London 2010-2011

A student from Macaulay who was recently accepted into the General Course program at LSE emailed me and asked a few questions. This inspired me write a general letter. Also I am clearly procrastinating right now but would you really want to write a paper answering the question :Have security factors taken a new importance in the foreign economic policies of states since September 11, 2001? Discuss with reference to at least two countries. I thought not. Although if anyone has any ideas or suggestions, I welcome all. Getting back to the point, I would like to preface this post by conceding that despite my complaining, I really do enjoy being here and would not trade this experience for anything.

Dear Future Student,

Congratulations on being accepted to the General Course program at the London School of Economics. I bet that you feel quite accomplished having gained the right to study at a top UK university for a year. I can almost guarantee that in the US (by US I actually mean North America or Asia but don’t worry when you come here everyone will assume that you are American) you study some form of economics and cannot wait to study at the preeminent institution for the study of economics, it must be because there is the word economics in the name. At this point you are probably convinced that you are an Econ expert. If someone were to wake you up in the middle of the night, you would be able to recite Y=C+I+G+X-M and explain price elasticity and its derivation. Guess what, everyone else here can do the same thing and they are probably better at it than you. Even if you are not particularly interested in Economics and choose to study International Relations or Anthropology, don’t worry there will be some econ thrown into your studies.

I know that while applying people probably told you that the workload is intense, but you thought, I am smart I can handle it and anyway, I would be bored if I didn’t have a lot of work to do. I can tell you that during orientation week the Dean told us that we should remember that we are full time students and that people who work full time average about 40 hours of work at least and we should use that as our base of how much to study. Each lecture has different requirements. My qualitative classes average about 400 pages of reading each and quantitative classes require problem sets each week. I think that the extra killer is that they expect you to read supplementary work. For instance, in my international political economy class, they recommended 4 different textbooks to brush up on necessary skills. After a while you get used to spending insane hours in the libary. You are bound to find an area in the library that will become your second home, and by second home I mean that you will spend more time there than in the actual dorm room that you are paying for. In fact, there are showers and bean bag chairs if you need to take a short break from reading/writing/procrastinating on sporcle/having a nervous breakdown/procrastinating by reading the New York Times or the Financial Times/Facebook. In Lent Term, you will develop a close relationship with the overnight security guard who comes around after midnight to check LSE ids.

Also, you may be looking forward to studying at LSE because you are anxious to meet and interact with British students. I am sorry to tell you that LSE is not the place for this. The school prides itself on being international which means that no one is actually British. I have gone days without hearing a British accent. In addition, as a GC student, the majority of your friends will also be from North America (and at least one of them will be from a D.C. University but my bet is GW). You may meet a few non-Americans if you choose to join societies, but it is likely that there are post-Grad and think that it is cute that you are trying to get involved.

I am sure that the other reason you chose to study abroad in Europe was to travel. Thats great but there are a few problems. One, you chose to study in England, the only country in Europe that is seperated by water. So any European adventures require travel on a plane, adding an extra expense. Also, LSE classes are held 5 days a week and you have very little control over when your classes are held. This leaves only 2 days to travel over the weekend but it is likely that you have a ton of work so this makes traveling over the weekend impractical. The one benefit is that unlike in the US, the entire teaching period for the entire year is only 20 weeks and you will be here for 10 months. This leaves a 4 week Christmas Break and a 5 week Easter Break. But, once you come here you learn that in fact, the Holidays at LSE are meant for studying and you do not want to fall behind your classmates. I guess that you could always travel once finals end in July, but that only leaves a few weeks before American Universities begin at the end of August.

You are probably also excited about meeting new people (or given the population I have observed at LSE maybe not). You will be around people who have similar interests to you. In the past, your college friends have made fun of you when you went off on a tangent discussing the value in probit testing and ANOVA or the different personalities of all 100 Senators. Given LSE’s focus on the social science, you are bound to find other people who are interested in those things. There is one problem with this logic, everyone here is interested in things like that. This means that everyone is as quirky (which really means strange) as you are. At home, you are able to masque this characteristic but it will truly blossom at LSE.

