United Statesians

Our last class really got me thinkingabout not really identifying with your country until you are away. I must say that I have definitely found that to be true. Now I don't want to get too political, and believe me I could, but...

I have never been very patriotic. I was always one of the first to point out major and minor blunders on the part of my country. I am very critical of my government and how the system works. At home I've even been discussions with people from other countries where I would put down something about the US and they would actually defend it. I hoped that going away would get me to appreciate my country a little more. I don't know if that has happened exactly, but there are a few things that I'm sure I will miss or appreciate more as time goes on.

I have certainly seen a lot of evidence of people disliking the US (or at least actions the government has taken). Very often I will agree with them, at least to a certain extent, but at the same time feel a little part of me wince at hearing someone else speaking badly about MY COUNTRY. It is the strangest feeling because as I said at home I constantly attack the government. Perhaps it's something to do with distinguishing between the country and the government. I'm sure in international affairs that is very difficult to do, but I am begining to realize they are very different things. I like the US as a place to live even though I don't always like what the government does... I'm not too sure how much sense that makes and whether it even has anything to do with being homesick, but it's the only explanation I can come up with for that defensive feeling I get when people talk about the US. Say u-know-who should get kicked out of office, I'll be the first to agree, say America sucks and I'd be harder pressed to agree.

I think that's as far as I want to go with that. This isn't a political blog after all, but I just thought I'd share that thought. I wonder if any of the other international students feel the same way.

One other thing that popped into my head during our discussion is the idea that everyone in the United States is a decendent of an immigrant. There is no single race associated with the US. Would it be the Native Americans? British? French? When people in the US are asked where they are from they have the state they live in (which can change all the time) and then there is the country that their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents....came from. Everyone has at least one other country that they associate themselves with. It's interesting to see when people feel a strong bond with the country that their family originated from, even if their family has been living in the US for a hundred years. Do they get homesick as well? Where does that connection come from? Something to think about anyway....

Lauren Abend

A quickie

I really think it would benefit us to define exactly what we as a group believe a home to be. We could use this as our starting point, maybe we could discuss it next lesson for a little bit.

Sam Wood

Sing Me Back Home

Great posts everyone, keep them coming. I think it's very good that we're casting our net wide and allowing our imaginations to be roam very broadly on this topic. We can start bringing the material together only once we've explored.

I was thinking about music and started making a list of songs I like that specifically refer to 'home'. I'm not suggesting we use any of these in the show - Suspect Culture have a distinctive and measured musical style, and we haven't begun to think about how we want to engage with this feature of their theatrical signature. But a list of songs might prompt further thought.

• 'Sing Me Back Home' Merle Haggard
• 'Bring It On Home To Me' Sam Cooke
• 'Come On Home' Franz Ferdinand
• 'Down In My Hometown' The Flatlanders
• 'Feel Like Going Home' Charlie Rich
• 'Green Green Grass of Home' (various)
• 'I Can Never Go Home Anymore' The Shangri-Las
• 'Home in San Antone' Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys
• 'Just to See My Holly Home' Bonnie "Prince" Billy
• 'The South is Only a Home' The Fiery Furnaces
• 'In Every Dream Home a Heartache' Roxy Music
• 'Little Cabin on the Hill' Elvis Presley
• 'There's No Home for You Here' The White Stripes
• 'My New House' The Fall
• 'My Hometown' Whiskeytown
• 'Thank God For My Christian Home' (!) The Louvin Brothers
• 'Homeward Bound' Simon and Garfunkel
• 'Back Home' England World Cup Squad 1970
• 'She's Leaving Home' The Beatles
• 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' Bob Dylan
• 'Heavenly Houseboat Blues' Townes Van Zandt
• 'I Don't Want to Play House' Tammy Wynette
• 'My Blue Heaven' (various)

Doing a quick web search, there appear to be songs called 'Homesick' by artists including: Kings of Convenience, 'NSYNC, The Cure, The Vines, Soul Asylum, The Finn Brothers. Donovan recorded a song called 'Homesickness' and there was a Chicago blues singer from the fifties known as Homesick James Williamson.

