From East to West: a new chapter in the PNW

It’s now more than four months since I moved across the world for a second time and made another home in the Pacific Northwest, and I wanted to note down some observations before I get so used to life here that they seem commonplace.

Firstly, to all kind readers aren’t sure what the heck I’m doing over here: I moved to Eugene, Oregon to do a Master’s in Nonprofit Management at the University of Oregon, a program that isn’t really available in the UK but is becoming increasingly common over here. At the same time, I work 20 hours a week as a GTF (Graduate Teaching Fellow) coordinating the International Cultural Service Program, in return for tuition, healthcare and a stipend. It’s a tuition scholarship for international students – they make presentations and teach classes to community groups about their culture; I manage their appointments and teach them how to do it. They’re a wonderful group of students from Tibet to Turkmenistan, with some incredible stories of how they came to be here. Their challenges as international students are humbling and put mine in perspective.

Apart from that, I’m currently interning at a Foundation that raises money for the local community college; chairing the Events committee and acting as Secretary for the UO’s chapter of Association of Fundraising Professionals; and practicing with the UO taiko group every week.

Last term was a full and extremely busy to the start of my two years here. This term I’ve resolved to make the most of my measly 9-credit load and take at least one day off from homework a week, read and exercise more, and keep exploring this beautiful part of the world. Eugene and the UO are just about as opposite from St Andrews as you can imagine, and I’m loving getting to enjoy that contrast.

St Andrews was a tiny stone fishing town replete with a ruined cathedral and the oldest golf course in the world, where the ‘gown’ student population of rich Americans and Scandinavians and ‘town’ population of Scottish locals were pretty much separate. Heeled boots and a statement necklace were standard wear for the library. Undergrads were heavily involved in extra-curriculars from the Vanity Fair and Vogue-covered annual fashion show to the rugby and hockey teams to the half dozen student publications detailing small-town exploits. For fun there was a black-tie event at least every month, or a couple of clubs the size of living rooms where wealthy, drunk golfers would occasionally feel generous and buy us a round, or you could always just pop into a stranger’s house party glimpsed from the street: you inevitably would know someone there. An unlocked bike could survive weeks, and each year was punctuated by traditions dating back 600 years.

Eugene has long been a hub of West Coast counter-culture, nestled in a valley between pine-covered mountains and surrounded by rivers and hot springs, the wide cracked streets lined with old trees and individuated wooden houses with porches.  The student population at first sight appears to be a mix of green-and-yellow clad Ducks fans (the football team here is huge); sorority girls and frat boys; Asian students hanging out in designer clothes and driving round in white Bentleys; hippie kids in tie dye and dreads, and the ubiquitous student in North face and hiking boots on a sweet bike. The locals are very engaged in town life and there is a lot of activism: people really care. Locked bikes go missing after an hour and there is also quite a large homeless population. And yet Eugene has its own distinct character. Downtown is peppered with yoga studios, sushi bars, cannabis shops, craft and second-hand bookstores, coffee spots and microbreweries.

I’m also finding university culture very different, although some of that is probably down to being in graduate school this time around, as well as taking a more professional than academic degree. Assignments tend to be smaller and more frequent and classes include a participation grade, whereas in Scotland you could basically turn up or not, and hand in one big essay at the end of term. Equity and inclusion is also emphasised far more, making the annual male-only Kate Kennedy parade of my undergrad years seem terribly outdated. The campus is huge and the facilities, especially the monolithic sports centre, reflect the $32,000/year fees for non-residents.

I love the Oregonian philosophy of life too. It’s a liberal, outdoorsy, unpretentious (despite the Portlandia depiction of insufferable hipsters) and relaxed state. People seem to understand how to have a good quality of life with time to be outside, have hobbies and talk to strangers. They’re friendly in a way that feels authentic (classic Oregonian buzzword).

