February Classicals

Everyday I wake up wishing it were spring. I feel as though this winter has gone on too long this year.

But a cold, blistering month doesn't mean a dull one - in addition to Vancouver 2010 shenanigans (which is still happening - details to come soon) and Chocolate Appreciation Day, London's three symphonies (plus Philharmonia Orchestra, resident at the Southbank Centre) will be hosting a handful of wonderful concerts.

Now, to set the record straight, in my frank opinion last night's London Philharmonic playing Sibelius' 2nd symphony was possibly the best concert of the year. You can't get any better. Whenever an orchestra has Sibelius 2 lined up in the season, there are very few other shows in the year that top it - it's always been that way. I won't go into the details of how and why the symphony is so great, but an immediate standing ovation for four rounds of clapping should be proof enough that somehow that symphony strikes a chord - no pun intended - to all those present.

I say 'possibly' though, because - lucky London in 2010 - it seems like everyone is playing Sibelius this year. A rarity, because Sibelius is not easy to play. London Phil is at the moment in the process of playing Symphonies 1-7 by Sibelius. And fortunately for all who missed last night's show, Philharmonia Orchestra will be hitting up Sibelius 2 at the end of May. And now that I look at May's schedule, that's going to be a very exciting month for classical music..

But back to February. As usual I attach short commentaries on the pieces, and make an X stars out of 5 recommendation - obviously the more stars, the better. No need to reply unless you are buying tickets. I've found my favorite seat at Royal Festival Hal though - row Z in the left or right Side Stalls, so that is where I'll be buying most of my tickets going forward.


1. 11 February 2010 7:30 pm

Philharmonia Orchestra @ Royal Festival Hall
Mahler's 2nd Symphony

MAHLER: Symphony No. 2, "Resurrection"

Tickets: £8 - £38
Available on Southbank Centre website

Recommendation: 3.5 stars out of 5


2. 14 February 2010 3:00 pm (OR 17 February 2010 7:30pm, see below)

Philharmonia Orchestra @ Royal Festival Hall
Valentine's Day Gala Concert

TCHAIKOVSKY: Fantasy Overture, Romeo & Juliet
BRUCH: Violin Concerto No.1 in G minor
KHACHATURIAN: Spartacus - Adagio
DVORAK: Romance in F minor for violin, Op. 11
BIZET: Carmen Suite

Tickets: £8 - £38
Available on Southbank Centre website

Recommendation: 3 stars out of 5


3. 16 February 2010 7:30 pm

Steve Reich @ Queen Elizabeth Hall
Reich Drumming - International Chamber Music Season

Lots of drumming - of all sorts, I imagine.

Tickets: £9 - £25
Available on Southbank Centre website

Recommendation: 3 stars out of 5


4. 17 February 2010 7:30 pm (OR 14 February 2010 3:00pm, see above)

London Philharmonic Orchestra @ Royal Festival Hall
Romeo & Juliet

TCHAIKOVSKY: Fantasy Overture, Romeo & Juliet
PROKOFIEV: Piano Concerto No. 1
PROKOFIEV: Romeo and Juliet, Op. 64 - excerpts

Tickets: £9 - £38 (going quickly!)
Available on Southbank Centre website

Recommendation: 3 stars out of 5


My Two Pence:
I was also going to add to the list an LSO concert on 24 February, playing Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique as it's a really nice one to listen to, but unfortunately tickets are totally sold out for that show. It's coupled with Mendolssohn's Violin Concerto and I didn't think that people would know about Berlioz, so the "SOLD OUT" sign came as a surprise. Sorry, guys.

The month, however, kicks off with Mahler's Second Symphony. This symphony, called "Resurrection," is probably one of the most famous of Mahler's symphonies. It was his first big piece, and ponders the meaning of life, death, afterlife, you get the idea - hence the title. It's a big piece - Mahler usually likes to take it to a larger level - and requires an expanded orchestra plus a choir. 10 French horns and 8 timpani! There's even an organ involved, plus a brass and percussion ensemble off stage. Fun stuff. Tickets are flying out the door for the good and cheap seats, so get one fast - my favourite seat in the house has been taken, so I will be retreating to the balcony level. £8 tickets are still available!

