What would Goffman say? No God Bless You's, Handshakes, How's it Going, or Hellos! But lots of Cheers!

I find myself walking around lately singing Sting's song, An Englishman in New York, with the inverted irony of singing such a song in London and Durham fully apparent.  And yet it fits.  I speak the language of England fluently, as it is my own; but speaking the same language does not mean the language being spoken is the same for each. 

There are so many different colloquialisms and slang terms used by Americans and Brits to make me sometimes stop and yell, "What the hell did you just say?  Arse-on, you're knackered; so we will meet back up at half-three to pick up some bits and bobs, hit the loo, and Bob's my uncle?  Can someone help me, cause Bob's not my uncle?  I got an uncle Steve.  Is he coming? Cause he's in a nursing home in the states...

Everyday here I think so much of Erving Goffman and his sociological genius for the nuances of everyday life and his nagging questions, What is going on here, now, in this interaction?  How is social order being made?

As some friends and family know, one of my pet peeves is "god bless you."  I cannot understand why sneezing requires such concern.  Thank god for the Brits, as they see it the same way.  No 'god bless you's' here.  And no handshaking, or not much of it.  Americans, especially guys, love to shake hands, especially when someone does something kind for you and you want to say thanks; or upon greetings.  And, folks around here are not into saying HI much either.

Americans, especially we who live in the Midwest, like to say HI.  Mid-westerners, generally speaking, also like to smile at everyone--unless you are in New York City, then you do not smile; you just stare at the ground or your iPhone, walk fast, and pretend you live there.  It's not that Brits are not happy to see you; they just do not see the need to get so worked up about passing one another on a daily basis.  It seems to me that mid-western Americans need social order to work by keeping a constant greeting going.  You are there and i am here, hello, smile, ask "how's it going?, hope for no reply beyond, "not bad," and keep moving on.  The Brits do not seem to see the need for all that.  Too much, over the top.

However, they do like good byes and cheers!  While the Brits seem light on HI and smiling, they seem big on goodbyes--in other words, establishing social connection is strong on the other end of the interaction.  As they pass and leave each other, they are very much into 'Cheers! Cheerio! Cheers then! Have a good day love.'  It is as if the front of the interaction is formal, all business, melting into the familiar and a strong good bye--if you are nice--but then right back to formal and distance.  Very interesting the subtleties of interaction.  I am sure Goffman would do a better job of explaining it, but that is my quick take.  

Here is a link to some British slang--CLICK HERE

The importance of routine; or how you can lose your passport

This is me, the first night in Durham, freaking out.  why?  I lost my passport, that's why.  We talk about routine all the time in sociology, the importance of social order--or that more abstracted word, which many psychologists do not think exists, social structure.  But there you have it: i was in travel mode from Sunday till Tuesday; now suddenly, I am in staying in a town for three months mode.  Where do i put my phone?  How about my wallet?  And what should i do with my passport?  It is not a hotel, where you put the thing in a safe.  I am in a dorm room, in a castle mind you, beautiful and all, but a dorm nonetheless.  Is the place safe?  Okay, i have to get over to the Applied Social Sciences Department to get my office keys and my internet access.  It starts to rain, i pull out my iPhone and punch in my GPS coordinates, trying to also access my umbrella.  Unknown to me, as i am doing this, on a side street in Durham, out falls my passport, with me ignorantly walking onward; my passport lying there soaking up the British rain.

Four hours later I am back in my dorm.  Where is my passport?  Sh*t!  My heart sinks, panic sets in, i am absolutely freaking out.  okay, calm down, retrace my steps; i go everywhere i had been that day; no passport.  fudge!!!!!!  i give in and walk to the local Constable/Police.  Nobody is there!  This is not the states, i forget.  The police have gone home for the evening!  what?  i pick up the telephone outside the building and a woman answers, very kindly, telling me to come back tomorrow morning.  I go home and drink a significant amount of vodka, reading on the internet all the painful steps i will have to take to get a new passport, including the forms i will have to fill out, and becoming quickly depressed. Okay, get a hold of yourself, it is not the end of the world.  I am in England for a bit of time.  I fall asleep. 