You are probably also excited about studying in London. There will not be the language barrier that would have existed had you chosen to study in Madrid or Berlin. Unfortunately this is not the case. At LSE, it is likely that only about 1/5 of the people you interact with on a daily basis should count English as a language in which they have fluency. Other British people in London will pretend to not be able to understand you even though we clearly speak the same language. Each time you ask for a coffee ‘to go’ at Starbucks the Barista will give you a strange look until you correct yourself by saying ‘take away.’ Also there is no sun in London. I am convinced that true Londoners must have a Vitamin D deficiency. As of March 10, I can name all of the sunny days in London. But don’t worry, good weather would only distract you from going to the library so this point is actually moot.

Start counting down the days until Orientation Week.

Love,

Steph

Ok. First I am just going to come out and say that I speak no German ( in fact I actually know about 3 words- exit, entrance, and bathroom) and went on to my old friend Google Translate in order to get the title of this post, so if I have severely butchered the German language, I apologize.

Despite my inability to speak German, the weekend in Berlin was AMAZING. On some level I think that this is due to the fact that I am currently obsessed with Germany which is a little strange considering that my previous trip to Munich left me terrified of Germans and Germany. Prior to my most recent trip, my reasons for loving Germany were quite nerdy and had very little to do with the culture of the country. Reasons include: 1) Angela Merkel- Germany has a tough Chancellor who just so happens to be a woman. This means that basically a woman in controlling all of Europe (although I know that British friends would not like to admit this). 2) The German Economy- as I am taking a European Economics class, I have grown to appreciate the strength of the German economy. I find it incredibly interesting that Germany values low interests rates about all else because of the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic. 3) Kant, Marx, and Nietzche- three of my favorite philosophers were from Germany. Only a German would say, “Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.” Yes, I realize that there are other less desirable German exports but I try not to associate those evils with modern Germany.

I do not feel the need to recount every detail of my weekend but will instead focus on a few special activities.

Aroma– OK so drinking coffee is probably not a special activity but I think that this coffee shop in particular is worth noting. Aroma Espresso Bar is an Israeli coffee chain, similar to Starbucks in the US. Having spent the previous summer in Israel, I basically lived off of Aroma Iced Cafe. Although there are a few branches in New York, I thought that it sent an incredibly powerful message that there is an Aroma branch in Berlin across the street from Checkpoint Charlie. If Hitler could only see that regular Germans are consuming coffee from an Israeli ccompany in his capital city.

Potsdam– Early Saturday morning, we took a 45 minute trip on the S-Bahn out to Potsdam. I was excited because the palaces are supposed to be beautiful and because I was anxious to see where the Potsdam Conference was held. Unlike Versailles which is only one palace, Potsdam is an entire island. I surmise that were it the spring or summer, the area would have been breathtaking. Despite the bleak weather, the grounds were still nice. If I had to pick a favorite part, it would be the grave of Frederick II. Our tourguide told us that because he had no children or wife, his dogs were his only real family. As a result, about ten or so of his dogs are buried next to him in also identical graves.

Weinrei– I am not sure if this concept exists in the United States but I do not see how it could. When you enter the bar you pay 2 euros and are given a wine glass. For the rest of the night, you are free to relax on the couches and engage in conversation and pour wine into your glass at your leisure. There is even food that you are free to take from. At the end of the night, the management encourages you to contribute the amount of money you think you should pay into a jar. Not only was the night cheap, but the place had a really great vibe.  New York Times Review :http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/europe/germany/berlin/35332/weinerei/nightlife-detail.html?inline=nyt-classifier

