A bit of humo(u)r at my expense

In lieu of a recap of consisting of "Today in class, I...", I will give you a brief rundown of the quirks of British-ness (as I have experienced them). They are in no particular order.

Erin's Big, Grand List of Weird Things From Her Time Studying Those Peculiar Folk, The British

1. THE WORDS. Perhaps the largest and most obvious category. Yes, I speak English and they speak English, but there are times where I come to question that. I have pretty much resigned myself to either ask someone what something is or restate what I am saying, at least once a day. A week ago, I asked someone where the bathroom is. He told me "We don't have a bathroom here, but the toilets are that way." Awkward. Their "mince" is my "ground beef". When I told my flatmates this, they burst out laughing. Today, I wanted to find out how to drop a class. The man I asked was under the impression that I wanted the abstract concept of a "class" to reach terminal velocity. I have been able to get away with saying "Pants" (UK Trousers) and they haven't called me on it... yet. I'm sure I will have countless more examples to add to this section, but those are the freshest in my memory.
2. THE MONEY. There are £1 and £2 coins. Also a 20p piece. The coins are all different shapes and colors and thicknesses, I suspect, to confuse me when I'm at the till (US register).
3. THE CREDIT CARDS. An addendum to item two. UK credit cards have a golden chip embedded in them about as big as my thumbprint. They punch in their PIN to pay for things after using the chip-reader thingy. I, meanwhile, have to have my card swiped and held for ransom. The price? My signature. I always feel like I'm inconveniencing someone when I display my chip-less card. The swipe function on some of the card readers can be temperamental, so it's always a good idea to carry a second card and/or cash.
4. NUMBERING THE FLOORS. The British floor system works like this: the Ground Floor, One, Two, Three etc. Ground Floor is the zero-eth floor. Imagine my surprise when I saw that one of my classes was on floor -1. What is this? Answer: it's the first floor of the basement.
5. CROSSING THE ROAD. The UK drives on the left side of the road. They also use stick-shift cars, but that's not my point. It always confuses me when I get to a crosswalk. I just end up looking in all the directions, just to be safe.
6. METRIC SYSTEM. The British use the metric system. I, as someone with an interest in the sciences, have a rough idea of some of the metric things. However, drinks are sold in centilitres. I've been taught to think in milliliters. Pints and half-pints manage to hang on in this environment. I had to relearn that a pint is 2 cups. When did I last need to know this? Yards and Miles/Hour also are still a thing here. The time is 24hr time, for the most part. Some people still write 4pm instead of 1600. I can think in 24 hr time and I can think in am/pm time, but not at the same time! Dates are written as day/month/year. My program told me about a girl who had an exam on June 5th, turns out it was on May 6th and she read the date wrong. Yikes.
7. CLASSES. The in-class hours are not that long. We are expected to do most of the learning outside the classroom. We have recommended reading lists. We do not have weekly tests. The British believe that any simpleton can memorise and parrot back info. What really proves that you've learned something is by defending, explaining and exploring ideas (read: essays). For example, my first assignment is about comparing and contrasting the roles of oncogenes and tumor-suppressor genes, then incorporating a recent primary article about them (I chose the topic from a list of three). One essay, 1000 words, 20% of my grade. No pressure. Grades are also different. A passing grade is about a 40% and that's what your baseline is. The prof will add or subtract points from there. A and B+ grades are rare, and require dedication (possibly asceticism).  Luckily, IFSA has a handy UK to US grade conversion system.

Take Note: Just because you read Harry Potter, watch Monty Python/Sherlock/Doctor Who/BBC nature documentaries/whathaveyou, have a love of British humour and accents, and listen to the BBC correspondents on NPR does not mean that you are completely immune to culture shocks and know all there is to know about the UK. The culture shocks will just be smaller things that everyone else kinda takes for granted while you struggle to reconcile the familiar and unfamiliar. And then you start noticing the heimlich inside the unheimlich and then this blogpost goes into meta-Freud territory. A little deep for a fluff-piece. But, it's the weekend! I'll toast to that!

Cheers!