If you have any titles to add to the list, you can do so by clicking on 'comments' at the bottom of this post and following the instructions.

Dan Rebellato

Inspirations!

I particularly enjoyed this week's lesson because while we're trying to cover a huge wealth of material in a short time, there are loads of opportunities and ideas being generated, and I came away feeling really inspired! A lasting image I have is of Ania and Claire's conversation/interview, where Ania was answering Claire's English questions in Polish. It struck me as being particularly truthful and relevant to our work; Claire's questions were perfect, allowing us to understand what Ania was saying but still experience a sense of her homesickness and detachment, because the language barrier made us feel detached from her. It really moved me and I would love to incorporate something like that into our final piece.

Also, something Ania said in her blog made me think, as she talked about finding a universal experience of homesickness for our piece. Because it is such a broad and personal topic this will be a real challenge to achieve, but I keep coming back to our experiences of being at university as a central concept. We have such a wealth of current experiences and feelings to draw from, it would be crazy not to take advantage of it and use our present circumstance as an impetus for our piece. It also connects to my research topic, liminal spaces, as I've come to realise that university is actually a liminal space. While it is necessary for us to feel at 'home' here, the truth is that we are not permanently settling at university, it is merely a transitional phase that enables us to go from A (being a child, living at home) to B (becoming an adult, getting a job, starting our own families).

Alice Hansen

Saving Our Homes

On Sunday I went to the anti war demo in London, which was part of the European Social Forum. An organisation which congreagates every year in a major city in Europe, (last year it was Paris, the one before it was Florence). Their aim is to make people aware of the injustices going on around the world by having discussions, debates and lectures. People come from all over Europe to this event and it's amazing to see the passion and commtiment they have for their beliefs...

This is all very nice you may be thinking but what has it got to do with homelessness. I'll get to the point. At one point in the demo I was completely overwhelmed, because as I looked around me I saw the amazing mixture of people that were present. It didn't matter what social, religious, ethnic or historical background they came from, fundamentally we were all there to save the homes and the lives of people who we had never even met. I thought this was an incredibly beautiful and moving thought. Maybe something to reflect on?

Julia Angeli

Travel Statistics

These are some points of traveling statistics with data taken from the period 1999-2001. Read them if you want and notice how people prefer alternative means of transportation to their own feet. Honestly, I can't believe we don't walk anymore... Mentioning walking, concider hitchhiking and camping. Do campers concider their tents as their homes? Has anyone of you ever camped?

• On average, Great Britain residents travelled 6,815 miles each year in the period 1999/2001. This was an increase of 5 per cent since 1989/1991, owing to the increasing length of trips. In 1989/1991, the average trip length was 5.9 miles, but this had increased by 13 per cent to 6.7 miles in 1999/2001. The average number of trips made in 1999/2001 was 1,019 per person per year, 7 per cent less than in 1989/1991.
• 28 per cent of households in Great Britain did not have access to a car in 1999/2001, compared with 33 per cent in 1989/1991. This varied from 15 per cent in rural areas to 38 per cent in metropolitan built-up areas. Only 20 per cent of people lived in households without a car as households without cars tend to be smaller than average.
• Car travel accounted for four fifths of the total distance travelled. Overall, the distance travelled by car increased by 11 per cent during the 1990s.
• The number of local bus trips made outside London dropped by 30 per cent between 1989/1991 and 1999/2001. In contrast the number of London bus trips rose 25 per cent.
• Between 1989/1991 and 1999/2001, the average length of shopping trips increased by 27 per cent, commuting trips by 17 per cent and education trips by 17 per cent.
• Walking fell by 20 per cent during the 1990s to 189 miles per person per year, accounting for under 3 per cent of the total distance travelled compared with 4 per cent in 1989/1991.

