Youssef, Mother Courage and the National

Facebook rocks. I have friends spread far and wide, and facebook is a great way to keep tabs on them all (with only minimal effort...) I knew Youssef was in London (ala facebook) acting, and sent him a message asking if he had time to get together and if he was currently in any shows. A few days later I found myself on a personalized backstage tour of the National Theater with plans to see the show Mother Courage and Her Children the next night. From the site:

Mother Courage, one of the most astonishing stage creations of the twentieth century, drags her cart across the battlefields, profiteering from a war that destroys her children, one by one

It isn’t easy, starting a war, but nothing worthwhile is easy. And once you’re in, you’re hooked like a gambler, you can’t afford to walk away from the crapshoot once you’re deep into it.

A Brecht play leaving you with plenty to ruminate over!

Along with Youssef, Fiona Shaw (Harry Potter's Aunt Petunia) and Harry Melling (Harry's cousin, Dudley) put on an amazing show accompanied by the music of Duke Special.

Youssef got us (Daniel, Helder and Silvia) seats in the 2nd row center(!!!!!) of the Olivier theater and it was an amazing amazing evening. After the show we spent time with the rest of the cast listening to the free concerts that Duke puts on every evening. Top night in London so far?

Possibly....

Stuff White People Like... and other great LSE events

One of the better parts of selling my soul to (the) LSE for this academic year is access to amazing lectures and events. As the Dean of Graduate Students (just me or does he look like he belongs in a James Bond movie?) pointed out during orientation, anyone who is anyone that comes through choses to speak at either Oxford or Cambridge, AND (the) LSE. This is a link to the Events Page if you are interested in seeing who's coming!

Last Monday Tiff and I went to see Christian Lander

the accidental founder of the site "Stuff White People Like." Brent introduced me to this site earlier this year and I really enjoyed hearing Christian talk about the "history" of the site (he went from putting a joke blog up to 300,000 hits a day and a book deal in 3 months!). He is a funny funny man. Because(?) it was (the) LSE, he did spend some time talking about race, class and stereotype in relation to his ideas. I would like to sit down and pick his brain more. But a lot of fun!

Pumpkin Carving

Tiffany and I carved pumpkins last night. How awesome are these? Happy Halloween!

True Love....

Take that 18 year olds!

Today we had "tryouts" for the LSE Women's Basketball team. I wrote the team representative earlier this year to ask questions - thinking I could potentially be involved in coaching. I was thrilled when she wrote back and said that graduate students are allowed to PLAY! As of today (actually, pending the results of tryouts...) I am an LSE Beaver.
Now, let's revisit the fact that I am a graduate student. I am old. I was slightly concerned that I wouldn't be able to keep up with the 18 year old first year students (and indeed, that is the majority of the team) physically. This was me at 18.....
a loooooooong time ago.

After practice I was talking to an undergrad about the grad programs at LSE and mentioning that many of the students went straight to thier masters from undergrad, so I feel old a lot of the time. Another girl chimes in, "Old? You're not old! Old would be 30!" I asked her to guess how old I was. "22" was the response. She didn't believe me when I told her the truth.

I ran circles around these kids. Of course the saddest part is that I'm old enough now that I feel like this is some sort of accomplishment.

And my colligiate sports career continues...

Weather wins?

It always amazes me how people adapt to weather. I spent a good deal of my growing up years on the equator where the weather was perfect. Always. Yes, it would rain sometimes and be dry others, but but temperature really never varied. It was stuck at somewhere near beautiful. All. The. Time.

So it's only been in my grown up years that I have really been aware at how people adapt to the pervasive weather conditions in any given geographic region.

Minnesota, for example, looks like this for 9 months out of the year.
I was pretty sure the first year I lived there that I would never go out. Ever. Because I would freeze to death (a very rational fear). But people adapt. The reality is, you put on long underwear (cuddleduds are my brand of preference) and a few thousand other layers of clothing, boots, a hat, a coat, and mittens and you go out and frolick. Ski, snowboard, sled, skate, make snow forts, have snow ball fights, or make snow men.

Although these were made in Japan.

In 2005 I took a group of students to Anse Bertrand. While it usually looks like this
a rainstorm would come through every afternoon. But no one cared. People just got soaked. And loved it. And carried on with their day. Soon the sun came out again and before you knew it, you were bone dry!

And then there is Zambia. In the hot season this sun is merciless.
But people adapt. Thier slow walks to work become even slower as they wait for the oppresive heat particles to voluntarily mosey out of the way. This way they sweat less and conversations can linger longer. All because of the weather.

