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..."
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