Some people like Indiana Jones are afraid of snakes while others like my dad cannot deal with small enclosed spaces. For those afflicted with such phobias, the mere thought hearing a rattle from a snake or entering a dark closet force irrational anxiety and irregular heartbeats. While I do not have Apiphobia(fear of bees) or Optophobia(fear of opening one’s eyes), I am (perhaps irrationally) afraid of taxidermy. Yes it may sound ridiculous to you, but even thinking about stuffed formerly living animals forces my heart to beat quickly and leaves me unable to formulate coherent sentences or even words. I cannot remember a time when I did not have this fear, although I have a feeling that the fear has something to do with my identification with foxes and a certain wildlife museum near West Dover, Vermont. To make matters worse, my favorite NYC museum is the Museum of Natural History, home to countless rooms of animal dioramas. I can tell you that it is actually impossible to exit the museum without walking through one of these rooms. In fact, attending the Macaulay reception for accepted students was really difficult for me because it was in the museum.
So anyway, getting back to my point and the theme of the blog- London, this past weekend I had to deal with one of my biggest fears. A friend and I decided to venture over to Exhibition Road in South Kensington in order to visit the Science Museum and yes, the Museum of Natural History. Because both museums are free, I could not resist the desire to take advantage.
After waiting on line for about an hour to gain entrance, we went through the doors of the beautiful Natural History Museum. The architecture itself is worth the visit. Once inside, we decided to forgo the additional line to see the dinosaur fossils and instead went to the exhibit about humans. Trust me, I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the Miracle of Life and if I were to recount what I learned here, the blog would carry a parental warning attached. Lets just say that I was shocked that young children were being encouraged by their parents to look through the exhibit. Perhaps because I was still shaken up by the Human Exhibit, I did not realize that we some how walked into the Animals portion of the museum. I had no time to prepare myself but once inside I braced myself for the worst. The lack of preparation may have been beneficial because I wasn’t really that scared. I surmise that because the specimens were in simple glass cases as opposed to the hypocrisy of the New York dioramas. There was no pretending that these animals were in fact alive- perhaps the first benefit of the infamous British crassness.

 

Elephants

Once finished with the Museum of Natural History, we walked to the Science Museum next door. To be honest, I was not sure what to expect. Perhaps I expected something in between the wonder of the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. and the Hall of Science of my childhood. To be honest, I thought that it was even less impressive than the Queen’s Hall of Science. There were a few rocket ships, but because the UK does not really have a space program, everything was either from the US or USSR. Their largest section was dedicated to steam power and cars, so basically technology that was invented over 100 years ago. This means that if my mother would have visited the museum as a child, the same items would be on display. Seriously?!?! The only part that I found remotely interesting was a small section discussing technology in textiles. There were videos of designers explaining how clothing can be custom made and a bit on synthetic fabrics.

Medusa- no clue why Greek mythology can be called science

I am pretty sure this was a bomb from WWII

Cars

Dress Using Less Conventional Textiles

The let down of the science museum was salvaged by a quick trip to Harrods before going home. Even though the clothing is insanely overprice, a slice of quiche only costs 2.50 pounds!

I decided to change around the format of the blog to make it more organized. I will work on it later when I have time.

Ok so to be honest, the past few weeks haven’t been the most exciting weeks of my life, no traveling and A LOT of work. I am not sure how many hours I have spent in the library but it is started to look more familiar to me than my bedroom. At the beginning of the year, the Undergraduate Dean told us that because we are all full time students, we should being doing schoolwork for about 40 hours a week. At first, I thought that this was slightly ridiculous and meant to scare us, but I have found it to be true. To give you an idea of what life is like, I have a friend who told me that he writes down the number of hours he spends in the library each day and tries to outdo himself each day. While this was my attitude up until yesterday, I can now somewhat taste freedom or perhaps relative normalcy. You see, for the past three weeks I have had a total of 4 papers, 2 presentations, 4 problem sets, about 2,000 pages of reading, and work each Sunday. Having finished all of this, I no longer have the extra work. To be honest, it feels a little strange spending all of the extra time in my room- so far, I have completed one 600 page novel.

As I mentioned before, a few weeks ago, I began teaching an SAT Class at the London Kaplan Center in Leicester Square. In theory, this is nothing new to me as I have taught classes in both Queens and Brooklyn, but I have found my experience in London to be quite different. The first difference was that few kids in the class had heard of Kaplan before and few had taken any sort of test prep before. In New York especially, it is common to take an SAT like class for the Specialized High School Exam so that come SAT time everyone understands the format of test prep classes. Additionally, in the US it is assumed that as a high school junior you are going to take the SATs at some point. For these kids, it was a conscious decision to prepare for the SATs. I began the first class by having each student explain why they wanted to take the SATs. Answered varied from I want to go to an American University to I’m not exactly sure but it looks cool on television. Some of the students only temporarily live in the UK so they plan to return to the United States. Considering the drastic difference in price ($9,000 compared with at least $50,000) it is amazing that US universities still have an edge. They found it incredibly strange that I chose to travel across the Atlantic to study for the year. The other thing I realized was how much the SAT and the Kaplan book in particular requires American-specific knowledge. For instance, none of the students had heard of PEMDAS and few understood what absolute value was, two concepts that are taught quite early in the US. Moreover, the students found it incredibly difficult to complete a math problem that assumed that the test taker knew that 12 inches are in a foot. Many of the students began to convert into metric. There were a few other issues, but to be honest, I feel that if they want to study in the US, the class is a good crash course in American education. Unlike in other social situations, I do not avoid using American phrases and I continuously find myself saying college instead of university. I speak at a normal pace and only annunciate in my normal manner.