In 1999/2001:

• Men made an average of 1,031 trips per year, 2 per cent more than women, but travelled just over 8,000 miles a year, 41 per cent more than women. The difference was greatest among those aged 40-49, where men travelled 58 per cent further than women on average.
• 60 per cent of cars on the road had only one occupant. For commuting and business travel the rate was 84 per cent. 25 per cent of trips were under 1 mile, 80 per cent of which were on foot. Car was the dominant mode of transport for all trips over 1 mile.
• Those in the highest income band on average travelled over 3 times as far as those in the lowest band (11,048 miles compared with 3,396 miles).
• On average we spent about one hour a day travelling around Great Britain. Approximately 36 minutes (61 per cent) of this time was spent travelling by car and 11 minutes walking.
• Londoners travelled about 5 ½ thousand miles in the year while those living in the South East (excluding London) averaged over 8 thousand miles. In terms of distance, 39 per cent of mileage was for leisure purposes, 19 per cent for commuting, 13 per cent for shopping and 10 per cent for business travel.
• In the 17-59 year old age group, men made 27 per cent of their trips commuting to and from work, with an additional 7 per cent travelling on business. For women, only 19 per cent of trips were to and from work, and 3 per cent on business.

Elina Pissioti

Illegal Immigrant Children

I just wanted to write some interesting things I discovered when doing the interview about being a child of an illegal immigrant. When interviewing Phillipa, she said some points that must be so awful for anyone in that position and must drastically increase any feelings of homesickness for them. Her character, Gala, could not speak English at all and although she went to school in India, she could not get education here. Her dad had died and her mum was unemployed leaving her family (of herself, her mum, four brothers and three sisters) to live in a one-bedroom apartment. Gala found it hard to get on with her family because of living in such a confined space, so people in her situation may not miss her family but rather her school, country and friends. Which got me thinking about how homesickness can be caused by missing a variety of things, not only your family. Friends are obviously a big factor, as we are all probably realising. Some may miss their friends or even pets more than their families, and its not only the people themselves we miss, but all the things associated with them. We could miss the little jokes you always had which no one else understands or even the great roast chicken your mum always made. When we all brought items that made our rooms homely into class, I realised that it wasn’t the actual items that did this in many cases, but the relevance and people behind them.

Kelly Barton

Drain Problems

In lessons we are thinking about homes and what makes them, something we can all relate to. Suddenly this new place is meant to be our "home" and I was wondering if anyone was having difficulty settling in or if people found it really easy to set up camp here. Only last week my boyfriend Rob told me off for calling this place home rather than calling my home 'home'. He felt as if I was leaving him behind because my previous town is the place where we both used to live and now it is not home to me. I tell him the word "home" has no spiritual meaning for me but I am lying, I think to make full advantage of a new habitat you have to embrace it as a home, as I feel I have.

However!!! I am having real problems applying this theory to my new room in Athlone. As you may remember from what I mentioned last lesson the drains in Reid (my home) have collapsed so I have been shipped off to dank, hellish Athlone, the purgatory for all sinners!! My room smells, the walls are breezeblocks painted a cheap cream, mouldy fridge, microwave... the list goes on! Anyway, the reason I feel so uncomfortable here is that I know it's not a permanent residence, which makes me think back to a question Dan asked in "Homes Nowhere" about those poor people who were being smuggled over in a tiny compartment of a lorry and whether their tiny uninhabitable environment ever became home. I do not think so, like myself, they were probably always projecting an image of their future destination and how much nicer a home it is than their present. This is what I presume them to think, I do not have the guts to say I knew how they must have felt as it all sounded too horrible.

Another point I'd like to make is how upsetting I found the overnight move to Athlone, a dingier place and a place not home, and if that is how I feel imagine how it must feel being an immigrant forced out of their country into another.

