Expat Q & A - Perceptions of Expat Life in the USA

The great thing about the expat Q & A hosted by the lovely Belinda and Bailie is that it makes me realize that my expat life is, well, normal.

This month's expat Q & A is about how others perceive expat life. It's been fascinating to read the other responses because there seems to be some universally shared experiences. No matter where a blogger moved from or to it appears that their friends and family think they're living a fairytale life abroad, a constant vacation.

But really, it's just life.

Everyday, boring, normal, quotidian, mundane life. And sometimes (most of the time) that life is pretty good. So here are my answers to this month's questions, but don't forget to check out the rest too!

Question #1: How does your family and friends back home perceive your new life, and is it accurate?

Actually, I think most of my friends and family have a realistic impression of how life in the USA works now. I talk about ordinary things like my commute to work, buying a car, nights in with my husband, networking, etc.

But when I still lived in Britain and first discussed moving to America, I usually got one of two responses:

1. Wow! That's so glamorous! America, that's cool!
2. So, how do you really feel about moving to a country without public healthcare?

I won't go into the second response here (yet) but the first one is interesting, because it's kind of related to what I said in my guest post on A Compass Rose about the UK impression of the US. It's often one-sided, but America has so many sides.

Two very different sides of America

There is a side of America that's fast-moving, cosmopolitan, urban, and exciting. And then there is the side of America that is vast, open, rustic, and fascinating.

And I live slap bang in the middle of both. Yes, I live very close to two of the biggest cities in the country (Philadelphia and New York). But my daily commute involves all aspects of US living: driving past corn fields and cows, along multi-lane suburban pikes past shopping malls, through little towns, and even a stint on a highway for good measure.

So while my friends know that I'm not on a constant vacation, and I don't live on fast food, I'm not sure they get a whole picture of the contrasts of American living.

Murals in Philly

Hot Dogs in New York

Cabela's - the outdoor outfitters

Question #1: Do you find the need to edit your life from friends and family? 

At the beginning, I definitely did, for fear of disappointing them!

I know that's silly, but after my friends and family had been so supportive in the lead-up to my emigrating from the UK to the USA, I didn't want them to think that I wasn't living the American Dream.

The truth is, those first few months of immigration and expattery can be really hard, and after all the hype and expectation, I didn't want people to worry, or to think I'd made a mistake.

But now, now I'm settled and life is normal, and wonderfully so, I'll confide and talk about my daily frustrations. Recently I had an hour long Skype chat with a friend in Scotland because we're both looking at buying used cars, and that's a universal pain!

"Shame"

In the past week my alma mater has hit the news several times. It's been covered in the local press, national radio, and even on news sites on this side of the pond.

 It didn't make for pleasant reading.

That's disheartening for a proud alumnus because Glasgow University is a fantastic educational institution, with a great culture and campus atmosphere.

Students at Glasgow have since made a protest against sexism, on International Womens' Day, which makes me proud, but also actually a little ashamed.

Just under ten years ago I arrived on campus at Glasgow University for freshers' week, excited about the week and the years ahead of me. Before I'd left home for Glasgow people told me that I would be a 'QM girl'. This apparently meant that I loved 'alternative' music, and that on some level, I was proud to be a woman.

QM stands for Queen Margaret, who is often credited with bringing learning to Scotland. The Queen Margaret Union (QMU) is one of the two student unions on the campus. The other is the Glasgow University Union, although both are equally official and part-funded by the university. The GUU had begun as a male-only institution, so the QMU had started, at the turn of the 20th century, to cater for female students.

To clarify, UK universities don't have sororities (I'm still not entirely sure what a fraternity or sorority is). Instead UK universities have student unions, usually spaces on campus that provide various services to students including advice and support, as well as leisure, cheap food, and drink.

Glasgow is unique in having two unions, a remnant from the days when they were segregated. Although the QMU became co-ed in the 70s, and the GUU in the 80s, both retained distinct characteristics, and students could actively choose one to join. For some, including myself, it was a source of campus identity.

The stereotype of the GUU was rugby, tweed, cheap beer, excellent debating and a hint of chauvinism. The stereotype of the QMU was grunge, goth, lgbt, cheap jack daniels and a historical sense of feminism.

There was an ancient rivalry between the two buildings, sat at opposite sides of the campus. During the freshers' week address representatives from both sides would don colored t-shirts and cheer for their own side. Within a gothic building often said to have been considered as a set for Hogwarts, there was an amazing buzz of excitement not unlike Houses roaring for their Quidditch teams.

During my freshers' week the GUU hit the news for a headline in their daily newsletter, Filth. "No means yes and yes means harder" it said, a phrase that was condemned by rape support groups. I'm not sure it had any effect on my decision to join the QMU, to be honest, because that was going to happen anyway.

The stereotypes of the two unions were well-known. A campus staff-member once told me about a group called the "Freds", who watched Tom and Jerry cartoons (by Fred Quimby) in the GUU during lunchtime, followed by hardcore porn, while feminists known as "The Women's Group" protested outside on the streets.

That happened way before my time on campus, but these feminists were remembered in the QMU's constitution, which recognised continuing  support for "The Women's Group", and even though the group no longer existed, the clause remained just in case it was ever needed again.

After the GUU became co-ed in the 1980s, a men's group known as the 139 was formed. It honored the 139 GUU members who had voted against allowing female members. They were known to have male-only dinners and drinking sessions which were rumored to have elaborate rules. One I heard about was that they'd all stand in silence if a woman entered the room.

I don't have a problem with single-sex groups in principle, as long as their raison d'etre isn't purely to exclude. Oxford University has its notorious Bullingdon Club. St.Andrews University had a male group for a long time, named after a woman, Kate Kennedy (KK). The KK no longer exists though, after male members voted to admit women last year.

Having risen through the ranks of the QMU's board, I once attended a (different) dinner at the GUU, and was seated with some members of the notorious 139. They asked me if I was offended by their 'banter'. I was offended, but I just looked at them blithely, and said "it all just seems a bit homoerotic to me". They laughed.

While the GUU and QMU had had at times a vicious rivalry, that wasn't the case when I was a student. It was a post 9/11 world, the economy was good, but the two unions were both struggling financially and often worked together to achieve goals on campus. I enjoyed the GUU: I ate, drank, danced and socialized there, just not as much as at the QMU.

The unions both had particular cultures which were caricatured by their stereotypes. The GUU has had many female members and board members, though to my knowledge still hasn't had a female president (I'm wrong, see comments below. The GUU has had a handful of female presidents). In my final year I ran for election as QMU President, but lost out to a male friend. Incidentally, since going co-ed, the QMU has had more male presidents than female, although overall it's had far more women leading the Union.

I was disappointed when I read about the sexist comments that the Cambridge students experienced. I admit I don't know exactly what happened beyond what the news reports say, but what strikes me is that incident rings true to a stereotype with which I am familiar.

