I once said that my life was so messed up, I wish I had a little green elf sitting on my shoulder telling me what to do. Well I have one friend who is the closest thing I’ve got to that little green elf. The night before I left for England, I was chatting on the phone with him and asked him what he thought my goals for Oxford should be. He said:

1. Hook up with at least three people
2. Make at least ten friendly acquaintances and get to know one person very well
3. Do as many activities as possible

Seeing as how I am studying at Oxford, but not a registered Oxford student, don’t get to take any classes with Oxford students, and live in a house with Stanford students, it’s going to be very hard to reach out socially. But I’m determined that at the end of this term, even if I haven’t made any friends, you won’t be able to say that I didn’t try.

Happy May Day! Check back tomorrow for picture of Morris Dancing!

I’ve been in England for about two weeks now, and unfortunately have not had the best experience with the British from the start. I had been warned that the British generally are not as outwardly friendly as Americans, and I’ve heard that British complain about the insincerity of American chipperness. But I didn’t expect to encounter just plain rudeness.

I’ll provide below a few snapshots of the people I have encountered. A caveat: these are only my observations after a very limited exposure to Britain. I’m sure that I will be able to meet lots of nice people here that will turn my view of the Brits around.

Restaurant service: One of my favorite hobbies is restaurant and cafe hopping, so even though I’ve only been in England a short time, I’ve visited quite a fair number of the eateries in Oxford. In general, the service is sub-par, probably because there is no tip. While I don’t mind lackadaisical service, I must say that I’ve encountered a much higher frequency of rude service in the UK than in the US. The service is mostly marked by impatience; the waiters hurry you through the entire process (ordering, paying) so that they can get new customers seated. Last night a large group of us went out for a birthday and the waiter asked us whether we wanted the food all together or starters first. While we had some internal table discussion (that admittedly might’ve taken longer than usual), the waiter told us, “please make up your mind”. There was only one other table in the otherwise empty restaurant. But I can’t make a completely negative judgment against them, because the Indian food was delicious and they gave us free desert.

Customs and Immigration (from an earlier post): I arrived in England to the warm welcome of the customs agent lecturing me:

- Why are you coming to the UK?

- I’m studying here

- When did you start to study here?

- I am just starting now

- Then you don’t say ‘I am studying here. That means that you already started and are continuing. You should say, ‘I will be studying here’

I didn’t realize this was immigration and grammar control.

Hospital volunteer services: I mentioned before that I contacted doctors at the hospital to see if I could shadow them. A received a fair number of responses inviting me to join them, but saying that they would first have to file paperwork.  I received this email from volunteer services:

Dear Crystal
I have now received 10 emails form departments and doctors that you have asked for a placement
CAN YOU PLEASE STOP SENDING EMAILS TO DOCTORS

You have a placement with Dr. T__

If I receive any further emails from doctors regarding a placement I am sorry they will be ignored
I do not have an inordinate amount of time to keep emailing one person about work shadowing

Here is the response I would like to give:

Dear Obviously Professionally Frustrated,

I contacted many people at once because doctors actually are busy people and I know some of them would just ignore my email. Perhaps it’s not standard procedure at your hospital for people to approach doctors themselves (I guess you’re used to people coming through you first). But that does not excuse your rudeness and disrespect; everybody deserves some courtesy. Can we think back to first grade when we learned how to communicate? I don’t think yelling via email was one of the suggested methods.

Is this how you get a power kick, by asserting your authority in angry emails to lowly students? Or maybe you just like playing with the capslock. I would love to see you say this to my face. Volunteer services is supposed to be the face of the hospital to the public. I hope, for the sake of the hospital and the community, that you learn to improve your attitude (and to stop complaining about your very difficult and demanding job).

My actual response:

Dear Ms.,

I’m sorry if there is a protocol for arranging shadowing that I was not aware of. The hospital I work at asks us to contact doctors individually. I  contacted multiple people because I was hoping to have the opportunity to visit many different departments for one day/short term placements. I had contacted all the doctors before I received a response from Dr. T_.

I have not contacted and will not contact any more doctors. Please go ahead and ignore any new emails you receive concerning my placement. I appreciate your help with the arrangements and will return the paperwork to you as soon as I can.

Sincerely,

Crystal

Does anyone have experience in the UK and can offer some advice about interacting with the British? My sour view of British social interaction has completely ruined my mood and set the tone for the remainder of this trip. I desperately want to be able to write a post by the end of the term with three portraits of great people I’ve met here.

One hour ago, I sat down eager to write a new post with the most interesting updates about my time here. At 12:52 AM, I am still sitting in front of a blank document. Instead of viewing this as time wasted, I thought I might turn it into something productive by making my filler time the subject of this post because it gives quite valuable insight into my daily life.

I finally sat down and got around to answering (almost) all of my emails. Ever since I arrived, I have been flooded by emails, most of them advertising events on campus which are immediately archived without a second glance. The next group comprise a fair number about Oxford that need reply. These come from people I’ve contacted to see if I can join their club (Competitive Ballroom, Croquet, Cricket, Crew, Board Games Club, Choir, etc.), take their class (immunology, economics), or observe them at work (doctors at Oxford hospital to ask if I can join them at work for a day). During the week these emails are starred to deal with later, and since the weekend has come, I’ve finally managed to clear them.

Finally the most treasured yet most painful emails are from friends asking how I’ve been doing. For obvious reasons, treasured because they come from friends actually interested in how I’m doing; painful because when I receive them, I can only star them to mark for later reply when I have the time to give it the full and proper response it deserves – then that day never comes. From setting up activities and classes, to researching new activities to join, to actually doing homework, I have managed to leave my old friends behind in the dust.

I wrote before about the troubles I have with my email. Someday I’ll be able to break free of this constant struggle to maintain a clean inbox. In the meantime,  please be patient, a response will come and it will be well worth the wait!

I also uploaded the latest video diary and a recap of my spring break (I tried to condense it into 27 seconds so it won’t take long)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiloNZZSo1Y[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qiqx_QsqAIo[/youtube]

5/4/3 Feel very bogged down, with so many things on my to do list, and let’s not even mention school.