Sam Wood

Migration

"The immigrant experience is often a contradictory mixture of economic opportunity and exploitation, personal freedom and societal discrimination. During periods of prosperity and low unemployment, new immigrants are welcomed into the labour force. When resources become scarce, immigrants are perceived as rivals who compete for jobs, accept lower pay and poorer working conditions, and their
children are blamed for overcrowded conditions in schools."
www.ailf.org

The reasons for migration are as follows:

• chain migration: one leaves, tests the water, sends for the others. Most migrants have contacts in their new country.
• social security: invest money in a son's plane ticket and preliminary accommodation and when he gets work, he sends money home.

Reasons for immigration/emigration can be different, less out of choice:

• to escape poverty
• economic/social/political reasons: land shortage, population pressure. People are sent out by "structural forces", i.e. government, army
• receiving country may have too many jobs and not enough people whereas the country most immigrants come from would have not enough jobs. Economy needs migration. This is called "push and pull".
• genocide, sexism, discrimination, war, e.g. the ongoing crisis in the Gaza Strip.

Often immigrants are given jobs which all have the three Ds: dirty, dangerous and difficult. These are the jobs no one else wants within their own country so if you see this from the point of view of a business, you can either increase the wages for these awful jobs to tempt people or employ immigrants who accept lower pay and bad conditions. I am sure we are all aware of which stategy most businesses use. Also, this pittance they are payed for 3D jobs is still more than they would get back home for a more reasonable job, higher up the employment "chain".

Sam Wood

Airports

Re-reading Rachael’s blog today, reminded me of the new film that’s recently come out, about the man that lives in the airport? It’s called The Terminal. I love this concept, that the liminal space that everyone moves through so quickly and never becomes attached to becomes this guy's home. It's based on a true story about a French man who really is forced to live in the airport due to his homeland having been the subject of a coup (a new power takes over), and his visa instantly becomes invalid. I believe the character it’s based on was paid a good few thousand pounds and yet I believe he still chooses to live in the airport, I might have made that up but it sounds like a good yarn.

I really enjoyed the concept of Suspect Culture’s Airport. I always associate airports with holidays or trips away, and I’ve always loved them despite having spent many hours being delayed sitting in them. I tend to enjoy that time of peace, people watching, in the knowledge there’s nothing you can do in order to hurry them up, and being able to anticipate the holiday, or getting back to home. It heightens the excitement for me, much like the characters in Airport, who sees the airport as an opportunity to meet new ladies, and in The Terminal, who is forced to view it as a home but then comes to love it.

All in all I love the settings of airports and train stations and any other similar liminal spaces, anyone else agree?

Annie Rook

The Key Ingredient

I just wanted to talk a little bit about some things that I thought about.

• I was thinking about the things that remind me of 'home': cooking- the smell, ok... but the actual act of cooking is something I associate with home... whichever kitchen I feel comfortable in, i feel like it is a 'homely' place. For example, one of my best friends' house feels comfortable, because I know it, I know the kitchen, I know where the chinese lemon tea is, I know where the rubbish bin is, I know how the shower works, where the glasses are: it's the familiarity that makes a place 'homely', i guess?
• I really enjoyed our class today, I ABSOLUTELY LOVED it when we did the play in different languages, and the made up language was so great, aswell!! It sounded so beautiful, so universal, it was so great how different the languages were but people still actually got the gist of it! that was great! I loved it!

Don't know about you guys, but i really really love this bit:

• this is a little bit weird (and dont think i am completely insane) but... ok, i am a huge fan of Star Trek and i was thinking about the different cultures, lanugages, modes of communication. Don't you guys think that maybe language doesn't have to be something which we can hear? Perhaps we should explore the PHYSICAL modes of communication? I don't know exactly where im going with this but it just reminded me of our theme.

People help each other feel comfortable, feel at home... perhaps PEOPLE, and our relationships with them, are the key ingredient in making something, some place feel like HOME.

Dana Karic

Class: Week Three

Today's class was mainly taken up with talking, which is fine and I suspect rather reflects Suspect Culture's process at times. There was some lovely material that emerged from these discussions.