At the Kaplan Center

Trying to relax and watch Mad Men

Yes it is sad but true. Somehow the month long Christmas holiday is over. I have not entirely come to terms with the fact that I have class at 10am tomorrow morning. And to be honest, I haven’t exactly completed the necessary readings for the class. In addition to neglecting my schoolwork over the break, I somehow managed to avoid posting on this blog- sorry about that. My neglect was not due to the lack of material with which I had to write, but instead is due to the fact that I was so busy. In total I experienced four time zones…

The break began as expected. By 5pm on December 10th, I could hardly contain my excitement for vacation. I left class and soon found myself in W.H. Smith, a London bookstore. I purchased guidebooks for Prague, Amsterdam, and Belgium (I already had a book for Paris courtesy of Helaine Fox ie My Mom). I sat with the books trying to plan out my vacation. After a few hours, my books were sufficiently highlighted and post-ited and I was ready to go; unfortunately, I had to wait until Tuesday. The following morning I was able to wake up without an alarm for the first time in 10 weeks. I almost didn’t know what to do with all of my free time. Sunday was much of the same.

By Monday I needed something to do. Luckily, I had previously planned a meeting with my supervisor from Kaplan. Unlike in New York, the European Kaplan Centers cover a much larger area. As a result, my supervisor actually lives and works in Paris and only comes to London for a few days at a time. All of our previous communication has occurred through Skype. From the meeting I learned that I would begin teaching an SAT class in early February. Because SAT classes are only 10 sessions, the class fits perfectly with my Spring Break.

Prague, Czech Republic (GMT +1)

Finally Tuesday arrived. Because the friends I travelled with were in Paris, I had to fly to Prague alone. No problem, right? Except for the fact that by the time I arrived in Prague it was about ten at night (too late for the airport shuttle) and I had no idea where I was staying. Eventually I was able to meet up with my friends.

My experience in Prague was great for a few reasons:

(1) Our hostel was amazing. Instead of being crammed into bunk beds with strangers, the six of us shared a two room apartment complete with a kitchen, bathroom, and washing machine.

(2) The food. The Czech republic is a strange place where beer and beef are cheaper than water and chicken and  potatoes are considered a suitable vegetables. The multiple beef goulashes were probably the highlight.

(3) Prague is beautiful. The first full day we were there, we went on a walking tour of the city. It is amazing. Even more interesting for my purposes is the fact that the Jewish areas makes up about 1/3 of the  old city. The tour guide told us that in WWII, Hitler intentionally preserved the synagogues and Jewish cemeteries in Prague. Hitler intended to make this area a museum after the Final Solution so that people could see how the extinct nation lived. The joke is on him now because it is a large part of the tourism industry in the city. I also enjoyed the area because I had learned about Prague Jews back in Solomon Schechter. I was able to see the Old New Synagogue where it is rumored that the Golem’s body remains in the attic. For some reason, I have always loved the Golem story not because I necessarily believe it to me true but because it says a lot about the Jewish community at the time. The castle in Prague was also quite amazing.

Synagogue

Kafka Museum

From the picture, you may notice how much snow was on the ground. While this may be normal in Prague, London, Paris, and Amsterdam also received equal amounts of snow- a problem for the second leg of our trip- to Amsterdam. Because of Western Europe’s inability to deal with even the smallest amounts of snow, we found ourselves virtually stuck in Prague. As a self proclaimed control freak, I knew that this would not work for me. There is no way I could sit in the airport aimlessly waiting for good news. Instead, I decided to take control of the situation and probably did the most spontaneous thing of my life- at 12 am I booked a flight to New York that was leaving at 8:30 am.

