With school out for the summer and me finding myself with a lot more free time than usual, I’ve been trying to keep myself busy with reading, exercising, miscellaneous projects, etc. One of my newest and most favorite activities is thinking about London, sightseeing, traveling and living overseas! I just have to share — the more I think about it, the more excited I get. I’m going to miss everyone here, but this is going to be the most amazing year! I’ve been perusing the LSE website religiously as well as sites like Stuck in London, Time Out London, and Londontown, and have happily (and subconsciously) been putting the co.uk suffix on all web pages versus the good old .com ending that we’re trained to use here! I am living in such a fantastic location that I’ll be walking distance fromCovent Garden, the amazing shopping and entertainment in the West End,and a tube ride away from the Tower of London, St. Paul’s Cathedral, London Bridge and Westminster Abbey. There will be so much to see in my own area that I’ll never be bored. Plus, with plane fares to Dublin, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Manchester available on special from 5 pounds per ticket, there will be a never-ending list of things to do and places to visit when I have time (that I’m not writing essays, studying or working on a dissertation). The more I think about it, the more excited I get and the more okay I am with having to pay back $40,000 at the end of this excursion. I will be coming home with a Masters in one year from a well respected University PLUS a year of travel and cultural experience that will be invaluable! Can’t wait <3. 

 
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I ran across this article written by Andy Borowitz in the New Yorker. It absolutely cracked me up and I had to share. Enjoy!

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My Quiet Time

by Andy Borowitz June 1, 2009

Q. What are some things you do to manage your time effectively?
A. I get up at 4:30 every morning. I like the quiet time. It’s a time I can recharge my batteries a bit. I exercise and I clear my head and I catch up on the world. I read papers. I look at e-mail. I surf the Web. I watch a little TV, all at the same time. I call it my quiet time but I’m already multitasking. I love listening to music, so I’ll do that in the morning, too, when I’m exercising and watching the news.
—An interview with Robert Iger, the C.E.O. of Disney, in the Times.

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Okay, just as a preface: this is pure, unadulterated excitement on my part. I occasionally review the Times Online “Good University Guide” to find out what schools in the UK are ranked best and to get some insight from students’ perspectives on universities. LSE has fairly consistently ranked #3 behind Oxford and Cambridge on this list as a whole, with respect to the entire university. Additionally, after searching the Social Policy subject area rankings today, I found out that good old LSE ranked numero uno on the list, right above my second-choice school, University of Bristol! Pretty exciting! Cambridge and Oxford didn’t rank on this list since they don’t really offer this program (which is why I didn’t apply). I must say, it’s a sense of excitement and relief to know that I made a good choice for my Masters programme! Go LSE!

London & Los Angeles <3.

I think one of the most bizarre parts of graduating and coming into adulthood is the reality that people begin to go their separate ways and begin living their own lives. We all find different paths that work for us and we try to follow them to get to ultimately reach our ever-changing goals. As the semester began winding down a few weeks ago, I said goodbye to a girlfriend of mine that was leaving to start her life with her long-term boyfriend in Tennessee. As I wished her luck in Nashville and she wished me luck in England, I realized how different people’s paths in life really are. For her, it involves moving across the country to start a life in a foreign city with her boyfriend. For me, it involves moving across the world to pursue higher education and an indescribable life experience. For some, it involves working in an entry level job while living in a super cramped studio apartment in San Francisco and for others, it involves staying at home to keep a hold of a safety net. It’s the time in our lives where we can legitimately chase our dreams, regardless of how ludicrous our ideas may sound to onlookers.