That said, there are a few differences I’m still getting used to. It’s a cliché that Brits are polite and reserved, but it’s a cliché for a reason. Saying sorry, please and thank you all the time is normal for me, and I sometimes have to remind myself that the conversational differences don’t indicate rudeness but simply a different normal. Likewise with other subtle quirks: phrases like ‘I don’t care’ instead of ‘I don’t mind’ or calling someone ‘she’ instead of their name. People feel far more open about sharing their lives with work colleagues and acquaintances, and are way more blunt, but it does make for interesting conversations. I do miss dry British humour and sarcasm and am often taken literally when I’m being anything but serious.

One of the other two main things I’ve noticed, or more accurately just felt, is the work ethic. It seems like people here work longer hours and take fewer holidays, but also have their identity more intertwined with their jobs and career. Work isn't so much just something you do between 9-5 and is more integral to people’s character. The other is the sense of social security. Even speaking as a privileged grad student with great health insurance, it seems like it’s far easier to slip through the cracks here: have a run of bad luck and make a few mistakes and you could be down and out far more easily. I’ve come to appreciate the NHS more than ever as an incredible safety net that we take for granted too often. The relationship to the state here is also something I had to see first hand to really understand. Rather than an embedded expectation of or dependence on the state, here there is an element of deep-seated suspicion – one reason for the many nonprofits.

That’s not to say these differences are bad and one way is better than the other! I feel privileged to be living in a foreign country again, this time one where I can speak the same language and thus connect with people in a different way, and to have the time to try and understand a different way of life. I’m realising what a big step my American friends took in moving to St Andrews at 18, and understanding them in new ways, too. 

Apart from that, I miss bathroom cubicles that don't have 1-inch gaps all around the door, British white bread, butter and cream (food also tends to last twice as long here, I think due to what chemicals are in it), the BBC, eclectic fashion sense, public transport, and being left well alone by people in shops. But on the flip side, I love the cheap movie tickets, un-measured alcohol units in bars, absence of biting North winds, egalitarian ethos, and the open-heartedness of the people here.I don't know if one day these notes will feel like distant memory, or the start of what was to become everyday, and I'm ok with that for now. 

The PUWYs: On coming home, reverse culture shock, and life after Japan

It’s been almost 3 months since I posted here, and I don’t now how that quarter-year passed so quickly. I moved countries, towns and houses, twice. I started a new job. I experienced a mellow English Autumn for the first time, made a lot of changes in my life, and had some powerful highs and lows.

I’d like to finish posting some of the pictures and memories from Japan I still having kicking around, while I still remember them. After that, I doubt I’ll be using this blog much, at least until another purpose for it comes along. For the first time since being a teenager, I have the compulsion to write a lot for myself – maybe because it’s a similarly transitional time.

A friend from work, 30 and comfortingly on top of her shit, actually has a word for this stage of life: the PUWYs (pronounced pewies) or Post University Wilderness Years. She tells me that almost all her friends of her age, who are now largely settled and happy in their careers, locations, relationships and lives, had no clue what they were doing at 23. The markers of adulthood our parents enjoyed at our age – relatively easy-found and well-paid jobs, cars, mortgages, marriages – are no longer attained so soon. No one tells you this, but these may be the most challenging years of your life.

I know exactly what she means. But that said, I’m ok with these new challenges. This feels like a time for taking time, for thinking about goals, working hard and enjoying the company of friends from school, university and Japan, all making our way in the big metropolis. It’s good to finally stay in a country where I’ve never lived but that always felt like home.

Leaving Japan in August was the right thing to do, but it was such a wrench saying goodbye to friends there, and home was a shock in unexpected ways. I’d been told to expect reverse culture shock, but the brusqueness of people in public still felt jarring. I still can’t help bowing in some situations, and miss the politeness and consideration of Japanese people very much. I came back to the Edinburgh International Festival in August, and would end days in town feeling exhausted by seeing the multitudes of varied shapes, sizes, ethnicities and fashion choices jostling around me.

On my first day in London, I stood helplessly by as people pushed in front of me in the taxi rank, until a tiny old man tapped me on the shoulder and said kindly, “You have to be forceful in London!” For the first few weeks in my new town, I found myself weirdly wishing that everyone on the streets were Japanese. Two months later the shock has worn off, and I’m so happy to be back in my own country where I can interact with strangers on trains and act with a different kind of self-reliance.