As you may have noticed, the groups are taking advantage of Universal Chocolate Appreciation Day this year (do they do this every year? I don't know) and embarking on two separate compositions of our beloved Shakespeare's mother of all cliches, Romeo & Juliet. Don't ask me what the link is between chocolate and Shakespeare. Between Tchaikovsky's and Prokofiev's versions, I prefer Prokofiev because it's more subtle and delicate and moving, but Tchaikovsky's is, as he always is, quite bold and complex. I know this is starting to sound like a wine tasting class but perhaps this will be a good opportunity for you to settle the preference once and for all - you'd never do such a thing otherwise. I will warn that LPO's Feb. 17 show is selling out quite quickly - people love cliches - but like all cliches there's some truth and value in them and I'd definitely say either the Feb. 14 matinee or the Feb. 17 evening show (but not both, that would be too much) are worth a visit. Call me a scrooge but I will most likely take the Feb. 17 show because I don't want to be surrounded by smooching, chocolate-smothered couples on Feb. 14, and prefer enjoying my own Green & Black's dark chocolate bar cleanly sans tongue and saliva, thank you very much.

I know that one guy and a percussion ensemble doesn't count as an orchestra. But Steve Reich is possibly one of the greatest composers alive at the moment, and for us percussion students, he's pretty close to an idol. He'll be putting on a show of contemporary percussion music (which could get crazy, I admit) with a very strong group of percussionists and a voice ensemble, but if you want a taste of something different this month - this is like taking a vodka martini amidst all the chocolate - this might be for you.
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Because we wanted to have the cake and eat it, too

Monday morning was subdued because North America was still on the beaches for Labour Day. That didn't keep media coverage off the meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers held in London over the weekend, ahead of the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh later this month.

The FT outlined the agreements attained at the meeting:

The G20 meeting agreed [on] three main points: banks must raise much more capital once the financial crisis has passed; complex financial institutions should develop “living wills” to plan for their unwinding; and banks should be required to retain some portion of loans they repackage and sell as asset-backed securities.

Allow me to quickly rephrase that in simple English.

The second point mentioned is simple enough: in case a financial institution goes bust, they should outline the ways in which various instruments and deals should be cleaned up, or in financial jargon, "unwound."

The third point, while it may sound the most complicated, is also quite simple: banks should have the actual stuff they sell, deal, and work with (in this case, loans).

The most complicated of the three is actually the first point regarding raising more capital, which deals with the amount of debt (capital structure) financial institutions have. Of a given bank's debt, about 92% of it is made of bonds and other debt instruments. About 4% is made of stocks (shareholders' equity), and is there as a 'cushion' as deemed by regulation. The remaining 4% is what is called bank regulatory capital in Europe (in the US, it's called trust-preferred securities, or trups). This stuff has both debt- and equity-like characteristics.

Without going into too much more detail, the basic point of note here is that bank regulatory capital was categorically created and adopted in order to at once appease regulators' concerns about how well-capitalised banks are, and appeal to investors. In other words, everyone wanted the cake and eat it, too.

To be grossly simplistic, one could quite easily argue that most causal elements of the current financial crisis came down to this one, cliche statement about having the cake and eating it. To be more specific, it was about having the cake - not paying for it - and then eating it - and then getting away with it.

Take mortgage borrowers, for instance. A telling article in the Valentine issue of the New Yorker this year illustrated the literal foreclosure of the state of Florida. A university professor aptly described the situation as a "Ponzi scheme" where the US' hottest real estate market spiraled into a disaster. People bought homes with easy money from the banks, but when property prices fell off the cliff and people lost their jobs, no one was able to repay the mortgages. Apparently, convincted criminals were running around the market scene as well. Hence,

Fort Myers real-estate agent named Marc Joseph tells the writer, “Greed and easy money. That was the germ.”

Of course, the mortgage lenders are to blame as well. Loose credit history checks - or even none at all - and financial unplanning from irresponsible financial advisory allowed borrowers to get away with terms that defy what I would think of as common sense. You don't spend beyond what you don't have or earn - having been on a $1 per month allowance up until the age of 15, financial prudence was something my mother was very strict about. But, given high incidences of credit card spending - combined with the so-called American Dream of home ownership with white picket fences, lush-green front yards and a golden retriever puppy - perhaps the average American consumer is far from prudent.