I was proud to see the protest in response, and the petition. And that's where I feel a bit embarrassed.

You see, I was a proud QMU member and proud female student, but my derision of campus misogyny was never really more than a sense of snobbery. As one friend pointed out to me this week, people who didn't like one union could just join the other, rather than attempting to make positive changes.

I asked another girlfriend and former 'QM girl' what she thought about the sexism accusations, and she replied, "I was smug because I was not one of them…when instead we should have made a stand against it.  In a way our joining the QMU gave us this shield that said 'well obviously I am against sexism, I am in the QMU'. Because others had made a stand in the past, we didn't need to bother because we co-opted their fight through our shared QMU membership."

We were passive feminists. We let boys be boys, maybe expecting that one day their jokes would get tired. I'm sure there wouldn't have been a cultural sea-change had we joined the GUU, but perhaps in an indirect way we perpetuated the GUU's culture.

A recent thread on Reddit asked school bullies why they used to bully. Many of the responses were from people who didn't realize that they were bullying, they thought that they were being funny and didn't realize that others didn't find them funny too.

It took an outsider, a member of neither the GUU or the QMU, a student from Cambridge, another Russell Group University like Glasgow, to point out the jokes are tired and no longer funny.

The incident at Glasgow and the media coverage seems to have resulted in a different kind of debate to the one that sparked the frenzy. I hope that can be a good thing.

Is blog really a dirty word?

Let's be clear straight away: Blogging is not journalism. It's not old journalism, and it's not even new journalism. I'm not being snobbish when I say that: I'm a blogger, not a journalist.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a longer piece about why bloggers need to be honest about their business models. This is in part because trade guidelines require it, but also because much of their business depends on readership, and readers need to be rewarded for their loyality (and custom) with honesty.

It was interesting then for me to read several articles about dishonesty and the bad reputation that blogging sometimes earns.

However, I don't particularly identify with the type of blogging mentioned in ManRepeller.com's piece Blog is a dirty word. I don't mean that I can't identify blogs like that in the blogger world; I can. But that's not me. And it's certainly not the entire blogosphere. It's a part of the blogosphere.

Ditto this article, Fashion blogging has a transparency problem. This op-ed highlights some of the problems I mentioned last week; including a lack of dishonesty about advertising and funding.

These pieces are interesting, and I don't disagree with them, but I think there are a couple of take-aways about blogging that I have from these pieces. First, blogging is still a relatively new medium. Online journaling has been around for 15-20 years, Blogger itself was launched in 1999, but it's evolving as a style.

Second, blogging is not journalism. If you Google "blogging is not journalism" you'll find some interesting debate on the matter, but I think I'm right in saying that they are very different mediums.

Blogging takes many forms. In essence there are two kinds, which I outlined, but the style and variety of blogging means it's hard to generalize. There are the lookbook fashion blogs, with product reviews and self-portraits. There are almost-journalism blogs, or citizen-journalism blogs, with investigative stories that the mainstream news didn't cover or didn't uncover. There are person stories, fictional pieces, craft and DIY and much much more. But what is similar for most of these is that they are organic, most are home-grown. Most have an element of stream of consciousness, an unfinished what-happens-next feeling. Some of that is deliberate, designed to make the reader come back. Some of that is simply because blogging allows for the discussion of unfinished thoughts.

Another distinction is that Journalism is not narcissism. Or it's not meant to be. 

There are similarities with journalism. News journalism will have that what-happens-next-feeling as news unfolds or as follow-up stories are investigated. Plus news journalism can cover many subjects too. But it's tightly written (even online), and bound by different grammar and code. Journalists are trained to find facts, cover all sides of a story, and to do so ethically. Some journalists also blog, but they are probably journalists first and foremost.

Journalism resource Poynter recently asserted this though: Don't assume journalists have more training than bloggers in truth-telling. Journalists may have qualified to be journalists by learning to code, write copy, interview subjects and to abide by media law. Bloggers don't need to qualify to become bloggers. And a lot of them are very good.

The Man Repeller article actually defends blogging as symptomatic of an under-employed Gen Y populace finding their own way (and own income) as digital entrepreneurs:

"Darwinism will always prevail. The strong will continue to survive and the weak will eventually begin to weed off. The question is, what will make us strong? It seems like the blogging landscape must tackle some serious change."

There's no official qualification to become a blogger. And that's the point. It is not journalism.  Sometimes it may pretend to be, but at heart it doesn't want to be. I believe the problems with honesty and advertising will continue for a while as commercial blogging comes of age. Light-touch regulations such as the FTC guidelines will become more important, but there will always be problems with blogging and authenticity and honesty that doesn't (or shouldn't) exist in the journalism world (more on media law later though).

Blogging and journalism are both democratic now by nature, and readers will always be able to call out bloggers for making mistakes, whether factual, ethical, or business.
I am still studying towards my diploma in journalism, and for a time I wanted to pursue a career in pure journalism, although I was a little apprehensive. I realized that being apprehensive doesn't fit with pursuing a career in journalism, but I can use old and new journalistic skills and techniques in other ways. That's not dirty in the slightest, in fact, I think that's the point.

What do you think? I'd love to know. As I'm still working through my journalism courses, and pursuing similar interests, I'd love to keep blogging my thoughts on media and culture. What do you think about Monday slot on these themes?

Five UK shows I wish BBC America would broadcast

Me petitioning the BBC to show more programs in the USA (actually I was working and that didn't cross my mind, sadly).

I do love American television. I really do. There's just something so garish and gluttonous and appealing about it. Watching US TV is like going for a sneaky midnight drive-thru meal: It's so wrong it's just perfectly right.

But sometimes I miss the hearty, reliable stodge of Old Blighty's television. I miss smooth deadpan voiceovers and useful signals that commercials are going to begin. 

BBC America is there for those moments, but only sometimes. It's catered more to the American Anglophile rather than to the British expat market, and is filled with Dr Who and Top Gear re-runs.

Here are five shows that are quintessentially British, and that I think BBC America would do well to show. Not only because I want to watch them myself, but also because I think Americans would get a kick out of them.

1. Come Dine With Me

 

Premise: Complete strangers host dinner parties for each other. They judge and rate each other's evenings, and at the end of the week the winner takes home a thousand bucks.

This daytime TV format turned prime-time hit has all the elements of British society. 

First, it's like a disastrous cooking show with amusingly amateurish results. Secondly, it has that keyhole voyeurism we all enjoy from the likes of house-buying shows and MTV's Cribs. Third, it has a competitive element and, of course, a supremely sarcastic voice-over. 

My American Mom-In-Law loves it. BBC America actually used to show it, but then stopped for seemingly no reason. Perhaps Americans couldn't believe how terrible Brits are at cooking, or why we have an obsession with poking around in other people's wardrobes. Either way, America has about thirty seasons to catch up on by now. Shame.