I’m working in a very academic boarding school doing alumni relations and fundraising. I like having the freedom to define my own role - which is a challenging one as it amalgamates 3 people’s previous jobs - being able to boss around an intern, and the business of building a community, something which I’ve found comes kind of naturally. I get to edit and produce 4 magazines a year, some with students, and organise events from galas in the Globe Theatre to memorial lacrosse matches.

The school is a huge campus including a lake, a forest and a horse paddock, surrounded by a high brick wall and suspiciously called ‘Narnia’ by the locals. We can buy eggs from the chicken coops and honey from the bee hives. Morning cake and afternoon tea happens every day in the staffroom, and the History Department secret drinks parties not that less often. The girls are intimidatingly ambitious, confident and focused, and I find myself setting higher goals for myself as I see what they go on to do. That said, I know I don’t want to spend my life making money for the richest people in the country, even with all the scholarships they do provide. I’m learning as much as I can while I work out how exactly I want to use it.

I’m living in a huge Victorian house 5 minutes’ walk from work, with a family of modern hippies and 3 other lodgers. While my room is neat and atmospheric, with high ceilings, a big old wardrobe and a fireplace, the rest of the house is stuffed to the rafters with old newspapers, paintings, bike wheels, plants, sacks of grains, telephones that don’t work, strings of fairy lights and dairy-free products.

I was assured on viewing the house that this was a intermediary phase while some rooms were prepared for foster kids (arriving in about 5 months, at which point I will be homeless). I soon realised that this kind of clutter takes years to accumulate and probably years to get rid of. But, it’s cosy and full of good cooking smells and there’s a pianola in the hall (the only house rule is it musn’t be played after midnight). We don’t use Wifi (it goes in your brain, you know), the microwave is safely placed in the pantry for the same reason, and all our soaps come from powdery paper bags. There’s an inexplicable, faint noise at all times that sounds exactly like the house has a heartbeat.

The family is sweet and laugh a lot watching TV in the room next to mine. The matriarch, my landlady, spends mornings a lot of mornings in her dressing gown composing songs on her guitar about how much she hates traffic. She married the 2 daughters’ father on the spur of the moment in City Hall, both of them and 6 of their friends all dressed as Groucho Marx. She grows herbs and vegetables and picks apples from the tree in the garden, and likes fixing things using the spare electronics she hoards. One of the other lodgers is editing the new Star Wars movie, one is a bald Finnish man with many granola products in his cupboard, and one is almost too Italian to function. He pronounces the word biodegradable (oft-used around here) ‘bee-oh-dee-grad-ablay’, and has been known to stand hungover in the kitchen, squeezing lemon after lemon into a glass and murmuring “Santa Maria!”

I don’t have many photos to share of the time since I got back, partly because I’ve broken the iPhone addiction (a situation I intend to rectify ASAP. My Blackberry has taken to rattling randomly from time to time, like a Horcrux.) I like Instagramming and having a photo journal to look back on, but it comes with its own complications. When your life isn’t so photogenic, or you’re in transit and aren’t quite sure who you are or what you want, let alone how to present yourself, how can you communicate that authentically to such a broad group of people? Do you even want to? I think our generation has these questions to consider in a way only celebrities did in the past.

I’m coming a bit later to the PUWY party than many of my friends, and maybe I’m overthinking it. But I’m enjoying feeling alone and connected, and empty and full, and scared and brave, all at the same time. It’s pretty exciting.

In the name of posterity and nostalgia, Japan pictures to follow. In the name of not being too pretentious or rambling, I’ll shut up now. It’s good to be back.

ta-ta to tatami

It's now only a month until I leave, and time is flying by. About 6 weeks ago, all I wanted to do was get back to some home comforts. Now, I'm trying to hold on to each moment and each dear friend while I still can. Last week I turned 23, had a cocktail party my apartment is still recovering from, was offered and accepted a job back home, played in a taiko festival for about 900 people, was blindsided by conflicting emotions, tasted my first and last Joyfull meal, went to a jam sesh with some buddies. It's been a whirlwind that's not letting up, and while I can't wait to get home to the people and new things waiting there, I know it'll take a while to get used to the change of pace.

