Defamiliar Voices

I had some time between a meeting and when I had finished eating, so I wandered to somewhere quiet in the Arts Center, overlooking the art gallery, and hunkered down for some light reading: Postmodern Narrative Theory by Mark Currie.

I usually have trouble focusing in large groups of people, finding myself distracted by the conversations that surround me. I like to know what is going on around me, and I am fascinated by the conversations that I can hear snippets of:
"No, I'm telling you. Three days tops. You should see the doctor."
"Fugly, dude. I'm telling you, Fugly."
"I'm not racist, I just don't trust Mexicans."

Here, though, two things tend to prevent me from getting lost in conversations:
1) The British talk exceedingly quiet. I became very aware of how loud I talk within the first few social outings I have been to. Maybe my hearing is shot from all the loud concerts I have been to, the bands I have played in, and so on. But I don't think so. People err on the side of courteous and speak very quietly.
2) Because the accents make it hard for me to figure out what people are saying, the quiet din of conversation just melds into white noise. Like waves crashing on the beach, or static fuzz of a radio station barely coming in.

This particular day, as I tried to make it through a particularly dense chapter about linguistic terminology deconstructing structuralist narrative theory, I heard the first American voice I have heard for some time.

Now, through the wonder of Skype, I have kept up with my American voices, so it wasn't jarring for that reason. But I have yet to hear any American voices in context. Here, two tables away, this woman was talking to another young man.

It could have been the person, or the conversation, but her voice cut through the white noise like a Ginsu knife through a leather belt, a tin can and a tomato (STILL CUTS EVEN SOMETHING SOFT LIKE A TOMATO AFTER ALL THAT!). One might assume that an American voice might help relieve homesickness, or instantly bond me and this stranger. Quite the opposite happened. Instead, I was suddenly embarrassed to be an American.

Again, had a well-spoken American sat talking politely with some British folk, the situation would have been different, but this woman peppered her speak with "like" and other vocal mannerisms pulled straight from Clueless. She was loud: laughing loudly in the quiet Arts Center, talking loudly, interjecting into the conversation loudly ("Oh. My. GOD, I KNOOOOOOWW!"), stepping all over the other people in the discussion. Here I am, tucked into a quiet corner of Wales, miles away from anything listed on the British Travel Council's website, and the one American I run into was a caricature, and not of something awesomely American like Barry Bonds or Great America.

Granted, my salty language and appreciation of the finer points of Transformer movies probably does not make me the best representative for American culture, but I am careful not to seem pushy, loud and obnoxious. Of course, if one is pushy, loud and obnoxious, keeping aware of your cultural surroundings is probably not high on the list of said person's personal attributes. When she began talking about how much she could drink (tacitly implying that she was awesome because of this), I packed my stuff and left the Arts Center, secure in my pretentious belief that I was a better expatriate than her. Now, I thought, where can I get me some Mickey Ds?