I started by raising the question Alice raises on the blog; who has been on holiday in a caravan or boat - a travelling home. There were some fascinating revelations, intriguing details:

• a parent regularly tripping up over a boy sleeping in the gangway
• the distinctions between RVs, mobile homes, and trailers
• a five-week holiday driving across the country and back again
• the RV taking up two spaces in the Wal-Mart car park
• that there are Expos for mobile homes where you can see all the models and choose from a range of tacky furnishing
• the Appalachian trailer parks where all the residents look like they're having yard sales
• the miniature TV run off the battery so was only turned on for Eastenders
• that some US National Parks have places where you can plug in your RV
• so many of you celebrating the end of GCSEs by visiting Newquay caravan park
• taking the oven out of a caravan because the car isn't powerful enough to take the wait
• the origins of the word 'boom'
• the difference between types of boat
• the difference between driving and driving somewhere

We then moved on to planes, trains and automobiles. There were some very evocative exchanges about waking in the darkness and watching the plane fly into the daylight; waking in the night to see a man sitting on your bunk staring at you; huddling under an anarchist's coat on a Polish train; the sound of the wheels.

We then recapped on the movement sequences we've been developing. First you refreshed your memories about the 'day at home' sequence. I added the following variations:

• you had to choose a number of times to repeat the sequence between 2 and 5
• you had to choose a number of seconds between 3 and 15 that you would hold the 'homesick look' between (and after) each repetition of the sequence.

This worked very well: it put some space around the sequences and allowed more focus on the movement by placing stillness there too; some of you went in and out of phase with each other, which gave a sense of connection and disconnection simultaneously; there was the nice melancholy emotional tone of watching you all, one by one, come to a halt (like, I said helpfully, the Duracell bunny). This is a very interesting, emotionally charged effect and we can certainly use it in various ways in the show.

We then repeated the 'migration dance', with the following refinements:

• I counted you in quietly but you continued the count in your heads
• You timed your movements so that they could be deliberate and purposeful but not hurried or rushed
• You faced front where possible
• On '20' you looked back to your 'birthplace'

This is beginning to look very shapely and interesting. I think we can use the whole sequences a couple of times in the show, perhaps overlaid with music, text, projections and lights, depending on resources. We can also repeat small bits of it - I mentioned that I think it's lovely to see Sam taking one step to the left and realising that means moving house perhaps from one village to the next. Quite soon I'd like to try some variations and refinements on this pattern; it might be interesting to see the baths you take have a more lingering presence. We could do this by using threads to show your journey, or perhaps you leave a trail in salt...

Bilingualism
Various intriguing motifs emerged from this discussion. I'm expecting this material to be more thoroughly documented from within the group but a few things that struck me were:

• the distinction between foreigner, adopted, hidden immigrant, and mirror
• the idea that bilingual people are 'neither here nor there'
• self help websites for parents of bilingual children
• do we dream in a specific language?

I then asked you to get in pairs and either (a) interview each other, or (b) perform the first scene of Airport. Your instruction was for one - or both of you - to speak a different language or make one up. There were some nice things that emerged:

• moments where recognisable words emerged from the confusion
• moments where the languages and vocabularies intersected (this was particularly clear in Julia and Kim's Italian/Spanish Airport)
• the textures of different languages and the interesting experience of not understanding everything that's going on but getting the drift...

Migration
Again, I'm expecting fuller documentation of the material to appear on this blog, but let's just mark some points; the distinction between

• migration (resettlement from one country to another, usually to find work)
• emigration (migration out of a country)
• immigration (migration into a country)

There was an interesting economic argument proposed. Different countries place a different economic value on their citizens, which is often connected with population size (typically, the larger the population, the less economic value of each citizen to the nation). When someone migrates from country x to country y they will do so if country y places a higher economic value on its individual workers than country x. Meanwhile, because the population of country x has diminished, it now rates each individual worker slightly more highly; and in country y they now have people to do the 3D jobs (Dirty, Difficult and Dangerous). So there are very strong arguments for allowing free migration.

