One Month in the US

I came to the US exactly one moenth ago today, and its been a good month. Yes, there have been teething troubles--I bought the wrong mattress, the wrong cycle, and goodness knows what else. I have been shocked by the price of everything and left bewildered by the absence of grocery stores in the college town I know call home. I jsu went back and read my first post from the US, and it is a litany of rants about the move. But what is surprising is how little I remember any of it. It feels like water under the bridge that has long since flowed into the ocean. Yes, I don't have a big social circle yet, but I have an agreeable officemate and lunchmates, which I didn't for my last year in Bristol. Work is picking up, and I feel useful, like I am doing something worthwhile for the first time in years. I woudn't go so far as to say I ahve found a ewn purpose in life, but that possibility doesn't seem as remote as it did jsut a few weeks ago. And, I have aleady written about how I have transformed into an extroverted spendthrift from a thrifty introvert. Whether that transition is temporary remains to be seen. 

Buyers Remorse

Buyers remorse is hitting hard today. I bought a bike which I feel is meant for old people. The riding position is too upright and it can't go very fast. But, its the farthest thing from a sports bike it still doesn' t have mudguards. Sometimes, it feels like the US only puts thought into cars and the accompanying infrastructure.  I mainly bought it because I think its good for my hip mobility. Oh yes, there is another thing that I am feeling buyer remorse for--my matress. It turns out that it is too soft and might be the rason for my hip/lower back pain. But, I can only deal with one piece of buyers remorse at one time. I will decide what to do with the mattress next week. Okay, rant over. It turns out I can adjust the handle to have a less upright riding position, and in any case, I won't be using the bike as much as I used to in the UK. On the bright side, I bought a bluetooth speaker on facebook and it is brilliant. From now on, I will have music playing in my house all the time. At this time,something I heard my former landlord said comes to mind. He said, " We will not let this become an issue". The recognition of an annoyance, and the decision to deal with it without dwelling on it. 

Settling In

Its been a while since I wrote a blog post. I had started writing one last week, but abandoned it because it was just going to be a rant. Either a rant about how difficult it is to set up house without a car or a whine about the number of decisions one has to make while setting up house, and how those decisions haunt you if you are overthinker who is prone to buyer's remorse. This post will start off as a rant but won't end as one. What has struck me is how difficult it is to buy groceries in this country, especially fruits and veggies. Not exotic ones, something as simple as bananas and apples, which you would find in any supermarket or cornershop in the UK. First, there are very few food shops that exist oustide strip malls. Then, those that do mostly sell junk food, not fresh food. The few ones that do are frightfully over-priced and of low-quality. So, one has to visit the strip mall if one wants to eat healthy. There are buses to the mall, but not all shops in the strip mall are accessible by foot, since there is a fairly busy road that runs through it. Welcome to America, people say, when I gripe to them about this. I was joking to a friend that last week I was fretting about where to buy eggs, and this week I am fretting about where to buy bananas. But, the edge is wearing off these peeves already. I have come to accept that grocery shopping will take a bit more time, a bit more planning and I will have to learn to make shopping lists since nipping out for some fruit is not an option here. Other than that, I am settling in quite well. I was stricken by buyer's remorse for some of my purchases but that has worn off. My kitchen is set up and my current state of existence is pretty comfortable. I am also finding it amusing that I am bit of a house-dandy. I have opinions on what lining I want for the kitchen shelf, for instance. I love my apartment and my neghbourhood has enough vegetation that I can hear crickets as I write this. I have found some good trails for running close to my house. Work has also picked up and I find that I am enjoying it. All in all, a good start to my US innings. 

Race Riots in the UK

 For the past few days, I have been watching the news coming out of the UK with growing alarm. A few days after I left, the UK has errupted in race riots. Even my erstwhile home of Bristol, a famously progressive city, has not been spared. My comrades from the Palestine movement went for a march in London yesterday, and returned to join a group of counterprotestors protecting a hotel housing asylum seekers from the fash. They saw the violence at close quarters and were lucky to not have been injuried themselves. 

If I was there, I would have been with them. I would have been petrified of being arrested and endangering my immigration status, but I wouldn't have been able to look myself in the mirror if I had stayed at home. I have written before about the courage of the cautious, but in unprecedented times the cautious too have to put their bodies and their freedoms on the line.  One need not trade blows with the fash, but just being part of the crowd, holding the ground, can make a difference. Like the time a Zionist ripped a part off my comrade's prop, and I ran to them and simply stood behind her, without saying a word because I had no idea what had just happened. 

I have often said that British society, depsite being led by a heavily racist establishment, is more welcoming towards foreigners. Be that because of anit-racist campaigns led by previous generation of migrants, or the long history of immigration to the country. I definitely felt less like a foreigner there than I did in the Netherlands. I accept that as a Indian male employed in a white-collar profession, my iimigrant experience might have been very different from say a Hijabi who barely speaks English. Also, I never lived anywhere apart from Bristol, which is a pretty diverse city by UK standards.  But, in the past few months, I could sense a change in the atmosphere on the streets. On the Palestine marches, we were used to some heckling by pro-Israelis, but no Islamophobic abuse, until recently, The only time I faced racial abuse in the UK was on Palestone protests because the fash thought I was Muslim. There was also that incident with the guy who chased me in his car, which I felt had a  racial element to it.  

Moving Pains

 Warning: this post is a bit of a rant. Today was Day 3 in the US, and I should say I am not a fan yet. Our memories tends to gloss over difficult bits, but I don't remember settling into the UK being so difficult. Firstly, moving from a city with a vibrant cycling culture like Bristol to the US was always going to be a shock, even in liberal Massachussets. Maybe it will pick up when the uni year beings but there are so few cycles to be seen on the roads. I came with the intention of buying a bike almost immediately, but I am beginning to have second thoughts. Secondly, simple grocery stuff like fruit and yoghurt is not easy to find even in downtown areas of the small town I am in.  I had to go to a bougie deli to buy yoghurt and fruit. It definitely seems like eating healthy is going to be a challenge in the US. Thirdly, I have had to wade through a crazy amount of paperwork to join this position. IT feels like everyone in the US is so scared of getting sued that they make paperwork to cover every eventuality. Fourthly, setting up house is not going swimmingly well. I picked up the keys to my apartment today. It is a very pleasant apartment and quite roomy too. But, my joy and relief at seeing the apartment was tempered when I checked my Amazon account to follow up on my bed and matress orders, I learnt that they had been delivered yesterday and the day before. I had not received messages to say that they were out for delivery or had been delivered. Just a while back, I got a message saying that the pillows I had ordered had been dispatched. Trust Amazon to treat a pair of pillows with more care than a bed and mattress. A bed and a mattress are not easy to either pilfer or dispose off so I suppose they are lying in a storage shed, hopefully undamaged. I realise these are all just teething troubles. 72 hours is too little time to form a judgement about a place and I just have to be patient.