So, I'm trying to handle the business of packing up and taking off as naturally as possible, and the first step is sending home ahead all all the mementos and souvenirs I've picked up along the way. I'll most likely never be back and, before I pack up, I want to remember this apartment as it is - and also give my successor a sneak peek tour of where she'll be living. 

This is the entrance, where you leave shoes and change into slippers. 

And this is what you see walking in

To the right is the bathroom corner

And straight ahead is one of the tatami rooms 

Unfortunately I'll be giving the stacks of records and player back to my neighbour! 

This is in the hallway to the left of the door

If you turn left you're in the wee kitchen

Keep on going and you're in the second tatami room

(The doors on the right lead back into the kitchen, the doors on the left lead into the other tatami room)

The kitchen door leads out onto the balcony 

When you come in the front door, do a u-turn left to go into the bedroom

And that's it! Hopefully this is useful to my successor in imagining life here. 

I never thought I'd be able to live alone, but there have been very few moments this year when I've felt lonely. 

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the graduate

Today I turn 22, and I have to say, this month has to have been one of the most eventful of my life. It started with a fantastic sailing trip to celebrate my parents' 25th wedding anniversary. It was followed by two of pretty massive and pretty difficult things that have already changed my life forever. And it was rounded off with a beautiful, sad and joyful last week in St Andrews graduating, partying, reminiscing and saying goodbye to some amazing friends. 

I was unbelievably happy to graduate with a First Class M.A (Hons) International Relations and Social Anthropology. I never expected it and (if you can't be smug now when can you?) I'm actually pretty proud that I managed to have such a full year outside of academia too.

The day itself was so lovely, filled with family and friends. It was so great to meet people's parents and siblings and to get the extra insight into where they come from and what makes them tick. 

The proceedings started with wine outside the IR building with my two best girls. We soon regretted the booze when our nerves began to build about walking on stage in heels and pencil skirts...

An hour later and, in the words of our Principal, we had become Masters. We all made it across the stage safely, stopping briefly to have the Principal hit us on the head with John Knox's breeches with the words "et super te". We processed proudly along North Street from Younger Hall to St Sal's Quad, stopping to stamp on the PH for the first time! 

It's now down to the wee brother to carry on the Patterson legacy in the Bubble! 

I've always thought that birthdays are a better time to evaluate life than New Year, and I like how mine falls between academic years. This year has been an incredibly busy and rich one. In many ways it's also been quite hard. I've made mistakes but I've corrected and learned from them as best I could. I've made difficult decisions under stress and learned how to support my family and friends in new ways. 

Outside of academia, I feel so lucky to have studied in a town where it's so easy to meet and mobilise like-minded people and achieve things together - whether editing magazines and journals, running life drawing, or doing student publicity for StAnza, these activities have taught me just as much as my professors and lecturers. I learned a lot in my job in University Development, but also from the fireside after parties in our cottage ending in sunrise walks; from spontaneous dancing on strangers' tables; conversations over cigarettes hanging out of windows; excursions into the North Sea; drawn-out potluck dinners; exhibitions and poetry slams; singing sessions by the piano; movies watched squeezed on to friends' beds. 

I'm so grateful to the wonderful people I've mey here for all the different ways of thinking and being that they've opened my mind to. I'm grateful to my parents for their unfailing support, encouragement, belief in me, and a solid cultural education! 

And I find it difficult to express how grateful I am to this guy. 

Next year is going to be vastly different, but just like St Andrews it will be challenging and exciting, and I know I leave with friends on every continent. Being surrounded by people from all over the world has been just as important as studying IR for me. I keep coming back to something Diana Athill wrote. While her life wasn't perfect, she said that the three years she spent at Oxford where important if only for the chunk of intense happiness they represented. That happiness - the ability to talk loudly and pretentiously in coffee shops unhindered, to participate in ancient traditions, learn and love without responsibility - set her up with a kind of mattress of pleasure and contentment to fall back on when things did get tough. 

This is largely how I feel about St Andrews. Now, I want to use what I've been lucky enough to learn in the hope that other people can have that same 'happiness mattress' too.