2. The Great British Bake Off

Premise: Talented, lovely, chipper Brits prepare baked goods in a marquee on the grounds of an English stately home. It is exactly as twee as it sounds.

Mark and I tried the infamous eight plait bread from the latest series of Great British Bake Off. We were quite proud!
Not quite up to Paul Hollywood's standards though.

The Great British Bake-Off was a surprise hit in the UK because it captured a zeitgeist for patriotic escakeism. It is the complete antithesis to every competitive cooking program on American television.

Unlike Cupcake Wars or Cake Boss, Bake Off is understated and charming. The competitors are all nice. Two baking pros, a formidable bread-master and an exacting cake lady, interact with a female comedy presenting duo for a lilting cookery show that, surprisingly, oozes with subtle innuendo.

Late last year US channel CBS ordered an American series of Bake Off, although the women's institution that is Mary Berry already announced that she would not be involved. I'm very excited, but also intrigued to see if the charming and gentile format will translate well to this brash and proud country. Regardless, I hope whoopie pies are involved.

3. Coronation St

 

Premise: Working class people living on a cobbled street in Northern England work in an underwear factory, go to the pub and have marital affairs. Almost every day. For over fifty years. It's The longest television soap in the world.

The whining drone of the theme tune was the punctuation to my evening since I was very young. I grew up on a diet of soap operas at dinner.  My undergrad dissertation supervisor even had a PhD in Corrie.

If you've never seen it before, take a look at this classic scene where a young character advises an old neighbor on how to get rid of the weeds in his paved back yard. It's that perfect balance of voyeurism, banality and jovial innuendo that makes the show, along with irresistably trashy yet brilliant story writing.

It saddened me that emigrating meant I would have to resort to nefarious means of accessing my daily fix of this domestic drama. The great news is that Hulu started streaming the show on a two week delay just last month, but I still think BBC America should syndicate the show for the expat market.

 

This is actually Valley Forge and nothing to do with Coronation St

4.  Have I Got News For You / 8 Out of 10 Cats

 

Premise: Well known public figures and comedians sit at a large desk for a weekly quiz, and make timely quips about the news, providing large helpings of off-the-cuff sarcasm and political cynicism.

 

The USA has its own attempts at political satire, sure. The Daily Show (and its spin-off The Colbert Report) are decent, and many Brits actually watch the international editions. Stewart and Colbert satirize the format and sensationalism of most US cable news shows: One person, one desk, lashings of hyperbole and caustic humor based on the strangest political truths.

It doesn't quite compare to the rigors of political satire in the UK though, where politicians are invited to get mercilessly mocked by some of Britain's brightest comedic minds. Occasionally the presenters themselves get embroiled in news stories and become the brunt of the unrelenting punchlines.
 
The skill of these shows is making the humor seem unrehearsed and almost throw-away. This is what makes them so British. HIGNFY excels at this, but Cats has a special place in my heart because I worked on the show (where I got to work with the charming Jimmy Carr and meet the legendary David Hasselhoff).

5. Blue Peter / Newsround

 

Premise: One is a magazine show about making popular items from toilet paper tubes; the other is the most trusted and cogent news source in the UK. Both are kids' shows.

 

Here's one I made earlier…The famous Thunderbird Tracy Island craft make is on display at the BBC Television Centre.
What will happen to it when the BBC moves out of the building?

Blue Peter is like the Scouts for coach potatoes, complete with badges. It's also the world's longest running childrens' TV show, featuring a mishmash of celebrity culture, sports and activities, fundraising appeals and arts and crafts.

The show has had some defining moments: making a popular toy (the Thunderbird island above) out of paper mache and soft cheese containers; having a baby elephant poo in a studio live on TV; and breaking the news to young viewers that the goldfish in the studio garden were killed after drunken soccer players broke in.

Newsround is not Aaron Sorkin's latest HBO drama; it's a long running news broadcast specifically for children. It's one of the best news shows on television due to the BBC's remit for balanced reporting and its ability to simplify complex news stories. Perhaps Sorkin's Newsroom would have been more entertaining if it had been about a kids' news show instead.

Kids in the UK graduate from Sesame St and progress onto Blue Peter and Newsround before becoming sensible, civic-minded citizens. Or at least they used to before the Disney Channel became more popular. Kids just aren't into toilet tubes like they used to be.

Fun Fact: There's a video in existence of myself interviewing the current Newsround newscaster, the lovely Ore Orduba, while he pretends to be Jessica Alba. No - you ain't ever gonna see it.

What are your favorite UK TV shows? Do any of these sound more appealing than Sherlock and Downtown Abbey?

Do you blog? If so, you need to read this.

On Sunday I posted a link to an open letter to Maria Popova, curator of the popular Brain Pickings blog. This letter accused Popova of claiming her blog was 'ad-free' when in fact, it wasn't.

Whether you're a fan of her site or not, if you have your own blog this is an important story to learn from. Here I explain how blogs work, why you should be aware of blogging disclaimers and how best to disclose advertising to your readers.

What is blogging?

 

Blogging has become a huge genre in of itself, and although it's not strictly journalism, the lines between the two mediums are becoming much fuzzier. There are, in essence, two types of blog:

1. Original content blog

Totally new content created with the aim of people reading/watching it and sharing it with others.

Examples include Fairy Tales for Twenty Somethings, and Raspy Wit. The content can be anything - guides to blogging, parenting, personal stories, photos, you get the idea.

2. Curated blog

Content created by other people and shared in one space.

Two really great examples of curated blogs are This Isn't Happiness and Brain Pickings.

There is a third category, and that's a combination of the two styles above. Many lifestyle blogs fit into this category, mixing original content with Pinterest posts, fashion remixes, etc. The news site Huffington Post is also an example of a combination blog, as is economics blog Marginal Revolution.

Huffington Post literally wrote the book on blogging

The mark of a good blog isn't whether the content is original or not - it's the branding, the interestingness, and often the way the blogger connects with their readers.

Brain Pickings works as a curated blog because Popova knows her target audience. And a large target audience is key for making income from a blog.

How can you make money from blogging?

 

Lifestyle and curated content blogging has become more commercial in the past few years. Just last week Aunie Sauce, a popular lifestyle blog, announced a giveaway with a huge $1500 visa gift card prize for one lucky reader.

As media shifts from print to digital journalists, bloggers, innovators and media moguls are all pondering: How do you make money from publishing stuff online?

There's no one answer, and what works for one blog could fail completely for another. Many blogs use a mix of these methods:

Adverts - Either banner or word based ads placed on the blog by a third party (eg Google Adsense) where the blogger receives a cut of the advertiser's pay-per-click (PPC) costs.