Here, the role of the mortgage borrower and lender - what I think of as the key trigger to the subsequent fall of already-wobbly dominos - is a microcosm of the greater picture: people had the cake, didn't or couldn't pay for it, but ate it anyway, and for the longest time, didn't own up to it. And this kind of irresponsible behaviour was widespread, from the individual consumer all the way up to the private equity firms and the bulge-bracket banks. So no, the Goldman Sachs and the Morgan Stanleys of the world did not single-handedly bring down the entire global financial system - such are incredulously outlandish statements made in the blaming game, and completely ignores the fundamental cause of the financial turmoil (irresponsible borrowing, spending, and lending) and more broadly, the essence of how our economy functions. That is, capitalism.

Capitalism, which is essentially what the majority of the financial world operates in, is based on the one basic rule of supply and demand. Unfettered, efficient capitalism has at its core this simple rule that if supply goes up, demand comes down, and vice versa. And for this reason, like it or not, much of how the economy moves is based not just on tangible changes in supply or demand, but also the perception of these changes by the broader market, as well as by individual consumers.

The crux of capitalism is the freedom to supply and demand; that is, no one can tell me whether or not I can buy a pair of shoes, or produce a pair of shoes, over a pair of glasses. An efficient capitalist economy relies heavily on this liberty. But, as much as we'd like to rely upon the individual and collective conscience in maintaining an orderly and civil society, there is something to be said about the fragility of that conscience - whether it be moral, ethical, whatever. Laws and regulations govern human behaviour by permitting and prohibiting certain actions within society. Whether we had hoped too far or unrealistically expected market participants to exercise self-restraint is a mull point; the fact of the matter is, without rules or boundaries - and more importantly, a widespread perception of them - people will always look to have their cake and eat it, too. If laws have been around for most of human history to tell us what we can do and what we cannot do in a social context, it should be obvious by now that something fairly similar should exist in an economic context.

This isn't to say that burdening the financial system with piles of regulation is the solution. Going forward, rules and regulations for this particular industry will have to tread a fine line of optimum efficiency. Not an easy task, at all. But in a system where most of its participants have developed habits of having the cake and eating it without owning up to the costs, some re-training will have to occur.
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Commodified complacency

Earlier this week, one Google Alert email, among the bazillion of others that bombard my work inbox daily, caught my attention: “The state of dating on Wall Street,” it read. The link led me to a Fortune Magazine article called “Wall Street’s $25,000 matchmaker.” Compared to the other bland (but sometimes exciting in a geeky sort of way) items I read in my morning hours, this one seemed much more entertaining.

As it turned out – entertaining it was, but at the same time, unreal. A matchmaker that costs that much money, to me, seems to undermine the whole idea of a matchmaker, not least because it’s simply idiotic to hash out $25,000 (that’s one year’s worth of university education in some places!) to find someone to date. Doesn’t the fact that you would pay $25K for a dating service say something quite significant about yourself, beyond how much discretionary spending money you have? Or has certain parts of society reached a stage where spending thousands of dollars to find a good match is totally justifiable by reasons such as lack of time available, lack of opportunities to meet people – and what does that say about society itself?

Of all the industries to be considered as consumer discretionary, one would think that third-party dating services would be one of them. But apparently, such is not the case and south Manhattan is by no means the exception to the rule. Because when times get tough, purse strings get tighter but the heart gets looser. Or, at least more amenable to romantic possibilities. Internet dating – Match.com, OKCupid, DatingDirect, eHarmony, and the like – has seen more subscribers, for reasons ranging from more time available to devote to one’s private life, a perceived need for a supportive companion, and a means to split costs.

That’s all well and fine, but a matchmaking service that costs $25,000 seems rather crazy, especially considering the insight Samantha Daniels is giving. To the question, “Now that "I'm a hedge-funder" no longer does the trick, how would you advise bankers to market themselves romantically?” Daniels gave the following answer:

When you meet a woman, you should go back to the basics of who you are as a person – how you live your life, your interests. But it's also good to let someone know that you're doing well and have a stable job in this environment. The number one thing women are attracted to is confidence.

