1 month to go...

Yes, it’s approximately 1 month until I jet off across the pond to revel in the American student 

life for one semester.  I thought that writing before I go would be interesting/irritating for 

myself.  Irritating in the fact that it is almost certain that I will forget something/lose something 

on my journey over, which I could have reminded myself on here to take/remember.  

Interesting because, who knows, as soon as I hit American soil ANYTHING could happen...I 

may be lured into a crazy religious cult, persuaded to drop out of college to pursue my 

unbeknown American Dream, or grow my hair long and become a desperate housewife.  In 

theory they COULD all happen, due to my curiosity of what it’s really like in the US; I want to 

live the culture.  I do also want to come out of 3 years at university with an alright degree 

sooo making a living out of beauty pageants probably won’t assist a degree in English 

whatsoever and so to the University of Iowa for a semester I go.     

Me? Real housewife of Iowa city?!

Ok, so maybe not too alluring.

Preparation

So being a fairly (very) laid back person about most things - even a trip to America, where I 

will be living for 5 months - I have done a little bit of preparation (WHY HAVE I NOT DONE 

MORE?!!!).  But I’m confident that I’ve checked off the essential ‘to dos’ so when I get there 

everything will fall into place (I really, really hope it does).  My preparation:

1.  Firstly, I have effectively been preparing for this for years through the medium of 

American trashy T.V. which has given me an (admittedly skewed) insight into the American 

culture, including:  

• 90210 (covers the Californian lifestyle)
• Keeping up with the Kardashians (the American family life)
• The Hills (clearly helpful with the student life over there).  

OBVIOUSLY this is just the result of a misspent youth and a substitute for doing actual 

serious organisation (in the past few months I have nearly been adopted myself into the 

Kardashian family and changed my name to Kannah).  Yes, this list does not show normal 

priorities BUT you can’t deny, all these programmes are AWESOME (see, American lingo 

showing through right there) and have been invaluable to my ongoing American accent 

improvements. 

2.  I have somewhere to live. Sooo this probably should have been number one priority, but 

I did actually pull my finger out and apply for University Halls.  I got the e-mail telling me I 

had a shared 4 bed apartment in ‘Hawk’s Ridge’. And then I googled it...OH MY GAWWD 

was heard from me (in an American accent, obvs), staring at the almost holiday-home type 

apartment on my screen.  Fully equipped with a gym, tanning room (LOL), jacuzzi and 

games room, Hawk’s Ridge looks like the place to be.  Now, I don’t want to make y’all 

jealous, but it looks freeeeaking amazing! 

3.  Visa.  Important and boring generally go together for most things, and the same applies 

for a visa.  Except it’s also, in my opinion, a money spinner.  They reaaally don’t seem to like 

outta towners in the U.S. if the fee is anything to go by.  The whole process feels like U.S. 

officials have put together an endurance test to see if you are truly ready to enter the states.  

The U.S. embassy was, in effect, a boot camp to see if you can stand the boredom you will 

find in airport and immigration queues.  In return you get a cool stamp/sticker in your 

passport.  Coincidentally, this also allows you into their country for a while, so the 

complaining is comforting for me, but totally irrelevant.  AND the picture on the visa is better 

than my passport photo so the cool sticker is an absolute winner.



Off to do some more 'planning' (i.e. making lots of lists)

Hannah x