Yesterday, Monday 14/06/2010 was meant to be the first properly structured day of the programme. But someone up there decided differently, and as such, we didn't get a whole lot done. Coming here, I thought that Swansea was possibly the wettest place on earth, what with the near enough constant rain. In fact, it is officially the wettest place in Britain according to the Met Office.
So what does it decide to do on the first day in Oklahoma, it rained. Actually it didn't rain, it stormed, pretty much for 24 hours solid. I remember falling asleep on the Sunday, and stirring at around midnight just as the first roll of thunder was sounding in the night sky. Being the optimistic Brit that I am, I thought to myself, "Oh well, the storm will soon blow over". Again, famous last words there.
Waking up in the morning saw the storm still ever present and worse than ever, throughout Oklahoma, a state of Emergency had been declared, as scenes such as these greeted television sets across the state; and to an extent the nation I guess:
If I could say something relatively funny about these events, I doubt I would, owing to the fact that as far as I'm currently aware, around 20 people lost their lives yesterday.
Because of the extreme weather, we were unable to undertake in the day's activities, meaning that there was one hell of a lot of sitting around, playing pool and twiddling our thumbs to be done. I did go for a swim at the University's pool, clocking up around 1k before getting out to brave the rain on the walk back. With hindsight it was probably not the best thing to do, drying myself and getting changed, before going back out into the rain, only to get wetter than I had been when I'd got out of the pool, but oh well, c'est la vie.
There isn't really a whole lot more to write about yesterday's antics really, owing to the immense lack of activities we had available due to the weather. If anything, I experimented with my camera to get some fairly decent shots of the guys playing pool, such as these:
By the time I'd got to bed last night, the storm had just about burnt itself out, with the odd rumble of thunder, interspersed with some light rain, but nothing compared to what it had been. By morning, there was virtually no sign of it at all. Although there were some puddles, the roads and pavements were certainly not the rivers that we'd been wading through the day before.
A 9am start saw the Counter-Terrorism and Politics internships join together for the day, with us firstly watching a video upon the build-up to the 9/11 attacks, which prompted a debate amongst ourselves as to why the hijackers did what they did, and whether the actions taken by the US government in the build up, and the aftermath were justifiable or just one giant cock up. This picture sums things up quite nicely I reckon:
Had the intelligence services actually collaborated together in the build up to the attacks, we can but speculate whether the outcome would have changed for the better, as so much has been found out, but none of the intelligence was passed around, owing to inter-service rivalries.
After this, we went for lunch, before moving off to our first port of call outside of the University setting, to a place called OSBI, or the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations. Kind of like a state version of the FBI. The OSBI is a forensics lab, which takes in countless pieces of evidence each year. The eight of us were taken on a tour of the impressive facilities, which cost upwards of $30million to build, taking in areas dedicated to toxicology, ballistics and DNA analysis. All in all it was pretty interesting: made even more so when I found out, after talking with Auntie Lizzie, that F&F supplied some of the equipment that was being used in the facility.With the tour over, we went back and changed, before heading out to play some soccer, I'm not gonna lie, it was too hot to play and none of us could really be arsed to play. At least with volleyball you don't actually have to run miles. The remnants of yesterday's rainstorm were still all to apparent upon the ground, as it was fairly difficult to remain standing if changing direction at speed, as I found out after falling into a huge puddle of mud. Not good when we were having dinner with the Dean later this evening.
However, having showered and gotten changed into something a bit smarter than sports gear, we all wandered across to have a "traditional southern dinner" which consisted of Chicken Fried Steak (steak which is fried and coated in much the same way as Southern Fried Chicken), Fried Chicken, as well as a variety of salad and vegetables. All in all it was a hugely filling meal, with great company and great conversation.
My brain is now dying, however, and I do believe we have a busy day tomorrow, with the internship for the CT lot starting at 0830. So I shall love you and leave you with these quotes from this man:
"Bring them on."
"It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas"
No Shit Sherlock!!!
Night
x
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