Blog sponsoring - These too are like old-fashioned banner ads, although the blogger is paid by subscription and not on a PPC basis. In lifestyle blogging they are usually less intrusive side-bar ads, often purchased by small stores and fellow bloggers, using a platform such as Passionfruit ads.

Sponsored posts/Advertorials - Either paid-for guest posts written by other bloggers/companies, or written by the blogger about a product or service, where the blogger is paid cash or in kind.

Donations - A 'please donate' button allows reader to pay what they like for the enjoyment of reading their favorite blogs.

Affiliate links - Bloggers link to products/services within their posts and receive a cut of the PPC costs or a cut of whatever the reader buys.

Other ways of making income include giveaways (like Aunie's which requires entrants to follow and tweet about various blogs), tutorials, paid for content, or merchandizing. All of these are legitimate, and there are up and downsides to each.

For example, if a blogger chooses a sponsored post that doesn't fit with their brand there can be negative repercussions. Recently The Atlantic magazine's site featured an advertorial on Scientology. After a backlash, The Atlantic took the post down and announced it was re-evaluating its sponsorship policy.

What The Atlantic did here wasn't wrong, but it miscalculated the response from its readership and ended up backtracking for fear of losing its audience.

So what did Brain Pickings do wrong?

 

Brain Pickings is a successful blog, and through it Maria Popova solicits donations from readers as well as using affiliate ads within posts.

None of that is wrong.

But she got into a sticky situation by claiming her blog is ad-free. It isn't.

She failed to disclose that the blog is part-funded by affiliate links. So not only did Popova break the trust between blog and reader, she came across as disingenuous by knocking ad-filled journalism, and she also possibly broke the US FTC's guides governing endorsements and testimonials.

Popova argued that because the products she advertised were products she used anyway, it didn't count. But according to FTC guides she should have disclosed that she uses affiliate links. These guides have been updated to cover endorsements on social media and blogging, and state:

…an endorsement means any advertising message …  that consumers are likely to believe reflects the opinions, beliefs, findings, or experiences of a party other than the sponsoring advertiser, even if the views expressed by that party are identical to those of the sponsoring advertiser…

(access the pdf here)

Was this a deliberate ploy to mislead readers who give donations? Or a genuine mistake?  Either way, Popova has responded to criticism and now her blog does have a disclosure at the bottom, which states:

Brain Pickings participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn commissions by linking to Amazon.

Although, on the 'support' section of the site, she still claims Brain Pickings is technically 'ad-free' which I think refers to the presence of banner ads:

Keeping it a clean, ad-free reading experience — which is important to me and, I hope, to you — means it’s subsidized by the generous support of readers like you: directly, through donations, and indirectly, whenever you buy a book on Amazon from a link… 

So what is best practice when trying to make an income from your blog?

Bloggers must be honest with their readers

 

Be open and honest about where your funding and your content comes from. Simple as that.

The UK blog Money Saving Expert is one of the top 60 UK websites, and has a unique way of finding income, which is explained in full to its readers. Affiliate links are individually marked, so readers can be sure when a company has paid to be featured on the site.

In a completely different example, lifestyle blogger Katherine from Of Corgis and Cocktails is very open that Of Corgis and Cocktails is a 'for profit' blog. She told me:

I believe in honesty. Sure, I would like to make some profit back from the countless hours I put into my blog. I personally don't ask for direct donations as I don't feel it would be fair - I want to give something back to the person, like a sponsored post or ad on my sidebar.

Katherine is very explicit in disclosing how her blog makes an income:

I have a permanent location for my disclosure that is mentioned at the end of any post that was sponsored and also easily located at the bottom of my blog.

My biggest thing is that I work with affiliates - meaning if you are going to shop at a store, say Amazon, and you click a link on my blog to get there, I'll get a portion of the sale. You pay for a product you wanted anyway and maybe even found because I wore it in an outfit post or used the product, and I get a maybe 5% back from the company. My readers don't pay extra, but it's a nice way to help out, and I want them to know that!

 Katherine was also quick to mention the FTC guides and advised that disclosure wording is available for free online. She also highlighted that:

…it's important to mention because it is the law, and also because the companies you are working with require and need it to protect themselves as well. If you don't disclose properly, you could end potential great relationships with companies you love…

Trust is a funny thing online, but you can do your best to gain it by being open about who and what you are working with. Otherwise, you gain a large amount of disdain and distrust…

If you make an income from your blog, think carefully about how you'll disclose it to your readers.

The FTC guides state that they don't actively monitor blogs, and there is no fine for not having adequate disclosure. However, as highlighted by the Brain Pickings blog, not disclosing your relationship with advertisers can badly affect your relationship with readers - and in blogging, that's the last thing you want.

If you want to read more about this, I recommend Felix Salmon's op-ed on Brain Pickings, and Kelly Fairclough's coverage of the issue. 

As far as this blog goes, I know my 'support' section has been 'coming soon' for a long time and this is something I've learned from too. I can't claim to be ad-free, but I don't get paid if you click any link within my posts and I don't charge for blog buttons/button swaps. That's because I'm still deciding how best to monetize my blog beyond Google ads - if at all. If I do, you can be sure that you'll be the first to find out. 

Tomorrow is also the third annual TAO Journalism pledge day - this is a pledge for transparent, accountable and open journalism. If you're a blogger or journalist have a look and maybe even consider signing it.

In defense of public transport

Fellow expat blogger Selena is a Texan living in England. Recently she wrote a very heartfelt piece about her experiences on public transport. To put it simply, her post was not very complimentary, but it was very funny.

She has been transplanted from the place with the most drive-thru liquor stores in the US (yes, really), to London, which this year is celebrating the 150th birthday of the tube, the oldest subway system in the world. That's a definite culture clash.

In contrast I myself have been transplanted from a place where retirees get free bus rides (and certainly use them) to the land where planners removed sidewalks to fit in parking lots.

I told her I felt I had to defend public transport just a little. So here it is, a Brit's defense of public transport (though I know true Brits write 'defence' and not 'defense' I have to use the American spelling now).

Effort

Public Transport
Selena's first criticism of public transport (namely the London tube) is that it's almost impossible for newbies to navigate. But the London tube map is hailed as one of the great successes of design - a marriage of form and function - beautiful and understandable!

Yes, maybe at first you will end up going around the Circle line the wrong way; discover that some stations are actually quicker to walk between (what's the point of them?); or take three hours longer than expected due to weather, strikes, or engineering works. But overall it works, and the Olympics were testament to that - just ignore the fact that they drafted in thousands of volunteers to show spectators which stations to use.
 
These days it's not hard to plan your journey online, even with sporadic construction or random closures due to pigeons on the line. And when you get really good at the Tube you can have all sorts of fun: You can become expert at games such as Mornington Crescent and this cryptic game. The London Tube inspired subterranean public transport across the world, so it must be okay, right?