Kiev, Ukraine (GMT +3)

Ok so it is a little fake to say that I went to Kiev but I was technically there. I even have a picture to prove it. For some reason my journey to New York on beautiful Ukrainian Airlines brought me to Kiev. I spent a total of 2 hours there which was more than enough.

Proof

Waiting in the Airport

New York (GMT-5)

Finally after way too many hours of traveling, I arrived in New York. Because my trip was a surprise to my mother, I had my brother pick me up at the airport. It was actually quite strange coming back. I almost hugged the border patrol officer when he said in a thick Staten Island accent “Welcome Home.”

Bryant Park Skating Rink

Rockefeller Center Tree

Ok its getting late and as I said before, I haven’t finished my work. I will continue tomorrow.

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Clearly I am excited for vacation. I spent about twenty minutes in a lecture today looking on Ryanair and EasyJet’s website to see if there were any additional trips I wanted to plan. As of right now, I am going to remain in London until December 29th when I will be traveling with my friend for about a week; however, theses plans will change. Yesterday, I finished my last paper of the term so I am basically ready to put a lid on Michaelmas Term at LSE aside from a problem set and some reading.

I also realised that I have not been writing on my blog nearly as much as I initially intended to. As a result, I have now scheduled in time every few days (lets see how well that actually goes).

Since the last time I wrote, I traveled to Milan, celebrated Thanksgiving in London, and began the Holiday season in London.

Milan:

Basically, we decided to travel to Milan because it was the cheapest flight on Ryanair’s website. First I should tell you a little bit about my Ryanair experience. Really you get what you pay for. Although the flights are cheap, any additional add on will cost you way more than it should. For instance, if you fail to print your boarding pass at home, it costs about 40 pounds to check in at the airport. Similarly, your carry on bag must fit very specific parameters and cannot be heavier than 10kg. Also, there are no reserved seats on the plane. As as result, as soon as the doors open, it is a mad rush to get a comfortable seat. The flight itself was not too bad except for the fact that the flight attendants come around about every 10 minutes to sell something from magazines to lottery tickets, it is quite strange.

Once in Milan, we realised that we didn’t have specific plans for our time there. We knew that there was a famous Duomo and that there is good shopping but that is about it. In fact, the shopping was quite nice but in the centre of the city it appeared as if The Gap and Abercrombie and Fitch were the two most popular stores. Also, because we were so confined in terms of our baggage, it was impossible to purchase more than just a few small items. Unlike the shopping, the Duomo did not disappoint. As you can see from the pictures it is amazing. I can’t believe that it was built such a long time ago.

Thanksgiving

To be honest, Thanksgiving was a tad on the depressing side. This was the first time that I was not home for the holiday let alone out of the country. Also, for some reason Thanksgiving is one of my favourite holidays. I like it because unlike most of the other holidays my family and I celebrate, everyone else in America celebrates the holiday too. Also, there is no praying associated with the holiday which is a huge break from every Jewish holiday. Because of this, the fact that I had two classes on Thanksgiving in addition to two papers due on the Black Friday made my holiday experience less than desirable. Nevertheless, I had a good time at the General Course Thanksgiving Dinner.

Christmas in London

For the first time this past weekend I began to realise that it is the holiday season. Yes, Chanukah began last Wednesday and I have been lighting my menorah in my room (hopefully my parents wills see this) but I haven’t really felt in the holiday spirit. This past weekend changed all of that for me.

On Friday night, I made latkes for a few people. They had no idea that this was the first time I ever made latkes but by some grace of god the latkes came out well (except for the fact that the fire alarm went off).

On Saturday, we went to Covent Garden with the hopes of petting reindeer and watching the Pudding Race. Unfortunately, because of the snow , the reindeer were unable to travel into London. After Covent Garden, I went with a few friends to the London Eye for the first time. Along the Thames by the London Eye there is a really great German Holiday Market- the food was great and the shops reminded me of New York during the Christmas Season.

On Sunday, after completing my paper in the LSE library, I went to the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. Basically it is a large winter themed carnival. We were able to go on rides and walk around. Because of the German theme, I was reminded of Oktoberfest, except this time I didn’t drink any beer and it was far colder.

Naked Men Running for Charity in Covent Garden

The London Eye

The Only Reindeer I saw

That all for now. I am actually going to a bar tonight to watch the Jet Pats Game which in London begins at 1:30 am. LETS GO JETS!!