November

It's been a while since I've updated -- I guess that's what happens when classes start assigning actual work to be turned in.

I turned in an essay to my communication theory class last Friday, and have an essay for my British politics due this Friday. Both are worth a wopping 0% of my final grade. It's meant to get students used to what the professor is looking for, and to have the chance to discuss strengths and weaknesses before a final summative essay (worth 50%) is turned in at the end of the term. Some students I know are surprisingly stressed/freaked out about these... don't really understand why. I'm just looking forward to the fact that I don't have any finals before Christmas this year!

I stayed up all night and watched coverage of the election in the Student Union last week. It amazed me how many people turned up -- it was wall-to-wall students, standing room only, and while there were a lot of Americans there, there were a lot of Europeans as well. When Obama won, the place erupted in cheer, and during his victory speech when he said something to the effect of "America is the greatest nation on earth," everyone cheered again. The headline of the LSE student newspaper read "Democracy returns to the U.S. again." Regardless of our domestic views of Obama, the rest of the world seems pretty excited that he's going to be our next president. And I can't say that I really feel differently.

In other news, I've started hosting some friends at my place who are visiting London, which has been fun. My friend Mariam, who I actually met in London in 2007 and is applying to LSE, stayed with me for 2 nights. Walking around London with her was fun because it renewed my excitement in being here. After grumbling to myself about the bad weather, poor customer service, etc, it was cool to hear her say "I love all the old archetecutre!" and things like that. Alvaro is coming from Spain this weekend. Despite living only an hour or so by plane away, he's never been here, so I'm looking forward to showing him around the city.

That's about all that's new here right now... More updates soon.