Driving
The effort to drive is huge. First you have be examined on how to control a large piece of machinery. You don't sit need to any tests before you hop on a bus. As long as you have correct change and acceptable body odor tolerance, you're fine!

Planning a route to drive is infuriating. Even with Google Maps and Sat Navs you can never accurately predict roadworks, heavy traffic or road closures.

If you take a wrong turn you often have to do a massive detour to get back on track. With public transport you just jump off and get on a different train/bus, but in a car it's actually treacherous: Do you take that U-Bend and cross four lanes of angry traffic, or do you drive an extra 20 miles back the way you came?

In the city you have to learn the patterns of intersection lights, get stuck for hours at multiple red lights, dodge jaywalkers and tourists, and you're expected to know the whole city's randomized system of one-way streets. I swear city planners switch up the one-way system every now and then just for fun.

And then you have to park your car somewhere. This can take hours in certain places, wasting precious gas money and shopping time driving past giant SUVs taking up two spots and shopping carts lazily abandoned everywhere. When you finally end up at the opposite end of the parking lot you feel you may as well have walked anyway.

Storage

When you're traveling by train, plane and underground you really don't want to be laden down with unnecessary shit, so you get really good at traveling light. It becomes a source of pride when you show up for a weekend break with just one half-empty weekend bag, or an overnight function with just a change of knickers and a lipstick in a tiny purse.

Public transport makes you efficient. You keep your Osyter/Octopus/Calypso/Opus/Charlie/Freedom/Smartlink card in your pocket, and everything else on your back.

You gain a sense of freedom by being able to pack so lightly. You know if anyone calls you last minute for a luxury trip to the Bahamas leaving in one hour, you'd be at the airport in time with just your toothbrush, bikini and sun cream, and you wouldn't even have to check in. My rule for travel now is - if I can't lift it, it's not coming with me.

And that's the other thing - all the lifting, carrying and walking is healthy! I saved a fortune on gym memberships when I used public transport. I'd happily walk 45 minutes to work each day. Now I have to drive to the gym and it just feels so wrong and contradictory.

FREAKING PEOPLE EVERYWHERE

Public Transport
Petty people politics is never so apparent as on public transport. It's tough out there, jostling up against all and sundry on the rush hour tube, rubbing your shoulders against other people - who knows where they've been - and touching the same poles and sitting in the same seats. It'd make a hypochondriac's skin crawl.

Plus you have to endure their rudeness. Shoving in front, listening to loud music, folding their newspaper into your field of vision, giving their luggage the last seat on the carriage so you have to stand. There's no such thing as personal space on public transport- how dare they sneeze/text/fart/argue in your vicinity?

If you're having trouble securing a prime seat on public transport there are very detailed and militaristic guides to help you. When I was a kid at youth theater we'd play a game known as 'keeping your seat on the bus'. Basically you make silly faces until nobody wants to sit next to you. Trust me, it works. 

But all of this is part and parcel of living in a world with other people who are just not a cool and considerate as yourself. Plus it gives you the prime opportunity to hone that truly British sport of complaining. If you ever find yourself starting a new job in London, you'll instantly make new friends the moment you walk in the door and say "Oh my gosh, the Central line was just awful this morning, did anyone else have a ghastly time trying to get in? I couldn't get a seat at all and we got stuck for fifteen minutes at Bank and…" Trust me, it works.

Driving

The thing is, driving isn't any better. People speed, honk, tailgate (known in the USA as driving up your ass, as far as I can tell),  blind you with their lights, don't indicate and they always cut in front of you, guaranteed.

Gesturing to rude and inconsiderate road users is usually not that helpful

Drivers are in a hurry, they're rude, and they always think they're a better driver than everyone else. This has been extensively researched and it's true - it's a Lake Wobegone effect manifesting at 80mph on a four lane rat race.

And the worst thing is - all the tutting in the world won't do a darn thing! On a crowded tube, Brits take great pleasure in tutting loudly to display their displeasure at another passenger's actions. It's our favorite form of dissent. In a car this does nothing, and you end up becoming one of those deranged, enraged drivers flipping people off and honking at anything, spreading the blood boiling road rage across the region.

You stomp into work, not with a hilarious and frustrating tale of how crowded your train was, but with a loud tirade full of obscenities about the selfish road moron in front of you with the stupid bumper sticker.

It makes me stressed just thinking about it.

I've told Americans how shocked I am by Pennsylvania drivers and they all say the same thing, "Oh, just wait until you get to New Jersey/New York/California/Maryland/Anywhere, they're terrible at driving!"

And I shudder at the thought. On public transport at least you can sit back, plug in your headphones, eat a questionable prawn sandwich, and zen out all the way to Zone Six…

What side are you on? Which public transport system makes you crazy? And which US state really has the worst driver?

PS, if you've never seen this parody of Going Underground, about the London tube, you're in for a very sweary treat (really NSFW).

One Week of US Cuisine

 I've said before that American food gets a bum rap.

Perhaps when you think of "American food" you think of McDonalds, drive-thrus, diners and do-nuts. To some extent you'd be right to think of those things. They are everywhere.

They are on every street corner, on every intersection, by (or in) churches and museums. The food is cheap, sweet, and childish, and often famous for the branding or business model more than anything else.

But that's not everything. You know it's not. If you don't believe me, I'm going to show you. In just one week, I'll make you a fan…

A Week in US Cuisine

America has a very rich immigrant culture, and some fabulous cuisine to boot. Finding excellent food here can be surprising and wonderful. And it's fun. American food is undoubtedly fun. What American food sometimes lacks in sophistication it often makes up for in experience and good humor.

Take my mum's visit over Thanksgiving week, for example. She wanted to experience American food. She's travelled all over the world - Europe, Asia, South and North America. She's tasted all sorts of cuisine. She's even been to the USA a fair few times. But when I asked her the first thing she'd like to do when she arrived she said "go to the supermarket".

So that's what we did.

Monday - Supermarket lunch

 

In the UK a supermarket lunch is a sad affair - usually comprising a wrinkled baked potato sitting under a heat lamp all day, cheap baked beans, and terrible tea, all served on suspiciously sticky tables. Do British supermarket want to punish families for spending their afternoons traipsing up and down the shopping aisles? The food is an afterthought, which is a worrying thing in a store that sells food.

Not so here in PA.

I'm not talking about Super-Walmarts with a Subway franchise inside. I'm talking about lesser known, small family chains of supermarkets. A prime example is Wegmans, once dubbed the 'Anti-Walmart' by The Atlantic magazine (in an unsponsored article, it appears). The Wegmans approach to food and shopping is a little different to that displayed by most supermarkets. Whole Foods comes close, but not quite.

Wegmans is a beautiful playground for food and produce, complete with a miniature railway circling high above the cheese department. Lunch there could be take-out pizza, sushi, a hoagie, or a wholesome twist on pub lunch, complete with specialty draft beer. Everything on the menu, from the seasonal beer to the multi-grain marathon bread, is available in-store to take home.

