Immigrant Perspectives

Categories: durham

Tags: Durham

Date: 29 October 2009 12:12:01

Josh is one of the students newly arrived in the city. He has been blogging about his experiences of the UK, amongst other things. The entry I've linked to relates to healthcare and his wifes confuddled reaction to being told how the NHS works, obviously linking into the healthcare debate within the US. Ben, another student, who has been here for a while now has been commenting about the wonders of getting your council tax exemption sorted if you are a student. Have to say I am not impressed that apparently the spouses of international students are exempt, when to my knowledge the spouses of English ones are not. Both of these guys also post some theology type stuff, Bens blog being particularly worth a work. He has some excellent New Testament and Patristics stuff. He also has an excellent section on his blog about applying for and doing a PhD. One of the reasons it's useful reading these blogs is because it gives a useful understanding of the cultural differences which my neighbours are grappling with. One thing I have learnt is that things that may appear everyday and "normal" in the UK are not for everybody and there are greater cultural differences between here and North America than you might think. My latest discovery is that in Canada people still use fax machines loads and that many shops have them available for you to go in and send stuff from.