study abroad scheme at the University of Illinois when I was a student and did more in that four months than in practically my entire three year university career: joined a choir, sang in an opera, wrote for the student newspaper, attended extracuricular lectures, voluntarily spent time in the library. At American universities it's not considered sad or geekish to get involved and work hard, which to me, with my geekish tendencies was a joy.

On the other hand, strange though it may sound, so many of my more formative university experiences were as a result of having a bit too much to drink - and I don't mean the 'hilarious' chundering stories and cringeworthy snogs, but the philosophical discussions, the morning after hangover bondings, the sense that, we would never be able to be this free again. I think it's sad that American students can't have just a little more taste of this - although out here, unless you're 21, you can't even get into a bar, let alone drink it dry.

Oh I'm sure I'm romanticising a little - there are tales of wild fraternity parties and outrageous fake IDs. But nobody seems to slope off down to the pub post-lecture, or enjoy the afternoon discussing the meaning of life over a few cheeky beers. And I think that's sad.

On the other hand, I'm 28 years old and still in my pyjamas at 2.30 in the afternoon. But I did spend until 5.30 this morning in a hot tub, discussing the meaning of life. Rock and roll.

I've just realised this is a title bar...

...which is brilliant. Seriously I am the most analogue person ever. I really want a iphone, but know that if I had one, I'd never get round to actually putting more than about 10 songs on it, and would mostly use it to text and phone, just like I currently use my crappy, piece of plastic American phone which doesn't even have a camera on it.

I realised that I never wrote about a day last week where I was so ridiculously monstrously hungover that I didn't get dressed until 5.30pm. I just lay on the sofa all day, groaning quietly. Me and the Major, groaning together. He actually got up at 7am, showered, shaved, dressed and was just about to leave the house when he had to double back and be sick. It was horrible. I haven't felt that bad for years.

We'd been to a cocktail party at the Major's place of employment. I was expecting it to be grim, and for me to have to do Wife behaviour, and consequently drank far too large an amount of Pimms Number 1 (or whatever the vodka one is), on an empty stomach, while also shunning the canapes. A foolish mistake. The end of the cocktail party saw me making wisecracks to the Major's boss (moderately bad idea); the end of the evening had me doing karaoke, barely able to stand up, in front of 200 people in the High Noon Saloon (terrible idea, although also retrospectively makes me feel strangely cool and want to laugh). We left shortly afterwards. I went to sleep with one eye open, because to close both eyes made me feel as if I was about to vomit.

Obviously this post would have had more impact if I had written it actually in the throes of the hangover. But I wanted to mark the occasion a) to prove that, even though I am now a Wife, I can still have "fun" and b) to use it as an opportunity to talk about the evils of American alcohol. Seriously, they put some weird shit into the booze here. The beer all has strange preservatives in it, as does the wine, which is also so sweet (unless you fork out upwards of $15 for a bottle of something imported) that is gives you a major sugar high. All of which means terrible hangovers.

Sp I'm blaming it on the booze. Just for a change. Although I reckon if I'd had an iphone I would have been able to post photos of the night on this site. Yeah right, whatever.

Yesterday, the Major and I took a trip to Cabela's, which is billed as one of Kansas's primary tourist attractions.

Yet Cabela's is not a scenic beauty spot, nor a historic site. It is a shop. A hunting, fishing and camping emporium to be precise. Nevertheless, round here, that is a major attraction. Despite heavy snow, when we went, the parking lot was almost full - mostly of trucks, drive by lumberjack-wearing farmers, eager to kill things.

As you go into Cabela's, you are confronted with three enormous statues of antelope. The Major whispered that if they were that size in real-life, the people around here would probably try to bomb them. And having visited Cabela's, I have to concur.

The first thing I saw as we walked in was an eight-year-old child with a dangerous-looking crossbow. The child was fat. He had a murderous gleam in his eye. His father was pushing a shopping trolley piled high with hunting and sporting equipment. He too was fat. Oh the irony.

We pushed on into the aquarium area. Bored-looking fish glided around in their tiny enclosures. One was an extraordinary looking specimen, with various bulbous protruberances emerging from his face. But he wasn't as extraordinary as the girl who was pointing at him and laughing. Bulbous is not the word. Or rather it is, but on a far larger scale than the fish. The horror.

And on it went. Through the speedboat section, where you could spend thousands of dollars on a state of the art model in which to go fishing. Into the apparel area, where camouflage junkies could get a serious fix - full body suit with built-in waders, anyone? Into hunting, which started off with decoys and hides and segued on to guns - lots of them - row after row of rifles, crossbows, shotguns - anything, in fact, that you could load up and kill with. They had quite a few pink models, presumably to cater for the female hunting population in Kansas.

To be fair, there were less killing-related sections - like homeware, where you could buy a toothbrush holder shaped like a labrador or a fake bearskin rug for the sitting room. But that area was fairly deserted. The main action was all in the killing sections.

It was an insight into the Kansas way of life. And don't get me wrong, I'm not against killing animals per se - I'm not a vegetarian and can appreciate the joys of a day out in the fresh air pitting your wits against a wild duck, or some grouse or whatever. But I do have a bit of a problem with the American way of doing things, which basically appears to be, lure the animals in with lots of food, sit in a hide and then blast the hell out of them. Where's the sport in that? And seeing an eight year old with a lethal crossbow is frankly, terrifying. Especially if shooting said instrument isn't even going to give him any exercise. Perhaps we should all start hunting fat children instead...

We are looking after a friend's dog for a couple of days and it is amazing how British it is making me feel. I can go for walks now, and it almost feels like being at home. I'm trying to shun the lead, which means that admittedly there is still the terror that she will run into someone's garden and get shot or shouted at (no fences around here), but she's a well behaved little creature and comes when called. I think the cars that passed me were very impressed by the way she sat still at my feet when told until they had gone by. And I haven't seen the neighbour - or his cats - since she arrived...