And that's how supermarket dining should be. It's seems so obvious. A supermarket's food should be like a giant exciting tasting counter. Trust Americans to actually make grocery shopping fun.

Tuesday - Reading Terminal Market

The Philadelphia cheesesteak is ubiquitous. I won't go into the debate over Pat's, or Geno's or Tony Luke's here,  because I've yet to try them. I didn't realize the sin of my ways until I took my mum for lunch in the city center.

The Reading Terminal Market is another fun food playground, a disorienting cuisine casino bustling with tourists and lunching business locals. It's a Caesar's Palace filled with all sorts of cultural fayre, including, of course, the cheesesteak.

Carmen's is great for the uninitiated cheesesteak consumer - they'll advise you the most popular way to do it. Provolone or Cheese Whizz? Sweet peppers or not? I can't remember because they fried it up so quickly. I get the impression they are used to hungry and bewildered tourists bumbling up to their neon sign.

And for dessert: On a cold November afternoon of culinary touristing, who can resist an apple dumpling once featured on the Food Network?

The dumpling was a fat individual apple pie with a flaking crust and hot spiced apple filling dripping with cream. For three bucks a piece this fall filler was a pleaser. The birch beer is an acquired taste though.

A local businessman beside us lunched on sloppy joes and coffee. He noted our accents, "you had cheesesteaks here?" he enquired, "because, you know that's like, how can I say it, it's like going to Heathrow Airport for fish and chips".

What a faux pas. I visibly winced. The very suggestion of an Airport providing a quality fish supper! I promised I'd try an 'authentic' cheesesteak ASAP (confession: I still haven't).

Wednesday - Hoagie

Surprising fact: The hoagie is THE official sandwich of Philadelphia, not the cheesesteak. As such, they are not without their controversy. The origin of the name is a little unclear for a start. A hoagie is a Philly twist on the ubiquitous submarine sandwich, reputedly named after Hog Island, Philadelphia, where Italians and other Europeans worked on shipbuilding for the World Wars.

Forget Subway or even local hoagie purveyor and 'Hoagie Day' sponsor WaWa for a decent Philly sub. A true hoagie comes from an Italian market, and one should contain enough meat for afternoon tea sandwiches for the whole British Royal Family.

Thursday - Thanksgiving Dinner

Turkey, sweet potato, and pumpkin. What else can I say?

Friday - Drive Thru

During the national hangover from America's favorite holiday, it seemed apt to get take-out. We opted for Popeye's Louisiana Fried Chicken, purely because it's fun for us Brits to order chicken with biscuits and end up with cheese scones rather than something to dunk in hot tea. I know this isn't authentic American Soul food by many measures, but the drive thru certainly is a US tradition. 

Saturday - Traditional US cuisine?

The City Tavern in Philadelphia is an interesting place. It's conveniently located in the vicinity of Philly's top historical tourist spots, for those visitors with a hankering for 1770s cuisine. 

Yes, the waiters are in period costume, the pewter goblets and tableware are for sale in the restaurant's gift shop, and the chef's DVDs and TV appearances are advertised to visiting diners. But it's not tacky; it's very enjoyable indeed. The beers, brewed traditionally, are very good.

Surprising fact: Did you know that Benjamin Franklin brought tofu to the USA? No, neither did I. 

The jury's out on on this one - I'm not certain it's true, for a start. The tofu tasted okay, but the other hearty dishes, a menu reflecting the USA's European colonial history,  looked far more appetizing. No fish supper though.

US food is, genuinely, not that bad

 

I hope I've convinced you, or even tempted you a little bit. And if not, not don't worry, we still have a lot of US food adventures to enjoy one day: Traditional BBQ, Asian-American cuisine, the birth of the American diner and the sad decline of roller carhops (yes! they still exist, you just have to know where to find them).

This huge country has so much to offer to tastebuds and huge appetites, I promise, though I'm secretly glad I don't eat like this every week.

What local USA foods do I need to try? And where DO I get the best cheesesteak?

How to survive a Long Distance Relationship, Really (Part Two)

Something got lost in translation here, which made it all the more amusing.

Welcome to Part Two of the definitive guide to surviving a long distance relationship! 

(For part one head here) 

 Romance

In my experience, people who are not in LDRs think that LDRs are tough but "incredibly romantic". They are not romantic. Nothing about lagging Skype chats, jet-lag, expensive flights and bureaucratic visa processing is at all romantic.

Plenty of articles on long distance relationships impart the importance of maintaining romance. Cosmo has its own unique take on this, but typical recommendations are to send each other stuff, make 'love compilations' of favorite songs, send each other surprises and make memory books/photo collages.

Interestingly, Glamour takes a different position. This article says Don’t get bogged down with stereotypical “romantic” stuff. 

I'm going to take the rather unromantic middle position: To each their own. Just do what you can. 

Tell your partner you love them, tell them as often as you can, but don't sweat about how you do that. I will give a plus to memory books/photo collages though,  because they can help with visa applications (I'm such a romantic).

Several times during our long distance stint, Mark called our wedding florist, whose shop was down the road from my office, and had them deliver roses to me at work. What a classically beautiful overblown gesture! Word even got to husbands of my colleagues, who started doing the same thing, so we all got flowers on Valentine's day.

The only trouble was, I had to carry them to the bus stop and on the bus journey home.

And I felt I couldn't compete. I did send the occasional postcard when I went somewhere for work. But for every postcard I sent I had one that I forgot to send. I sent candy once for Valentine's day and the postage cost more than the candy itself. And that's not even to mention the stuff we sent that didn't arrive, or the times I forgot how long postage takes and cards arrived late.

It was never personal. I send late cards to everyone. Once I sent my sister a birthday card about six months late. But in a long distance relationship it's the communication that counts. An email or text saying "I'm proud of you" or "I'm thinking of you" says just as much as a romantic gesture.

Take photos of the glamorous times, but savor those PJ days

Visits

And the same holds for when you actually get to see each other. As that Glamour article says, don't worry too much when you see each other. Just act like a normal couple. Normal couples lounge around in PJs and watch terrible TV and order in pizza. And I missed being able to do that way more than I missed formal dates and romantic nights out.

There were trips to NY and DC and London and Glasgow and Edinburgh too. But visits are mostly times to catch up on all the nothing you haven't been able to do. Bliss.

And a lot of other articles agree: Don't plan too much activity for your visits.

The frequency and length of a visit depends on your own circumstances (and finances) and you'll find your preferences.  The 'rule' of alternating visits only applies when you can easily work around employment, or when you don't have a visa pending (more on that here).

Mark and I were both working. That meant we could save for plane tickets, but it almost meant that we had to book time from our respective employers. My UK employer was far more generous with (paid) time off than his US employer, but we worked around that.

