Englishness in California

I walked into the kitchen, straight from finishing painting my studio. I'd just painted the floor with that grey floor paint that gives you a headache. I had paint in my hair, on my face, all over my clothes. I've been wearing some pyjama bottoms and a cheap stripy top to paint in, for days and they smell now. I looked a mess. A girl I didn't know was hanging out with Dana and her friends in our kitchen. She asked me where I was from. She had the poshist most upper class, cut glass English accent you've ever heard. Proper blue blood. I stood there thinking, 'I'm too scruffy to speak to you, I'm too much of a pleb'. It feels weird to feel class anxiety in America. How did that travel? It was very bemusing for the Americans to understand that this girl's voice could have the effect of intimidating me.

Fashion rules are different here. Students are not aiming for sharp or smooth. They are aiming for an affected not-botheredness. On purpose ugly. This works best on thin people with tans. There is also a rather bizarre style called Hifi, which involves lots of neon fabric and old skool hip-hop shapes and accessories. This generally means my style kind of sticks out. But actually, I get people coming up to me complimenting me on my dress sense. Which is nice. Who wants to be skinny and tanned when you have style?

I was asked recently what I miss. I realised then, I just miss my friends and family. Thats all. I have loads of Yorkshire Teabags. So its just people I miss. BTW I love the canteen food here. Fresh salads and lots of fresh organic veggie bakes that sort of thing. And at the weekend, breakfast burrittos, yum!

Read Allan Sekula's 'The Body and The Archive'. It is an amazing essay on photography, portraits, collections, archives and criminal photography. Its an amazing piece of text that is so well researched and just flows. It is really beautiful. Unfortunately, his teaching has no such flow. He is one of the big reasons why I came here, but I find him a big let down. I really get the impression he is seriously unimpressed by me. I thinking I'm going to drop his Globalisation class. I have 3 heavy classes on Thursday followed by the artist's lecture at 7pm followed by the usual exhibition openings on campus Thursday nights. Its just not working. I hear he does a great History of Photography, next semester. I hope maybe without a more coherent topic he will be more engaging.

The word that people ask me to say for them most often is 'dirty'. Apparently it sounds much dirtier with a British accent.