Quality not Quantity

Quality not Quantity

Well that’s us at the half way point of our American Odyssey, and what a four weeks it’s been.

Texas has swapped it’s fixation with Hurricane/Tropical Storm Eduardo for Olympic fever.

I’ve always been pretty intrigued/disturbed by the American sense of patriotism. Being from the islands I’ve always thought of myself as separate from the rest of mainland Scotland; proud to be from South Uist but only really ever into the whole Scottish-patriotism-thing when watching ‘Braveheart’ or England losing on penalties.

However, since I’ve been here I’ve been utterly awestruck by just how much the people over here love this country…..and love showing it.

To some extent it’s contagious; I’ve found myself telling people I’m from Scotland more and more, rather than saying I’m from South Uist (this is also party because I’m fed up having to take a map with me to point it out and getting the response “oh, so just outside London”)

As I’m sure you’re aware, America have utterly dominated in the swimming pool and China have dominated gymnastics (Russia have been too busy dominating poor wee Georgia to put up much of a challenge to either) and the Olympic Medal Table has taken the place of the Dow Jones as the key indicator as to how the country is performing.

We’ve been kept abreast of Michael Phelps every bowel movement and the fact that his i-pod was running out of battery the other day was breaking news on ‘CNN’. I had no idea just how much of a superstar he was over here. He has even managed to take some of the coverage away from the ‘John Edwards Sex Scandal’ (copyright every media hack over on this side of the pond - http://www.nationalenquirer.com/john_edwards_sex_more_lies_videotape_/celebrity/65288)

Again this sense of infatuation is contagious; I sat up last night to watch Phelps become the most decorated Olympian ever, as nervous for him as I would have been if he were one of my brothers (he could never be one of my brothers, we only get in a pool if it has a bar in it!).

If I’m being honest, I did have to turn the commentary onto mute but it was more to do with the fact that the commentator kept saying “Sem-i Final” rather than “semi Final” and not because they were being ridiculously biased or outlandish in their praise.

I then sat….nay, jumped about the living-room as the American 4x200m relay swimming team broke their own world record by over 5 seconds in winning gold (seriously was Stephen Hawkins swimming the final leg for them in their previous attempt or what?….how on earth do you break a world record by 5 seconds?!!) 

In previous years I’ve never been that interested in the Olympics; I mean who knew that archery was a sport! I was never really convinced that the ability to throw a stone far or jump into sand was much of a skill.

But since I’ve been here and witnessed just how amazing it is when a whole country gets up and show complete solidarity it’s something I may have to adopt…..if only Scotland was good at something more invigorating than curling!

Work wise, I’ve moved from the wonderful Corporate Communications Department (Some seriously cracking people to work with and around) to the Finance Department.

I’ve only been working here for 3 days but already I’ve got a real sense of just how important it is to be wholly and utterly rigorous in every aspect of your report complying and number crunching.

My areas of expertise (I use the term loosely) are Maths and Economics and so I hope that can put these skills to use over the coming weeks. The people I’m working with have a real passion for numbers and data management and if ever there was something I would like to take from this trip it would be that.

Comments

[David The Collier]

Hey Action! Great stuff, Been reading them all like a the nosy little fecker I am! haha! Texas is an awesome place to be right enough! pity the rest of america hates them because "Our president comes from there", or so one of the customs officials in Miami told me through gritted teeth when she found out I was going there next! haha!

Keep the updates coming!

How long you got there before you head back to Scotland? And do they have any spare jobs going? haha!

Cheers Collier.

[Paul Steele]

Hi Dave,

Sounds like you are having a blast. I didn't know who John Edwards was so I did a search. According to wikipedia his christian name is Johnny and John is just his nickname!! Americans are slightly weird and being Half-Eriskay/Half South Uist I believe that I am if not an authority then at least an expert on what constitutes weird.

See you when you get back,

PS :)