Now onto London. It is rainy here. Really rainy.

This I knew. I spent this morning on the bus looking for the positive side. Waiting to see someone adapting in a way they enjoyed. But really... it just means umbrellas. And shivers. And cold wet that doesn't go away.

At least it looked beautiful in 1945.

*Please note. None of the images used in this blog are my own. They were all borrowed effortlessly from Flickr. Thank you web.

Morning musings

Silence - except for an electrical hum.
Awkward stadium seating
that holds crowds as they come
to listen, digest and begin repeating
mantras of free thinking.

*******

Embark on a journey - sail with me
through articles in academia
rhertoric and theoretic
searching for the answers to life's questions
arriving at only one -
it is not here.

*******

Teaching in strategies
frameworks for quantifying, processing and solving
time and mind expansion
freeing your mind and binding you to make a difference.

AberDEEN people!

I generally try and avoid fad books (aside from Harry Potter). But I was pushed over the edge on this one and began reading the first Twilight series book right before I left the States. I was through it and in love with vampires soon after arriving in London.
And then Tiffany started reading it.
After about 100 pages she got on Amazon to order the next 3 books. Then commenced the daily check to see if they'd shipped. They shipped rather quickly and on Thursday they were delivered! But not to us.
Tiff wrote Amazon to track down where the books had been left. They claimed thier courrier had delivered them and left them "in a secure location."
In a conversation with her downstairs neighbor, Tiff was reminded that there is an AberCORN street about 15 minutes walk from here, and sometimes mail is misdelivered.
So this morning we went on a walk - to AberCORN to see if Edward (gorgeous vampire) was hiding there.
After entering 33 Abercorn (uninvited, but the door was open?) and finding nothing, we turned to go.
Then Tiffany looked down the stairs. And peeking out of an ivy covered electrical box was a corner of cardboard. We investigated further....

And there they were. Twilight books delivered....

MSc NGO Development and Management here I come!

I have done a horrible job a updating this blog with life decisions in the past couple of years. I guess that is what it is. But this one sets the stage for posts for the next year, so I'd better write a bit about it.

I applied for grad schools last fall and landed a place at LSE in a great Masters program that I believe will be right up my alley and give me tools to do many of the things I dream of doing in life.

So here I am in London - finding a place to live, a job, and of course, spending a great deal of time here:

right in Central London - attending orientations and trying to figure out what life will look like for the past year. Here are some things I have learned about LSE in the last few days:

• People here refer to the institution as The LSE. Gramatically correct perhaps, but strange sounding to me.
• There are approximately 9000 students at LSE this year (approximate because they don't know who will show up until they show up. You are not required to pay any sort of "I'm coming for sure" deposit). About half of those are what are called "post graduate" students (ie ME.) So, going from the US system to UK system, I've managed to skip an entire education rung!
• There is a "50:50 ratio men to women at the school, although there are more women than men." Yes, a direct quote.
• They have 100+ graduate programs.
• Students come from 140+ different countries.
  
• 1 in 3 of the people coming into the school this year will get H1N1.
• The Social Policy Department is the oldest department at school established in 1985
• The school mascot is a beaver.
  

My specific program description can be found here if you are intersted in reading more. This year there are 17 people in the program. 4 Men and 13 Women. We come from Japan, China, Thailand, Nepal, Italy, Portugal, UK, Venezuela, Chile, USA and probably one or two more places that I'm not remembering well. We are all together for our foundational course and dissertation prep course. I am still working out exactly what I want to do for my optional courses. I'll let you know when I've got it nailed down.

Aside from a great education, I'm excited about my experience at (the) LSE for a few other reasons:

1. It's in London. Now, I'm looking outside and it's cold and blustery. I'm NOT here for the weather. But there are a lot of people here from my past. And it's amazing to be able to see them and connect with them. It's also a much more of a hub for people passing through than Minneapolis is.
   
2. The guest lecturers that (the) LSE attracts are great. This probably just makes me a big nerd - but I'm excited. I have one on my calendar for every evening of the week this next week. I won't likely make it to all of them, but the options are great!
3. (the) LSE library is one of the largest social science libraries in the world. I need to take an audio tour - I'm still totally lost in there!

Stay tuned for more. I have a couple of events that I have been to that I want to blog about. I moved here without a camera - so I've been holding off on blogging 'til I have pictures. =) Tiffany has been kind enough to lend me one. She is a lifesaver!!!