Pictures of London

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/08/london_from_above_at_night.html
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/01/more_of_london_from_above_at_n.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/britainfromabove/stories/visualisations/planes.shtml

Those pictures frighten me. I can't imagine living in a city that large. Sure I live in a city of 600,000 right now, but I don't exist beyond the neighborhood of 10,000. At LSE, I will exist in the city itself. I have to navigate and find my way through all of this. It's way beyond New York if I had gone to NYU too since at NYU, I would have still stayed in one (very, very rich) neighborhood. At LSE, I may live 45 minutes away from the school. I will have to use the Tube everyday. I'll have to go shopping everyday for groceries and find food each day. This is way beyond Georgetown or what college has been so far. I may have to cook meals for myself each night. Perhaps I am in over my head. Holy shit.

http://www.jasonhawkes.com/

LSE Receipt

I recently received an e-mail from LSE's General Course:

Thank you for submitting your material for the General Course in 2009-10 and for considering LSE as your study abroad destination. The status of your application is indicated below.

Your application is complete.

It will now be considered and a decision issued by e-mail within 7 working days. Please only contact us to confirm the status of your application after this period.

For some reason, I am actually kind of nervous about the application. I know I shouldn't be, but nevertheless, anxiety consumes me.

NFL UK

So, I registered my interest to purchase tickets for the annual game in London. This year the game will be between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the New England Patriots. Though I don't care for any team, the game will be held in Wembley Stadium, and if I don't go to this game, I doubt I ever have another chance to attend an event there.

So, yesterday, I got my PIN to buy tickets, yet I don't know what I should do. On the one hand, I would love to see this game at Wembley. It's one of those things I will only get to do while studying in London. On the other hand, I would have to go alone since I don't know anyone else at LSE yet. And it's incredibly expensive with the exchange rate and British prices. This doesn't bother me as much since I thought I'd be able to sell my ticket in the event I didn't go. However, after looking online, I've found that I'd have to spend an extra $20 (13.50 pounds) in order to have the tickets shipped to me instead of paying 4.50 pounds to hold the tickets at the box office. If they are held though, I wouldn't be able to sell them. On top of that, apparently the NFL restricts the resale of tickets online, so I may not be able to sell them anyways.

So, I pretty much decided to not buy the tickets. But I am still considering it. I don't know, I just don't know.

Weird Thoughts

I find myself thinking/worrying about what London will be like. I worry about wandering around the place alone, trying to find my way around the city. I worry most about not making friends. I am terrible at opening up and making friends quickly, and the fact that many of the students will already have a set of friends makes this quandary slightly more terrifying. Money will be another problem. How stingy will I have to be? Will my folks give me any money? Cell phone? Insurance? Bank Account? So many random thoughts. But it makes sense, I will be living in another country. Do showers work the same way? Laundry? I bet I break some random law pretty early on.

Still though, I have another semester at Georgetown before I even need to worry about heading over. I still have 5 more classes and many clubs I need to work through in the next five months. There are going to be many moments in the upcoming months that I don't want to miss because I am focused solely on London. And, fuck it, what's the worst that could happen?