I asked you to get into new pairs and to imagine you were the daughter of one of the following:

• secret agent
• ambassador/diplomat
• astronaut
• someone in the army
• conservationist/Aid worker
• international footballer
• illegal immigrant

You had to 'hot seat' (i.e. answer questions, staying in character, using your imagination to fill gaps in your knowledge). You did this in pairs for ten minutes; I then asked you to return to the circle, still in character and asked you some more questions collectively.

This was stunning. I was extremely impressed by the seriousness of your work, your sensitive and emotionally sophisticated comments were very powerful and thoughtful. There's much material here. I liked the clashes between you; some of you found it hard to make friends; some found you didn't want to make friends because you knew you'd lose them; some of you found it all too easy to make friends because of your celebrity parent. I liked the discussion of your sense of rootlessness and homelessness. There was some lovely, very poignant material about your fears for parents doing dangerous jobs. You charted the change in your feelings as you grew up. I am still haunted by a daughter's recognition that if her astronaut father dies doing his job the family will not be able to bury a body.

• We didn't get round to discussing Airport but we will do so next week.
• Next week's presentations should be on: Homesickness, Nomadic Peoples, Tourism. (In Week Five I'll want the presentations on Tourism and Interior Design.)

Dan Rebellato

The moment you've all been waiting for.....Nia blogs!

No your eyes are not deceiving you, my username/password type fingy is all sorted and I'm free to blog away! In celebration I thought I would bring you all the delights of migration, you lucky devils!

Sam and I mentioned briefly in class the subject of international migration and why people choose to migrate along with the following definitions in case you didn't catch them...

Migrate to move and settle into a new area in order to find work
Immigrate to come to live permanently in a foreign country
Emigrate to leave one's own country in order to settle permanently in another

I don't know how relevant this is to our project but I thought it might be quite interesting to look into bird migration; here's what I came up with.

'to move from one habitat to another according to the seasons'

The flying V - this formation not only allows the birds within it to fly a full 70% further (the bird flying at the head of the V breaks up the air resistance and the push of swirling vortexes behind them makes it much easier for the other birds in the formation to fly) but also allows the birds to watch over each other and communicate about likely landing locations. If a bird cannot keep up with the V or is injured during migration a few of the other birds will go down with the injured bird to keep it safe until it recuperates. Only when it is ready to fly again will they take off again in search of a new flock to join up with.

As I said I don't know if this is of any use to our project I just thought it was interesting and sweet! Ahhh the lovely birdies!

Nia Johnston

Homely Interior Design

Looking at my topic of interior design I was interested to find that loads of designers nowadays use 'design psychology' to discover what their clients really want for a homely feel. Using pyschological interviewing skills they have evaluated that people in different cultures associate certain colours with similar emotions or concepts. For example:

• Blue/Green = peace
• Pink/Lavender = love
• Blue/Purple = nobility
• Orange can even make a person feel physically warmer whereas blue has the opposite effect.

Apparently a greater feeling of harmony comes when your interior colours slightly echo your house's exterior one.

"The effect of colour in our homes effects us both, psychologically and physiologically." (Ms. Wade on 'The Colour Plan')

The mixture of old and new furniture, along with personal touches such as a pile of magazines and curved 'safe' shapes all can be involved in giving your home a 'homely' feel, but I believe that homeliness is such as personal thing that no one designer can define it, try as they might.

Kelly Barton

What About Tradition?

There are various problems and ideas related to homesickness: immigration, linguistic differences, social and cultural barriers, liminal spaces ...

Apart from them it is worth considering tradition when discussing homesickness. Tradition as such refers to and is made up of our important beliefs as well as our daily habits and customs, behaviour and mentality. Take for example the situation when young people leave home with a view to studying abroad, far away from the family and homeland. Soon they find out that the new reality requires adjustment and adaptability to the different conditions. The process can be a very painful experience for them as they often feel lost among people whose native language is foreign to them.

