One month in London!

BANKSIDE, LONDON, UK -- Well sure enough as things have gotten busier my free time has been in decline. I am just about done with my second full week of class (one seminar tomorrow afternoon), and things are going great at LSE. I am enjoying all of my classes and the professors, and so far I have been on top of all of the concepts and theories. In fact today in my statistics computer class I managed to do all of the work for the class and then the homework as well in a matter of about 15-20 minutes (in a 50 minute class).

A special thank you to my parents and Justin for sending me a package that I got yesterday with all kinds of random goodness in it. It is always nice to receive things from home and even more when you are totally surprised. Speaking of the contents, I'm listening to the new Three Days Grace CD right now. They're a rock band that does a pseudo/alternative metal style... I saw them on tour for their first album (2003) and their second (2006), so I'm hoping maybe next year sometime I can see them tour this one too. They really improved on their musical style from the first to the second album, and now this one has much more optimistic lyrics while maintaining the same higher-quality of music.

Because things have just been too busy to really recall the exact details of everything, I'll try to keep it short. Monday in class we had a lively debate on comparing different levels of bureaucracy which was a whole lot of fun (and educational as well), Tuesday we discussed the various UNFCCC and IPCC meetings and committees that began in 1992 with the first global climate deal in Rio de Janeiro to the famous 1997 Kyoto Protocol, yesterday I had our second weekly Israel Society meeting (which was quite productive - we're talking about getting Col. Richard Kemp to come and speak), and today...

...has been by far the busiest day of my week. From 12-1 I was tabling with the Israel Society, meaning we set up a stand on Houghton Street (which is the main street that connects London with the LSE campus) and handed out flyers that consisted of various non-political facts about Israel:

1. Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in the number of trees

2. Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees per person in the world

3. Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized, no-radiation, diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer

I probably managed to hand out 150 flyers in under an hour. From there I went to the third UGM of the year, which was quite busy and controversial to say the least. Next week are LSE elections, and so today all of the postgraduate candidates gave their campaign speeches and answered questions from the crowd. For the second time (in four series of speeches over the first three UGM's) an American completely stole the show. This guy was clearly from the south and took a can-do-attitude approach to it and had everyone in uproar, which was brilliant. After the speeches there was one motion voted on, to deny the British National Party (BNP) a platform to speak at LSE. For those of you who don't know, the BNP is an openly-fascist, extremely right-wing party that encourages violence against minorities. Brushed aside for years as a joke, they actually won 2 seats in the European Parliament elections to the EU with 1 million votes in the UK (out of about 35 million voters). Since then, people are rightly taking them seriously, and with UK elections coming up in a hurry, party leaders are vying for time on the major networks. Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP, was granted a panel on BBC One, and people are clashing. Just today protesters actually stormed the BBC complex trying to block the studio they were going to record his segment in. Back to the UGM, the motion pitted two large parties against one another. It's clear that LSE opposes the BNP, but the student population was split into two sides, arguing of course for free speech. The general argument is that if we restrict free speech, even if it is their fascist and racist free speech, then they have essentially won in reducing the credibility and legitimacy of the British democracy. NOW, the point made by those who proposed the anti-BNP motion is that free speech stops when your speech is inciting violence, which is essentially what the BNP does. Thus while the BBC, as a media outlet, has a responsibility to give him a platform, LSE represents a student body that is 70% international and of the 30% British, 50% of those are minority students. Ultimately it was on that logic that the motion passed, and LSE for the next three years will adopt an anti-BNP platform to ensure they are never allowed on campus.

After all of that chaos ended I had my two hour statistics lecture which was definitely more advanced than the lecture from last week, but still nothing new. That said it was a nice refresher to go over calculating standard deviation again, as that was one model I had intentionally tried to block out after years of calculus at Stevenson and so on. From there I had my statistics computer class, which I mentioned earlier went really well to say the least. We have weekly homework and I was really glad to have finished it so quickly, so I don't have to worry about it at all for the next week now. After class most of my MSc program met over at the George IV pub on campus for some social time, I came back, had dinner, did some grocery shopping, and here I am!

Tomorrow I have that one class and I need to do some readings before it, but overall it should be a relatively laid-back day (which I need after today). Saturday the plan is to head to Tate Modern (finally!), and then over to Borough Market (the best market in London). Sunday I have my first visitor! Charity, the woman who originally hired me for People to People wayyyyy back in 2004 in Paris, is the head of People to People's UK division now, and she is coming here for work. Sunday evening the plan is dinner, and then next Friday she is free as well before heading back to the States.

Important dates:

November 1-4: Vienna, Austria to visit Poppy (another People to People friend in Europe for work)

December 6-9: Copenhagen? Maybe?

December 11: End of Michaelmas Term at LSE

December 14-22: Home

December 22-28: Arizona

December 28-29-30: Multi-leg journey back to London

That's all for now - have a great Thursday/Friday/weekend and will try to keep this blog updated!