In order to give you’ll an image of where I’m living, I will describe this here.
First of all my campus: UT is a huge campus with 26000 students who walk over the whole campus to reach there classes. This makes me feel like cattle. 7000 of the 26000 students live on campus in halls. These are big buildings. I live at Andy Holt, with 1100 other students! There is always something to do. In the first few weeks I got to know at least 50 people. Everyone is great, but you need to make some decisions with who you’r gonna hang out with otherwise you need 36 hours in a day! So right now I met this crazy, lovely girl from Mexico, and further more I hang out with an Italian girl, some Spanish guys, some Americans and a Brazilian guy.
It’s one of the biggest smaller universities and has a good reputation, partly due to their football team which will play their first home game this Saturday. Off course I will go there (tickets are free for students) and everyone will dress up in orange because that’s the colour of UT (quite useful because the orange clothes I can wear in NL as well).
Lucky students have an scholarship, otherwise you have to pay 15000!!! dollars!
Study here is taken seriously, although we go out and have trips every week. You must attend the classes, that’s part of your grade as well! It’s like highschool or a higherschool: not really an university in my dictionary but ok. The teachers are all friendly and some of mine really up to date. For instance, one plays a video from youtube in the class from Rage Against the Machine!
Everything you need is on campus: swimmingpool is right down my hall: one outdoor, 2 indoors, the 3 gyms as well, football fields, 24 tenniscourts climbing hall and so forth. There are shops, restaurants and stuff and even pregnancy centers, but no shoppingmalls with fresh vegetables. For that you need a car because the mall, were you can buy approximately anything (clothes are freaking cheap and nice), which is 15 min away of campus by car. The center of Knoxville is boring: no shopping centers or a real center. All over campus are off course churches as well. We’r living here in the bible belt and that’s quite noticeable. Everyday there are some extreme preachers at the big library at the corner of the street saying being gay is a national treat, drinking is a sin and so forth: so in the end: we all go to hell!!!! Well: I rather go to hell without him then with him in heaven!
I haven’t said anything yet about the prejudice of Americans. Well, I can tell you this: everything is big! As in everything I really mean everything!: sport, cars, streets, buildings, FOOD, MALLS and PEOPLE. Wow! I haven’t seen so many disgusting fat people! That’s understandable since in restaurants food is served on giant plates: you NEED a doggybag for it, one order of coke, and the rest is free refill. Guys here look all the same: hat (always this stupid hat), same hair, t’shirt dodgy pants and sneakers. Girls here, when you go out, look like slets and prostitutes: I’m sorry but it’s true: they dress up… in almost nothing and are even more willing to get a guy then the otherway around. The netherlands? they’v never heard of it: Amsterdam????……… aaaah yes! There you can smoke joints no? that’s great you’lll! (local word= U’ll as in you all). Churches are major here: religion is it! People are often blind and don’t see that Bush and his goverment is seen in Europe as the most stupidest goverment ever, don’t believe in climate change although it has been above 30 C here for 4 weeks, which never happens.
There are no centers in cities, which make you wondering around and searching for shoppping centers which are out of the city most of the time, even in cities like Atlanta and Chicago.
Though, I must admit, everyone is friendly here. They take you with a boat-trip, car, anything. Maybe that’s because you’r an international student as well. that doesn’t matter.
So, every prejudice you have about America and Americans, is probably true.
See here for pics of my life here at Knoxville.
