We are now, officially done with the first day of school. Yesterday began a bit dreary and a bit early. Class started at 10 but we were still out the door by 8:30 since we only sort of knew where we were going and needed to stop on the way. It was a little chilly and misty at this point, even though the weather report promised it would clear up. On the way we popped into a school supplies store to pick up those little things we'd forgotten from home, before grabbing more caffine and continuing on our way. The first class of the day was Politics and Public Policy, interesting and just wat it sounds like. G to be discussing the formation of public policy and how they interrelate. Class was about an hour and a half so we had some time to grab a quick bite to eat in an LSE café. A yummy sandwich to go for £3, not too shabby. In between the classes we had a mini tour of LSE from Luke, showing us where some of our classes would be, the cut-through to Hansard, etc. It had cleared up and was a beautiful, warm day ot at this point too which made some free outdoors time very enjoyable. Our second class is called Parliament and Politics. Its simillar a little bit to a Politics in Western Europe class I took last fall at Northeastern but with a completely different perspective. I think this class will be very interesting; I'm glad to have some base knowledge in the subject because it'll allow me to focus more on the intricacies of what goes on. Post class everyone dispursed with a few of us heading up to Carphone Warehouse at Angel for phones. That’s right folks, I now have a gen-u-ine international cell phone. It was a little tricky navigating throught the different pay as you go phones as s but we figured it out. However we soon realized there was one tiny littleobstacle in our way. While we were in the store it had begun to rain. Not just oh hey there's water coming from the sky, man it stinks that I don’t have a coat/umbrella (a mistake I will not be repeating), we're talking buckets and buckets of it, sheets of rain falling from the sky. We walked back as fast as we could, trying to dodge the massive puddles that had quickly formed but it was to no avail. We were still soaked in an instant. By the time we arrived back at the apartments I was wet all the way through and could literally wring water from my clothes. Luckily my new phone and most of the stuff in my backpack escaped the deluge - there was only some minor water damage to books & papers. A warm shower was deemed necessary to take out the chill and just enjoy the fact that our shower is now fixed. The rain had stopped as suddenly - the storm actually resemble a summer storm in New England - as it started so I headed down to the mini grocery to pick up enough basic supplies that I could make dinner. It was my first real dinner in the flat and it was fittingly delicious if slightly unbalanced. The rest of the evening was uneventful except for chatting it up w/ the bro and meeting some of his two and four legged suite-mates.
The early night last night was in part due to the fact that this morning was coming far too quickly. Another early wake up, this time so I could sneak in a run before heading off to LSE. A couple of us signed up for an LSE gym membership and had to be 'oriented' as to how to u se it before we were allowed to work out there. Our orientation was at 9 but it takes a while to get there, especially when the tube is crowded in the mornings. Orientation turned out to be walking us around the small room (gyms are very different here than in the US, since universities don't have the same funding levels, the facilities/services are often much more basic) and making sure we knew how to use all the equipment; it took all of 5-10 minutes. Then, it was time for breakfast and shaking the last of the sleepiness out. The nearby Costa was just the thing, with hot tea and a yummy lemon poppy seed muffin. At 11 we had a meeting at Hansard to just go over more welcome stuff and it gave us a chance to ask questions about the grading, traveling, and really anything. Afterwards we had lunch at Hansard and then headed off to class. Today we had just the parliament class where we talked about the House of Commons. It remains a fairly complex place despite the apparent simplicity in the system. It feels good to be talking politics again in an academic setting and I'm looking forward to doing it more. As a pretty quiet person I don’t usually volunteer my opinions or when I know the answer but I'm trying! Even so, it's refreshingly challenging to be puzzling out the 'problems' (for some they're problems, for others assets) in a system. After class I headed back towards home. After ditching my flats (still being broken in, ouch!) for some flip flops, losing the sweater - it was high 70s today - and plunking a sox cap on my head I headed up towards Angel. I want to become as familiar as possible with my area as quickly as possible and I needed a hair dryer, a pan to cook in the over in, chicken to cook in the oven, as well as some other random goodies. The walk proved to be a good finish to the afternoon and it didn’t rain on me this time. Tonight's been an exercise in catch-up between writing and doing some reading, another fairly quiet evening because tomorrow's another early morning. Now I'm off to finish some schoolwork of the grad and undergrad variety. 'Til next time!
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