Everything really hit me about thirty minutes ago. One of my girlfriends, whose ultimate goal is to become a publicist in Los Angeles, decided to apply for an internship in LA last week. She drove down to LA on Thursday, interviewed for two unpaid PR-related internships and just found out today that she got the one she wanted! In three short weeks, she’ll be packing up her X3 and taking a trip down to LA to get to work on her dreams. It’s weird saying goodbye to everyone; to friends, to family and to the security of home. We hope that we’ll all stay in touch, and luckily with the advent of social networking sites & BlackBerries, we can stay connected fairly easily. However, the reality is that we all become different people. We all grow up. Right now we’re all young adults grappling with the idea of being twenty-somethings trying to navigate our way in the world and trying to find paths that will lead to success. We’re not sureexactly if the path we uncover is the right one or where it will ultimately lead, but there is some excitement and fulfillment in finding and pursuing a path at all. Although idling in a realm of complacency gives us a sense of security in knowing that we have a paycheck, a place to live, a car to drive and family and friends to rely on, it doesn’t really lead to that final level of self-actualization (look at me, referencing Maslow’s hierarchy of needs…). Although that sense of security is important for some (or most) of us, it’s being able to branch out that helps us grow. If we stay in our holes because it’s comfortable, we will never be able to acclimate when our environment forces us. Feeling uncomfortable, missing home, pushing away that sense of fear and uncertainty shapes us and lets us appreciate the happiness that we have in life. Our minds have the opportunity to change and understand new and different perspectives and ultimately the experience makes us better people and better contributors to the world. We’re all scared and we all question our decisions at some point, but in the end, we’ll be able to look back and know that we tried; whether our path was the right one or not, at least we had the chance to experience it and find out for ourselves.

Lots of love & best wishes,

I just got the greatest deal known to mankind. At least the greatest deal I have run into. EVER! Up until today, I still needed to book my ticket to London to get everything going for the fall (I mean, seriously — I have my tickets from London to Munich booked, but not my trip from the US to London? A little backwards, maybe.) I have been playing with the 17th or 18th of September because I want sufficient time to get acclimated, open a bank account, set up a cell phone, get a feel for the area, etc. but I don’t want to leave before the 15th, because I want to be in California to celebrate my grandmother’s birthday with her! Well, I was perusing the wonders of STA Travel and I found an unbelieveable deal! When I looked through Expedia, one of my most favorite go-to travel sites, the one-way tickets from San Francisco to London were around $500 a piece. Obviously anything with 1 or 2 stops was slightly cheaper, so that was the direction I was leaning. I figured a stop in Reykjavik, Iceland + 4 hours of layovers would definitely be worth saving $100 or more. Well, on STA this morning I searched the same one-way ticket and I found a non-stop flight from SF to London for $251.00! $251! The ticket itself was $110 plus $130 in taxes plus some other fee they added on. It was so good I had to buy it on the spot just in case it was a mistake (doubtful, but I guess it could happen!) With the British pound getting stronger against the US dollar, I can use all the help I can get in the money-saving department and this saved me about $250 alone! I’m so thrilled. If you’re under 26, this site is heaven. Check it out & save yourself some serious cash, yo!

Much love, lovers!

My New Home.

This weekend was filled with good news! In addition to graduating on Saturday, I was able to start my weekend morning by reading an email detailing my acceptance to a hall of residence at LSE! I sent in my application about 30 days ago and up until Saturday still hadn’t heard anything. I was getting a little nervous and was thinking I would get stuck 40+ minutes from campus which would not be fun. The Univeristy has a number of housing options for students and there were three that I set my sights on: Northumberland (my first choice!), Grosvenor and High Holborn. I got an offer to High Holborn on Saturday for a single room! Although the rooms aren’t BIG, it’s a place to sleep, study & socialize (to an extent) and it’s close to campus (see pictures here). The residence is situated within 10 minutes walking distance of the School in the heart of London’s Theatre land, close to Covent Garden, Oxford Street, Leicester Square and Soho. When I was looking for private accommodation in the same area, a one bedroom flat (obviously larger and more luxurious) cost 300+ GBP per week! This place is around 155-165 GBP per week, much more affordable. Plus, internet, utilities, telephone service, etc. is included. I have put in for a swap for Northumberland (it’s a little cheaper, plus each room has it’s own bathroom, which I like!), but if that doesn’t go as planned, I’m perfectly happy with where I am!

For anyone wanting to drop a line, my mailing address while at the High Holborn residence is:

High Holborn Residence
178 High Holborn
London
WC1V 7AA

Check out a Google area map here!
I love getting mail <3.