We went six months without seeing each other on a few occasions, but we found that intervals of three months were the easiest to cope with. Three months is only 12 weeks, which is only really 12 empty weekends to fill alone.

The last time we saw each other before I moved over to the USA was last Christmas 2011. Before that was our wedding, in May/June 2011.

We only had a short time booked with each other over the Christmas period. While the airport goodbyes never got any easier, that was by far the worst one because it just felt like we hadn't had enough time together. Luckily, Mark's visit was unexpectedly extended. Without that time I would have been a mess.

Fights/arguments/shifts

Sometimes the times you miss each other most are the times you'll fight the most. All that emotion, all that miscommunication, all that loneliness, manifesting as:

Nit-picking: "you didn't call at the exact time you said you would"
Needless antagonism: "When we are together we'll only have whole milk in the fridge and not semi-skimmed"
Pettiness: "You spelled a word wrong on Skype"
Childishness: "Don't you DARE slam your laptop screen down on me - damnit!"
Competitiveness: "I can't win this argument even though I'm right and you know I am"

Yes, they are inevitable. Distance or no distance. But with the distance working against you, it can feel like your whole world is crashing down.

It's like being a toddler and being told you're overtired. You can insist that you're right and it's because of THE ISSUES and not because you just miss each other.

It's because of frustration. It's because you miss each other. It's because you can't just hug each other and say it's ok. It's because you miss each other. It's because it's 3am and you've been emailing each other insults for five hours and you both need the last word. It's because you miss each other. It's because you really, really want that shade of dark blue that almost looks black but isn't black on your wedding invitations, and you're not going to budge. It's because you miss each other.

Once Mark phoned me just to say "can we not argue over the phone anymore?" to which I had to reply "but then where will we do our arguing?"

All he could say in response was "touché, okay, we can argue over the phone".

So here are some tips not mentioned in any other articles I read:

Warning signs for pending transatlantic arguments

You haven't seen each other in a while and you're reaching withdrawal breaking point: It's useful to book your next visit ASAP after your last one (or before it's over) so you always have something to look forward to. It doesn't solve the issue or the argument, but it's a small comfort.

One of you wants to talk but the other one is tired and grumpy: Be really mindful of timezones and bodyclocks, whether grumpiness before dinner, or tiredness before bed. Sometimes we compromised with text chats and the promise of a proper conversation at the weekend.

Skype isn't working/Phone signal is dodgy:  I hated Skype when my husband looked and sounded like a robot. I'd say "forget it" and hang up. I'd rather no communication than bad signal. General frustration can come out as anger at each other, especially when you have limited time to chat.

One of you makes all the phone calls/one of you doesn't reply: I have to confess that I was the rubbish one here. It was not deliberate, but it was unintentionally hurtful. We eventually found a habitual groove that worked for us. Mark still made all the phone calls, but I emailed him to let him know he was in my thoughts, and to let him know a good time to call.

You have a wedding coming up: Having spoken to non-long-distance couples, I think it is normal to act like two toddlers pressing each other's buttons in the lead-up to a wedding. God made wedding planning stressful just to really test your commitment (ditto visa applications).

There's a shift: By shift I mean anything, really: One of you gets a different job; one of you moves to another place; or you get engaged; or you get married; or it's getting close to the end of your long-distance stint. Anything that changes the balance of the LDR somehow.

After we got married I found the last year of our LDR easier to deal with because our relationship was cemented, and the visa process was just jumping through hoops. On the other hand, Mark found it much harder because we were married and couldn't be together. If you're experiencing things in different ways, try to be open and open-minded.

Some advantages of being long-distance 

After we got married I used to joke that being long-distance was the perfect marriage. It was just a joke, but there are advantages to be made of what is generally a rubbish situation.

Talking and planning: Without the physical contact and the ability to spend time doing nothing, and the fear of lulls in vital phone/Skype call times, it can be best just to keep on talking. About anything.

We planned our wedding and our visas. Then we talked about who would do what household chore. We talked about our dream home. We talked about fears. We talked about our preferences for whole milk or semi-skimmed milk. Anything, just to keep the conversation flowing.

I think this can give a real edge over non-long-distance couples who have to learn the hard way about household chores and milk preferences and the kind of marriage they want to have. When I arrived in the USA there was a (fresh) carton of organic 2% milk sitting in the fridge waiting for me. That was definitely worth the three years of separation (kind of).

Learning how to argue: For all that it's horrible at the time, you can learn how to debate each other and to nip an argument in the bud before it degenerates. Tip: It's not about winning.

Growing as an individual: I got a whole year of getting used to being a married woman before I spent any significant time with my husband. This is a double-edged sword, which I'll mention later one day, but it allowed me to do things and live life in a way I wanted while preparing life together with my husband. I don't recommend it, but it wasn't all bad. I swear!

Overall, just remember this

- Communication is key: Manage expectations of your LDR.
- Communicating about communicating is key. Let your other half know what you're up to and when you can talk. And then tell them you love them and you're proud of them.
- Find good communication habits/a groove.
- Communicating with friends and family is key. Don't sit and wait.
- Romance might be important, but communication is more important.
- Sitting in your Pjs for a week together is totally okay.
- Arguments are normal, but stop being a toddler, take a step back, say sorry, and start again.
- Don't bring up issues just before one of you has to go to bed. Wait until the weekend or something.

You'll get there. And trust me, the conversations that start with "remember when we were long-distance, and…" feel AMAZING.

How to survive a Long Distance Relationship, Really (Part One)

This is the definitive guide to surviving a long distance relationship! (Part one) 
(Part Two is here)

By long-distance, I don't mean a cross country sleeper train, that's a whole other survival guide

How can I say that?

Firstly, I did 1018 days of "method research". Mr and I were long-distance for almost three years, and while we probably did everything wrong, we also did everything right.

Second, I've scoured the web for guides to survive long distance relationships, teased out the common themes, and tested the advice against real life. This is an amalgamation of everything I read on the subject, peppered with my own insights. Maybe you already read other articles before you read this. If so, great. 

I've taken out the fluff and the guff: So many articles on going the long-distance start with how hard it is and how it's not for the faint of heart. Anyone who's about to, is, or has been involved in an LDR doesn't need to be told that. That's why I'm writing this now, and not a year ago. Also, it's not that rare. A lot of couples do the distance thing at one point in their lives, and I'm not even referring to military couples, who I believe are much, much braver.

I've taken out the condescending advice: I know you know how to use Skype, how to post a letter, and how to make a phone call. I don't need to suggest you might even want to email your loved one on a regular basis. I do recommend a smart phone, but you don't need the latest model. Text apps that work over data networks are useful, but email does the same job, and often better.

I've also taken out any advice about trust. In my experience that was never a question or an issue. If you are struggling with trust, jealousy, or commitment in a long-distance relationship, there is support available elsewhere. Most of these feelings can be covered in relation to communication and how to deal with arguments. Yes, arguments!

