Today I slept in till very late, something I haven't done in ages. I was out late last night at Mandalyn's with friends from the bath Uni lgbt group. Yesterday was the last meeting of the semester, and since everyone will be revising next week, and then having exams the week after, I probably won't see many of them again, except for the few that will still be in Bath over the summer. Their year ends May 31, and I won't be back here till June 6.

I had a good time last night, just hanging out in the back of Mandalyn's talking and laughing. I'm going to miss everyone so much. Being part of the lgbt group at Bath Uni was such a rewarding experience. The meetings were well organized and usually quite educational. Each week there was usually a presentation on something, lgbt history for example, or campaigning, or transexuality. It was particularly interesting to learn about British lgbt culture and to share our American experiences.

England is much more progressive than the states in regards to lgbt stuff. They have civil partnerships here, you aren't barred from being in the military, and, in general, society is a lot more relaxed about people of different sexualities. Of course it must be said that my experience back in the states has been shaped by the fact that I grew up in a very rural area, and the fact that Bucknell's lgbt community is quite small. Being lgbt in a large city in the U.S. is often a different story. As it is being in Bath. Obviously it is a city, which makes a difference, and it has two big universities, and there is also Bristol near by, which has a few gay clubs.

Bath Uni has 11,000 students, so their lgbt population is quite big. The meetings are well attended, and with places like Mandalyn's it's easy to meet other lgbt folks. That doesn't mean it has been easy for all of my friends to come out, and some have experienced homophobic incidences on the Bath Uni campus, including being pushed around and being called names. And there isn't as much understanding in rural areas of England, or among the older generations, but on the whole, things are better here, certainly in a legal way anyway, and on a national level.

There are places in the U.S. which are great in terms of lgbt rights, like Massachusetts and Vermont and areas where it is great to be gay, like NYC and other cities. But then you have places like Florida where you can't even be a foster parent, and they are trying to ban any type of legal contract that gives you the rights you get under a marriage agreement ... or Texas where it's only in the last five years that they got rid of the law that made homosexuality illegal and that's because the Supreme Court got involved. As a nation, we have a way to go. Sorry -- I didn't mean to get so political, but I just find it frustrating that America, which is such a great nation in some ways, and is founded on the idea of freedom, is so behind the rest of the western world when it comes to lgbt rights.

Anyway, along with being rewarding on an activist/political/educational level, I also enjoyed the lgbt Bath Uni group because of all the friends I made. It was great to take the bus up to the Uni every week to see them, and then go down to Mandalyn's afterwards. It's been fun. And we don't always talk lgbt stuff. We talk about our families, music, TV, whether we would like to be twins, if we could change our names what would we change them to ... anything really.

Yesterday, one of the things we talked the most about was the difference in university systems. My friend found the varieties of schools in the U.S. to be astounding. The fact that there are colleges that only have 600 students and then there are some that have 50,000 was shocking to him. Of course, the U.S. is so much bigger than England, something which we all know on an informatinal level, but the actual comprehension of the size of the states can be hard.

I, myself, sometimes forget how big America is, and how much it can differ from state to state. We also tried to explain the differences between public and private, and of course we talked about the cost. The government has only just introduced fees here, and students complain about the cost, because it is a change from it being free, but the amount they are paying is nothing compared to what we are used to paying in the states. They have to maybe pay $6,000 a year and it is often subsidized. And yet, many people still struggle with the cost. The amounts we pay is incomprehensible to them. I guess part of it is that in America people know they are going to be paying tons for school, so they save up. Or go into debt. Or hopefully get a scholarship. Or chose a school based on how much you can pay, or how much they offer you to go there. Also, sports are big in colleges in the U.S., and they are not here. University is for academics. You can play sports, but it isn't valued like in the states.

So, back to today. Like I said before, I got up really late, and then decided to do something useful with my day. All this semester I have wanted to get up to see the place where my granparents lived the year I was six and my family and I lived in Manchester. I tried to find it a couple of weeks ago, but while I found some neat places, including Lansdowne Crescent, which has sheep grazing on it, I didn't find the road I was looking for.

Today I found it! And I recognized the street and the park, it was almost just like my memories, except everything seems smaller now. The playground is what I remember the most about visiting them and the set of bars that we played on is still there and they have added a set of swings. I used to have so much fun playing there. I sat down on a bench to write in my journal, and the children who were playing on the swings, still in their school uniforms, having just gotten out of school, called out to me. First they asked what I was writing, and then they asked if I would draw a picture of them. So I did, and the littlest one, who was playing on the bars, came over to watch. "She's drawing your head really fat, Tabby," she yelled to the other girl. So then Tabby and Tom P. came over to look at the picture I was drawing. Bea, who was five, then asked if she could draw something, and decided to draw me. Her picture is quite amusing. She asked if she should draw me in a dress.

"Well, I don't usually wear dresses," I said.
"Oh, are you a tomboy then?" she said.
"Yeah." I replied. Although I've never heard the word tomboy applied to anyone older than 12 or 13, it still does fit I suppose. :) She was cute.

I talked to Tabby, who is seven, for a while. She read over my shoulder and noticed that I wrote "mom" instead of "mum" and she thought that was funny. And her eyes got really big and round when I told her about the differences in American and British spellings of "color" and "colour" and "realize" and "realise."

"What about the word nose?" she asked.

"That's still spelled with an s," I said.

When I told her that cars are driven on the other side of the road in America, and the driver is on the other side of the car, she asked me if it was hard for me to drive here, since everything was mixed up. So I tried to explain that I don't know how to drive stick shift, "manual" as they call it here, so I can't drive the cars here. "Oh, you mean the thing in the middle with the letters on it?" she asked, not sure what a stick shift is.

And she giggled when I said that we say "pants" instead of trousers.

Actually, that reminds me of a funny story about the whole pants/trousers confusion. My housemates were talking about packing, and how difficult it is going to be to get everything back to the states. They were discussing the benefits of rolling versus folding clothes. "But what about pants?" my roommate asked, "Do you roll or fold them?"

"Why do either?" I said, "I normally just shove them in where-ever they fit. You don't really take the time to fold them do you?"

"Um, Jessica, we're talking in American," they said.

"What?"

"We're talking about the things you call trousers. Not underwear."

"Oh!"

Haha. I totally thought we were talking about underwear. Oh English.

Well, I shall leave this here, I should get to bed. I have GayWest tomorrow morning, and then I have a camping party tomorrow night which I'm excited about. Hopefully the rain will hold off.

P.S Sarah, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one with the Meriland/Mary-Land problem! And it also annoys the hell out of me that the moment I open my mouth I'm marked as an American. It sometimes doesn't even take more than one word, and then they are asking where I'm from. Of course this can come in handy sometimes. Last weeken,d my favorite American author Jodi Picoult was here in Bath signing books. (It was sooooo amazing to meet her!!!) As soon as I opened my mouth, she surprisingly asked, "Oh, where are you from?" And I knew she meant where in the States.

"Maryland" I said, the way I would normally. And then of course came the questions of why I was here, so I explained how we (my housemate who is a huge fan came along with me) were studying abroad, etc. So this was one time I was glad to have a recognizable accent. In this instance I was happy to be an American meeting another fellow American. She seemed really excited to meet us, which was cool. :)

For anyone how hasn't read any of Jodi Picoult's books, you are really missing out, she is awesome! Try The Pact, or My Sister's Keeper. They'll blow you away.

Good luck with the rest of finals!!