Next morning i call the Police, thinking there is no way they have found it.  Fact is, they did.  Can you believe it?  They found it.  Turns out that when my passport fell out, it did so less than a hundred feet from the police station.  An off-duty officer walked by about an hour later, saw it, picked it up, and took it to the station.  After I thanked her about a thousand times, she told me that she saw it on the ground and everyone was walking around it.  Actually, the passport was in a tan money strap, so nobody saw the contents.  But, still, i was amazed that nobody picked it up and carried it off to become their second passport.  Phew!  The people around Durham, and in England in general, are very polite, caring, wonderful people.  Let's just say i was one lucky guy.

But the point: routine.  I had no routine; i had no order; i was doing one too many things; i was lost.  Moving into a new place and setting up shop, foreign country or not, highlights how important social order is to our daily lives:  where do i put things in the morning?  how to i protect things that need to be safe? where do i get my money?   

The first week has been all about establishing order: getting to know people; saying HI every day; finding my grocery store; the dinning hall; where roads go; getting my dorm set up, coffee cups, plates, water, etc.  It is exhausting but also a lot of fun.  I love the whole process of settling into a new place.  Eddie Money is singing in the background, "Oder,... give me some cool, cool order..."

Getting to Durham

Left for Durham on 30 September 2012.  My flight went from Cleveland Hopkins Airport to JFK Airport in New York to Heathrow Airport in London.  The flight was easy.

One of my new favorite things to do is get a shoe shine.  Back in day, I told my daughter--during the early 1800s, cause i am so damn old at 46--we actually tried to save our shoes: resole them, shine them up, buy new laces.  Anyway, i got my shoes shined at the Cleveland Airport.  Here is a picture.  They are oh so shiny!!!  Elvis is singing in the background, "Don't step on my metro-sexual, black leather clogs or i will hit you with my man-bag." 

In fact, I am so obsessed now with shiny shoes that i actually took my other pair of travel shoes--my brown Ecco dress shoes---to New York City when I visited my brother, Warren, in Flushing, New York City.  There is a great shoe shine place in Penn Station and so i carried my shoes in a backpack from Flushing to Penn Station and then, post shoe shine, the rest of the day in Manhattan.  Now that is commitment.

 

 Here are a few pictures of Ruby (my daughter) and Warren shoving food like little piggies into their faces at one of our favorite Diners in the West Village and at a Chinese Soup Shop in Flushing. We had just gotten done walking along the High Line.  If you have never been on the High Line, it is a must.  It is an entirely green walkway build on one of the old train lines in the West Village of Manhattan.  It is a powerful example of what Green can be in the middle of an urban environment like New York.  just stunning!!!!

This is a picture of me in my Cowboy hat (pronounced, cow-buhy haaat)

you got a problem?

Where is Durham University?

It all started spring semester 2010.  I was teaching my Researching methods course and I was discussing with students the key methodological frame in which I work, called case-based computational modeling--don't worry, i won't explain it.  Anyway, I told them about my friend and colleague, David Byrne, who is a major international figure in case-based method. 

"David is a sociology professor at Durham University," I said.  "You have got to see the place where he works; it's Durham University, in Northern England." I brought up a few pictures on the internet.  "Could you imagine," one of my students said, "getting to teach there, Dr. C?"  I said, "Yes, I could."



Cut to Spring Semester 2011.  I am on my way to a roundtable on Advancing Professionalism in Practice, care of the Mayo Clinic and the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation.  I was asked to be the "complexity expert" for the roundtable by one of my best friends and co-author, Frederic Hafferty, who is at Mayo in the Program for Professionalism and Ethics.  The other expert was my colleague David Byrne.  While at the roundtable, David said, "Brian, you should consider applying for one of the sabbatical fellowships at Durham, as I think you would have a good chance.  We could do some great work together through the School of Applied Social Sciences."

I tucked the idea in my back pocket and went back to Ohio, where I shared the idea with Maggie, my wife.  Eleven weeks in Durham and Maggie and Ruby would come to visit for a month, spending the last two weeks in Scotland and Paris.  Paris for Christmas! 

My idea, you can imagine, was not too hard to sell to Maggie or me.  Besides, I never thought I would actually get the fellowship.  Being pragmatists at heart, Maggie and I thought, what the heck apply and take it from there.  And so I did.  I applied for the Leonard Slater Fellowship University College--Slater was Master of Castle from 1953-1973.  And, as this blog indicates, I actually got it!  Wow!  And so, Autumn 2012 I was off to jolly old England.