Badminton

I played badminton yesterday for the first time in about 10 years. Americans don't play badminton - to find a club I had to drive around 40 miles to the University of Oklahoma campus in Norman, and the other players were almost all foreign students at OU - Asians and Europeans. I was the oldest person there by about 15 years and certainly the least skilled, but it was fun.

Teddy bears in the pews

Yesterday I played the organ at a church which had teddy bears seated on all the pews, and where the pianist played all the hymns in a style which sounded like Barry Manilow on speed. The fact that in Oklahoma none of this is particularly unusual is a very good example of why this will never really feel like home.

Greetings

Today, as I was walking across the university campus where I'm now doing some part-time teaching, an attractive young woman, who I didn't recognise, smiled at me as she passed and said 'Hi, how ya doin'?' In the UK, this would certainly be a come-on, but here it's simply a standard greeting between strangers. I think.