In my opinion "tradition" in a broader sense provides a valuable link between all the people and the universal motherland of humanity which for the Europeans is the Mediterranean culture that created and established the base of the Western civilisation and defined the meaning of values such as: love, truth and beauty. However, new ideas are continually being adapted to fit in with the old long-established views. Under these circumstances some people may be longing for the purity of transcendental values which are frequently forgotten and rejected from our lives by the modern materialistic society.

All in all I think that homesickness is a brilliant but usually difficult subject to evaluate as it can be introduced, examined, understood in different ways. That is why I strongly believe that what we should be aiming for in final performance is to achieve a universal experience of the topic.

Anna Nieczuja-Ostrowska

Some thoughts...

Hey guys, just a quick blog! Some ideas struck me this week and I just wanted to put them out there.

1) I'm curious about traveling homes, such as barges and caravans. Has anyone ever lived in one? I'd be interested to hear about the process of making something so focused on travel and movement a home.

2) Suspect Culture use gesture to symbolise and epitomise particular characters/feelings/etc. and I've been trying to think of gestures for travel, detachment, alienation, disorientation and
homesickness. It's really hard! Maybe this is something we can all explore together in class?

Alice Hansen

Roots

I just want to add a little to what Julia wrote about Gypsies. I have been doing research that focuses more on modern-day Gypsies and we both thought it was interesting that we came across some contradicting information; even though the Gypsy people tend to be very traditional, their culture has changed over the years. One thing I found that our group might find interesting is that many Gypsy families travel during some parts of the year but still have a home base that they return to, say, every winter. They also constantly call other families whether they live three or three thousand miles away. Both of these things made me realize that although the Gypsies travel and may seem to have no roots to the outside world, they may even have stronger roots than the average person.

I think it might be interesting for us to think back on where we all decided to spend the last ten or so years leading up to age 70. How many of you chose to return to the same area that you grew up in? Also, how often do you think of calling home and how often do you actually call home? How about other relatives. When was the last time you spoke to an aunt, uncle, cousin...? Even though we have places that we call home 365 days of the year, we still might not be as rooted in our families as some of the Gypsies are. Just something to think about...

Lauren Abend

Homes Nowhere

I'm picking up some ideas from Rachael's and Alice's posts and comments. I was talking to my brother the other day about why I like airports. It's because their anonymity drains the personality out of you. As you go around that wierd little village of Sock Shops, W H Smiths, themed cafes, and miniature department stores of cigarettes, perfume and spirits, the place is full of people but without any character. What I like is the effect this has on me. I find that my sense of my own identity disappears; I feel 'whitened out'.

Why should I like that experience? Perhaps it's because personality and individuality can sometimes feel like a kind of burden. And then, of course, I think of Timeless and the imagery of wanting to shed a skin and return as someone else.

As for the other idea - about where you can find yourself home - I wanted to ask an even more provocative question. You may remember from June 2000 the terrible story of the 58 Chinese immigrants who tried to get themselves smuggled into the country in the back of a lorry and died of suffocation. It's not a tasteful question but it might be an important one for our project: did the back of the lorry become, at any point, a kind of home?

Dan Rebellato

Getting adjusted to the new "home"

A really important aspect of homesickness is, I think, getting over it. I believe that as we will be dealing with homesickness in the next few weeks, we really should incorporate the element of overcoming it. We could demonstrate homesickness as a sequence, rather than one single condition. Dealing with the problem (if it really is a problem, it depends on how each of us reacts to it) and defeating it, would be one of the last parts/steps of the sequence.

These ideas occured to me while reflecting on that exercise we were doing yesterday, when we swapped "homes" and everyone had to live new experiences with the "alien" object (that in our case, belonged to someone else) and try to adjust to the new environment.

Also, as two weeks have past already, I've been noticing a change in me as well. I've started having little routines for small things (like making coffee in the morning) which I didn't have in my previous home, and that, I think, is helping me adjust and deal with homesickness. It's all about the little things, don't you think?

Elina Pissiotti