Hey Kiddos–

I am so happy to have gotten through graduation today. Although the ceremonies tend to drag a tad, the University was fairly efficient and got through the entire college of Business Administration in about two hours (which isn’t too bad when you consider there were 600+ graduates including Masters folks). It was pretty cool watching the Masters candidates get officially hooded for their Masters, and it was definitely nice being at Arco so our families could see us on the big screen even if they were sitting in a spot where they couldn’t get a good glimpse. My parents hosted a small family get together afterwards (maybe 20 or so people) and it was a blast! We had so much fun and it was so great getting together with all of my family. Although Chris couldn’t be there due to a soccer tournament conflict in LA, his family came to support me at graduation and came to the party to mingle with my family! It was a fantastically fun time all around. Here are some pictures from yesterday:

Dad

Newly-Minted Grad <3.

Mom & Sis

With Grandma!

So I’m kind of in love with STA. Since I’ve actually started playing with some of the tools they have online, it really is an awesome travel site. In addition to the amazing airfares (I’m getting my ticket from SFO –> LHR for $261!!), they have this awesome trip planner. You get to plan your trip from scratch & it allows you to choose your points of interest, dates you plan on traveling and various hostels and sites in the area that may be of interest! If you’re a student or under 26 and you’ve got an ISIC card, you can plan your route with their help. Their trip planner will let you take stops anywhere in the world, and tickets are valid for over 12 months. Even if you don’t have the money to really travel, it’s always fun to plan! Check it out & plan your much-needed getaways <3.

If you’re a student or under 26 and don’t have an ISIC (International Student Identification Card), you can order those through STA online, too. They’re about $25 and totally worth it if you use it!  I got my hands on one about six months ago and they’re great for getting discounts as you travel. In addition to student discounts on things like plays and museum tours, you also get discounts on BIG things, like plane, train and bus tickets! We all know how that stuff adds up!

Happy (discounted) travels,

No, I’m not referring to the orthographically-incorrect Inglourious Basterds that Brad Pitt is touting in Cannes right now. I’m referring to another inglorious bastard, the professor of my writing-intensive class. As is the case with most universities, they try to make us well-rounded individuals and accordingly, we have to take semi-BS classes like Race & Ethnicity (which I actually liked!), Recreation Management, or whatever else would help in making us well-rounded individuals. A British foreign exchange student that I became friends with over the semester commented on this. He said that he found it weird that we had to take these kinds of (irrelevant) classes to make us well-rounded at the University-level. Isn’t that what high school is for? (His words, not mine.) He has a point. Isn’t college the place we go to gain skills in our field of interest? The social aspect will come naturally to those that are social; for those that are there purely for school, then so be it. I think it’s awesome to offer all these classes in case people want to expand their knowledge or have a class that’s fun, but to FORCE us to fill our schedules with classes that are irrelevant to us is slightly absurd. In any case, I digress. Here’s the point: The writing-intensive class that I chose was a music class, American Society & its Music. Sounds cool, right? Wrong. Not cool. Not cool at all. I’ve come to the conclusion that they give the fun-sounding, cool names to the worst of classes to entice people. In any case, after writing six essays on various music-related prompts, attending two concerts and writing up reports and taking a midterm and a final, I ended up with a 92.7% in the class. 93% is an “A” and 90-92% is considered an A-. With this being the case, I of course emailed the professor explaining my grad school situation and asked if he would round my 92.7% up to a 93% to make it a solid A versus an A-. It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but an A- is only 3.7 GPA points, whereas an A is a full 4 GPA points. He responded and said that he doesn’t round up. “Not even one-tenth of a point. Unless you get 93% or exceed expectations then you get what you get.” Hmmm… I can understand this logic to an extent, if the student isn’t really close and is trying to push grades up further than justifiable. OR perhaps if the student hasn’t really participated, in which case you would think that they didn’t put in all that much effort throughout the semester and musn’t have cared all that much. That’s not the case here! Although there’s nothing I can do about it at this point and I will have to live with an A- tarnishing my transcripts for this course, I think I’ll live. I just had to vent… What a dickhead.

The moral of the story: Don’t take classes that sound too fun. They probably aren’t.

Also, for anyone that cares — aside from a couple of A-minues (which I lump into the “A” category), I got straight A’s to round off my last semester! Sweeeeeeeeeeet! <3.

Hey everyone!

I almost forgot to share — STA Travel is offering $30 off on flights costing $300 or more! I’m buying my ticket to London this week to save an extra $30. The promotion code is $30off which you can plug in during the purchase process. I believe tomorrow marks the first day of summer, so it’s time to start planning. May as well save yourself some extra cash <3.

Happy Travels,

Shannon