I got 5 hours of sleep last night for no reason other than I lay there and couldn't fall asleep. I don't know what it is, maybe my body's instinct to preserve every last bit of energy until it runs out. This morning wasn't so terrible even though the bus, once again, almost caused me to be late. I left at 8:25 and just made it into the classroom at 9:05. Meh. I had my first class this morning (Note: classes are different from lectures; classes are capped at 20, lectures... seemingly not), and it brought to light one of my main frustrations with LSE. Why the hell do they pick out of print books that are a.) unavailable at the library; b.) in limited quantities at the library i.e. 5 books to 40 students; c.) in some library in the Greater London area, but they're not sure which and how many copies; or d.) unavailable on the internet, out of print, or on sale used for 99 pounds. I'm not sure if students actually work harder than students in the U.S. or if they just work harder to simply obtain the books. I'm willing to read, yes. Willing to research at the library, fine. Willing to spend hours tracking down a book to read a few chapters for this week's lecture and class? Fuck no. I didn't come to study abroad to learn the Dewey Decimal system.
Another frustration. I was on time, borderline late, for my Political Economy class this morning as well. My .95p fried egg roll somehow took 10 minutes to get to me and I was enraged and annoyed, but I won't get into it. So I rush off to Peco and just like last time, every desk is occupied and people are sitting on the floor in the back. It's ridiculous that they book classrooms where there are not enough desks for students. We're not talking 1 or 2 desks short. We're talking 10-15 desks short AT LEAST. I went into an empty classroom next door and dragged in a desk to an empty spot at the door. Other students were not so lucky and sat outside the door, unable to see the board, like I did last time. Others cursed, as I would too, when they saw the full classroom and just left in frustration. What the fuck, LSE? In infrastructure so weak that they can't even plan out which classroom to assign for which class?
So as you can see, my experiences with this side of LSE have been unsatisfactory thus far. However, I don't mean to say that my professors or class teachers don't seem good. They are so far. It's just that these fubars (you all know the acronym) are major ones and they should be corrected, not overlooked. They are an impediment to students learning AND it obviously favors wealthier students that can just buy books and be better off with less effort wasted on the frivolous search for books; it's opportunity cost. I'm among those fortunate enough to be able to buy the books and man, I'm thankful for it; less time wasted.
While I said I'm fortunate enough to buy books, the same doesn't apply for eating and feeling full. I'm Starvin' Marvin over here, but testing out this new daily budget to see how it goes. I had a good, filling dinner, but it pretty much cost me my daily budget. So... I spent the day job-searching online. I've applied for three so far, and I'm crossing my fingers. Two are retail, which I'd prefer, and one is data entry. My hours aren't flexible enough for anything real... plus I really don't want to have to worry about business casual right now. So... cross your fingers for me. I need a job and I need it now. Cheers, as they say.
Oh. A happy thing. I finally have some cookware to work with!
Let me give you a peek into my academic life. I'm currently working on an assignment for a hypothetical radio pitch based on an episode of NPR's This American Life. My particular idea concerns interviewing a few of my favorite bloggers and weaving together a story of their lives behind the blog. In my Seminar in Songwriting class, I presented my first assignment in which I wrote a new song around the lyrics to CCR's "Proud Mary." And today in my Computer Science class, I made an animation of a leaf falling from a tree and tumbling to the ground with Adobe Flash. Life is so good. I almost don't want to jinx it.