So I'm also a little bit realistic. Much of life ends up being about muddling through rather than creating concrete plans and schedules. Love is no exception. Like I said, we probably did it all totally wrong but we got there, it's over, and it's great.

I missed these moments the most

About Us (in case you didn't know)
 
We met at grad school in Glasgow, Scotland. After we handed in our dissertations we both moved back to our respective parents' homes. I headed to the East Coast of Scotland, and he went back to Pennsylvania.

Before he left we booked flights for me to visit at Christmas.

We had no plans, or so I thought (he already knew he wanted to marry me).

After he proposed at Christmas, I came back home and felt like the most ungrateful, miserable (and lonely) fiancee.

We got planning straight away: No plans on how to manage our LDR, but planning our wedding, marriage, visas, and future life together. The rest is history!

We were transatlantic, 3000 miles apart, and he was five hours behind. But we managed. So here goes…

The (definitive, kinda) guide to surviving a long distance relationship.

The Nuts and Bolts: Planning and managing expectations

This is where most guides to LDRs agree: You gotta have a plan.

For the first three months of our transatlanticism I had no expectations about where we'd end up. I'm not sure I really thought about it. And that made it worse. Mark recalls days when I refused to answer his Skype calls because I missed him too much to be able to speak to him. After we got engaged and agreed to a long engagement, we were able to plan our visits and our future lives more effectively. Skype chats could be less about missing each other and more about looking forward to being with each other.

You don't need to get engaged, but I'd recommend knowing where the two of you are going together, or otherwise.

Then: Agree a (target) end date

It's much easier to manage when you know when the distance will end, and when your milestones are. You can count back and arrange visits and chop up the time into manageable chunks. Mark and I were apart for almost three years. That's most of our relationship. But in my head it was just several blocks of 3-6 months.

For us, the target dates were intuitive:

1. Wedding day, and
2. My arrival in the USA.

The latter date was fluid but we knew it'd be a year, more or less, from our wedding date. Although our lives were in the hands of the US Government, the visa process was straightforward and predictable. We could then start to manage our expectations of our reunion, and our marriage, which was just as important as managing the expectations of our time apart.

Also: Start saving up money!

LDRs are inherently expensive, whether it's visits, calling cards, weddings or visas. Or a combination thereof. Make sure you've got a plan to finance it - together. Some of your overseas conversations may be boring, talking about the nuts and bolts. But it really helps.

Goofy Skype chat, and a picture email: "I'm at the airport!"

Communication and Skype Dates

With timezones and transatlantic communication to navigate, many articles recommend scheduling regular communication time and arranging 'dates'. Let me confess:

I am notoriously bad at keeping to pre-arranged Skype dates and schedules. I still am.

But we figured out a groove for remaining in contact. It wasn't pre-arranged, it just happened organically. An average day went like this:

Morning GMT: On the bus to work I checked my email, often a lovely 'good morning' message Mark had sent the night before with a run down of what he watched on the news chatter, so I could listen to a podcast and catch up, and read the morning news on Twitter.

Lunchtime GMT: On my lunch break, I knew Mark was getting up and ready for the day, so I'd email him the most interesting articles from my bus journey. If I wasn't too busy he'd phone just to say hi.

5-6pm GMT: I'd be on my way home, and if Mark wasn't too busy he'd give me a call to tell him about my morning, and I'd talk about my day.

8-11pm GMT: If I wasn't out, busy, or too tired, and if Mark could snatch some time early, we'd chat on Skype. Almost every day. And if we couldn't, we'd let each other know. An email: "I'm at an event tonight, so I might not be able to chat",
or "I need a bath. I smell. Later ok?", or
"did you get my Facebook message about the voicemail about the Skype message you sent when I tried to call?" or:

Him: Why aren't you answering your phone?!
Me: It's upstairs on silent. I was writing you an email.

Yeah, it wasn't perfect. Wires got crossed many times. If I wanted to watch TV with my family, we'd type to each other instead. If one of us was busy, we'd wait. I often got tempted to stay up super-late just so I could get a meaningful conversation. I sleep so much better now that I'm in the same timezone as my husband.

Dates, such as simultaneous cooking dates, or movie dates, never worked for us. I didn't want to pretend I was with my partner when I really wasn't. But there were times for planning (wedding, visas, trips and visits), times for mindless chatter, times for helping each other with job applications, times for speaking to the whole family, or watching each other open birthday presents, times for political discussions and rants. Times for arguments, which I'll cover later.

Being yourself and living your own life

And there were times for ourselves.

Articles about LDRs all agree that you need to take time to grow as an individual, to have a social life, to stop focusing on how much you miss your partner and get out living. Basically, don't be a hermit.

It's all true, but I'm going to be realistic. Yes, couples who live together have their own interests. But doing it as one half of a transatlantic couple is something else. You want to share experience with your partner, you don't want to miss out on what they're doing, you feel guilty if you're having fun and you know your partner isn't. Maybe you feel more alone when you're out with other people.

On the other hand, it's not hard to get out and about, especially when you have friends who want to see you (and whom you want to see), when getting out and doing stuff is fun. When you don't miss doing things with you partner. You miss doing nothing with your partner.

So in these cases, I think you can be picky about the things you do and don't do. Examples:

Things I did:
- Got into photography, which is a skill I could work at alone. And I could share my work with my husband.
- Visited friends for tea, dinner, drinks. Spent the weekend with them. And called Mark at intervals. Let friends say hi to him.
- Traveled for work, a lot. It kept me busy, sometimes took me out of phone signal range, let me see the country (which I still want to share with Mark one day). And it helped out the organization - I had no kids, and no husband to get back to as our relationship was already phone-based. So it worked.
- Applied for, and was accepted to the International TV Festival Network, and then did an internship with the BBC. Because I wanted to, because I could, and because I had the freedom to.
- Attended weddings and other important events.

Things I didn't do:
- Go out with single friends exclusively, or go out on nights with couples. My girlfriends were brilliant for arranging girls' nights.
- Join a club or do a random activity like ballroom dancing.
- Go on holiday without Mark.
- Watch certain movies.

I made sure to do one thing every weekend. Just one thing. Whether it was meeting a friend or taking photos of flowers. Similarly, Mark got involved with civic/political activities here and since I've moved I've joined in. He baked and did martial arts and traveled for work.

When we were busy, we'd let each other know. We'd support each other in our endeavors as best as we could.

Since we've been together we've done our rustic weekends - those little things we didn't want to do alone. Those things we said we couldn't wait to do together, but we did wait, and it didn't do any damage. Promise.

In Part Two, I cover romance, visits, fights and shifts. And the advantages of a long distance relationship!

I'll also tidy this up a bit too. I promise. Please let me know what you think, what makes sense, what doesn't, and what else do I need to cover?