What Happens at the Dinner Table

This week I posted my ballot. For two weeks now I’ve been on edge, waiting for my ballot to come in the mail; I watched Hannah’s and Victoria’s come, and from home I heard that my father had received his safely. This Monday, my beloved ballot finally came to me. By this time, my political woes were causing small ripples in Holly Grove 4; and suddenly we were swapping stories of politicians, views, and socialism.

One of the girls in my dorm, Fiona, told me she identifies with socialism. This was a staggering shock. When I first arrived in Belfast, I noticed the Karl Marx posters hung up by a Socialist Group on campus, and I saw other posters talking about Capitalism in Crisis. I filed this away, attributing it to the rantings and ravings of a minority group.

It was not until last week, when I accidentally found myself in a the middle of an abortion debate, that I realised socialism is more prominent than I thought. For after the lecture a group of women gathered around and one said, rather loudly, “I’m a socialist, can’t you tell?”

Because my high school raised me in accordance with accepted American teachings, my first response was to fly across the room, put a hand over her mouth, close the curtains, sit the woman down, give her a cup of tea, and tell her calmly that we were going to get through this. My second instinct was that I must not have been paying very much attention to my high school teachers, because I really hadn’t the faintest idea of what socialism is, except that a few years ago there were Socialist Obama posters going around the web.                                

I took my troubles to Fiona, who is a saint for listening to all of my Northern Irish woes, and when she told me she, too, was a socialist, once I had fought the ghost of McCarthy in my head, I sat down and started trying to research it. I know Fiona is a rational person, so it must be me, I reasoned, that the problem lay with, and not the entire country of Northern Ireland.

This bothered nobody except Hannah, who thinks that it is a crazy idea to supplement 300 page novels satirizing mankind (Gulliver's Travels) and 20 page poems about how a haircut is a symbolic rape (Rape of the Lock) with Karl Marx and The Soul of Man under Socialism books. She, like a sane human being, is reading Derek Landy books in her free time, which means she bursts into laughter every time she turns a page, and I have to puzzle over whether or not Oscar Wilde is being facetious.

What bothers my Norn Irish flatmates is that we do not understand the charm in Obama.

Hannah is vocal about her political opinions, whereas I tend to hover on the sidelines and watch the debates, nodding and biting my lip. When she got her ballot, she made clear that she was going to support Mitt Romney, because she does not like Obama.

“How can you not like Obama?” the girls asked in a chorus, wide-eyed with suprise.

We gave long, descriptive answers, to which they politely half-listened. “Why do you like Obama?” we asked.

We received varied answers, such as his voice, his age, his good looks, how Michelle Obama was on Disney Channel. Hannah shook her head at me, and said, "All Europeans are the same; they all like Obama," and she told me about her Italian teacher in high school, who had been enamoured of our president.

 Realising we were stubborn about our presidential nominees, told us to vote for Vermin Supreme, and gasped in astonishment when we told them we had no idea who he was. Chelsea whipped out her iPhone, and soon we were learning all about my favorite write-in candidate (who describes himself as a fascist. I’m sensing a pattern here.) Suddenly we were on the topic of their politics, and they told us all about London’sdrugged-up mayor as we swapped misbehaving politician stories (such as the incident where a man threw his shoes at George Bush).

The day before this, I had gone and posted my ballot. I clutched it tightly to my chest as I took it to the post office. I felt as if I had my weight in gold in my backpack, and was so nervous I could hardly notice the leaves falling off of the trees, or feel grateful for the sunny weather we were having. When I got to the post office, it was empty, and I had no excuse to loiter and check over my ballot again. A woman glared at me until I stepped forward and asked to know how much I needed to pay for my ballot. 

"Put it on there," she said, nodding sharply at a little silver weight by me. There was a glass partition between her and I, and it was hard to understand her at all. I placed it on the scale and watched the numbers rise.

"Pound ninety," she said. 

"I'm sorry?" 

"A pound ninety." 

 I pulled the change from my pocket, accidentally pulling out two gold pounds and then two 50p coins. She deftly readjusted my change, handing me back one of my pound coins, and then gave me my change. I put the money away, and then taped my ballot together agonisingly slowly. 

The woman noticed my reluctance to let go of it and said, “Is it important?”

“Yes,” I said, looking sorrowfully at it. If I could, I would have escorted it all the miles back to Michigan, just to ensure it arrived safely.

“You want overnight shipping?”

I asked how much. It came out to seven pound, which was too dear, and so in the end I handed it over with only a stamp and a blue sticker that read AIR MAIL.

“Shall I post it?” she asked. By this time she was annoyed with me, even though there was no one in line behind me. I was wasting her time with my strange attachment to this brown envelope.

“Please,” I said, and she took it from me and tossed it cruelly into a cotton bag with other people’s bills and letters and lives. I had to stifle a cry. 

To cheer me up (that's actually a lie. It had nothing to do with cheering me up) Victoria had us sign up for a trip to an aquarium on Saturday, which I am fairly excited about. Victoria and I are hoping for sharks. Hannah is not. 

What did end up cheering me up was our visit to China China today. It was a Chinese Buffet, which offered me my first taste of duck (gamey, chicken-like stuff that I will not eat again), and some old favorites. it went well, until Hannah ate too much. Then we went shopping for Halloween costumes in all of the thrift stores. Victoria wants to be Little Red Riding Hood. Hannah is going to be a Go-Go girl. I bought a book on anthropology and called it a moot point, because I'm probably not going to do anything for Halloween anyway, so why would I need a costume? 

We trudged home (my feet have been bothering me again),  and met up with two British girls, Jennifer and Rebecca, for our Friday night movie. Last week we watched Easy A, and tonight we watched Notting Hill. One of the characters was purportedly Welsh, and if that was an accurate accent, I don't think I care for it all that much. 

What is truly alarming is how much I've taken to British English. It sounds affected when I say things like "biscuit" and "cheerio" and "mum", even though it slides off of everyone elses' tongue. But it's gotten to the point that words like "cookie" and "mom" sound weird, even downright wrong. A few nights ago I was watching an American show I got for free on iTunes, that new retelling Beauty and the Beast, and the accents bothered me so much that I got a headache. Soon I'll start calling "Zee" "Zed" and I'll stop forgetting that there's a u in labour. 

Then I'll come back home, and I'll have completely forgotten how to spell. 

But, until then, I will enjoy spelling words differently, and I will eat my custard biscuits and toast my Wheaton bread, and I will read Karl Marx. 

Although I'm not certain if I'll clear immigrations with that particular author on my nook.