Right. In my humble opinion, that there are people out there who need to be reminded that on your first date, you don’t firstly talk about your income level (“I have an annual salary of $100,000 plus a $50,000 bonus”) and your job title (“I’m vice president of ___”) and the company you work for (“I work for JP Morgan, which is one of the few first-tier investment banks left in the world”), seems simply bizarre. Obviously, if that’s your starting point, then you’ve effectively narrowed yourself down to a pool of people who are looking for exactly those qualities, not the ones who look beyond that. So follows the question, “How do you convey financial stability without handing over tax statements?” and the answer, “My clients have a lot of toys and own a lot of homes. But if you tell someone that you own your own plane on a first date, it sounds like you're overcompensating for something.” Hammer that last nail in the coffin, why don’t you.

Of course, if that’s what you’re looking for, then good for you. By choosing a service such as Samantha’s Table, one does filter out those who allegedly wouldn’t be described as “ultra-successful, ultra-busy, ultra-cultured, and the ultra-educated.” But clearly, Daniels’ clients are not all looking to dig gold (or are they?), as the fact that her clients would pay $25K shows that people are doing whatever they can to find a good match, and one of such criteria – not the only – happens to hinge on income level (see “Money – or ambition? – and the City”).

What ultimately really bothers me about the proliferation of ‘exclusive’ dating services is that, it’s another way by which social categorization is effectuated. It’s subversive because it plays on our tendency towards the familiar, our fear of the unfamiliar, and our preference for convenience. It produces, encourages, and glorifies a social structure that is really based on purchasing power but is masked with labels like ‘success’, ‘culture’, and ‘intelligence’.

Surely, there is nothing wrong with someone seeking another of similar social standing, income, education, background, along with interests, lifestyles, hobbies, and the like. Just as our nature to greed, to hunger, and to reason can never be fully satisfied, nor will our tendency to stick with what we know, seek stability, and choose the easier way out. And to be sure, the subject of these actions can vary: we can greed for wealth or for justice, we can hunger for food or knowledge, we can reason with someone or out of a situation. But to put in place purchasable services that banks on people being lazy about human relationships can’t do very much good.

After all, relationships are supposed to require effort, pull you out of your comfort zones, make you think – often both about the other person as well of yourself – and push you to strike a balance for pretty much everything between you and your partner. They are full of prolonged sessions of diplomacy that for some eventuates in years of peace and hopefully, brief moments of turmoil. A service that tries to get you out of doing that will only make one complacent and naïve about what it takes to build human relationships, break them, and find ways to rebuild them.
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January Classicals

This is part of my resolution this year, to listen to more live classical music and learn more about the music that I listen to. Monthly posts on classical music concerts in London-town!

Let's not talk about how quickly December came and is now going, it's too crazy and scary. The winter holidays can't get here soon enough, because it's frankly too cold to wake up in the morning and the sun sets way too early.

But not all is lost! Some of the world's best orchestras, resident here in London-town, will be playing some awesome tunes in January to quench our thirst for great music - it should go pleasantly hand-in-hand with the stuff-fest upcoming in the next few weeks...

As always, pass this email along to any and all friends who are interested, and respond if you are purchasing tickets. The cheaper tickets often go quickly, so be sure to book a couple weeks in advance!

1. 20 January 2010 7:30 pm

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra @ Royal Festival Hall
Vadim Repin performs Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto

STRAVINSKY: Symphonies of Wind Instruments
TCHAIKOVSKY: Violin Concerto
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Scheherazade

Tickets: £9 - £55
Available on Southbank Centre website


2. 30 January 2010 7:30 pm

London Philharmonic Orchestra @ Royal Festival Hall
Sibelius

SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 3
SIBELIUS: Selected songs - "Autumn Nightfall," "The First Kiss," "A Girl Came from Her Lover's Tryst," "A Ballgame in Trianon", "Arioso," "Duke Magnus," "Was it a Dream?"
SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 2

Tickets: £9 - £55
Available on Southbank Centre website


My Two Pence

If you don't intend on listening to classical music for the rest of 2010, read no further - just go to either or both of these concerts, because you really can't top the line-up of what's being played in January.

RPO (Concert recommendation: 5 stars out of 5): There's surely no better way to start the new year than with the Russians! You've all heard my two pence on Stravinsky so I won't add very much there other than that it looks like this piece will not have any strings in it, which is great for those of you who've never heard a wind ensemble play.

Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto is one of the most difficult concertos to play, apparently. The first violinist Pyotr dedicated the piece to, Leopold Auer, refused to premier it, because the solo part was too difficult and (arguably) not musically suitable for the violin. Poor Pyotr was recuperating from his shit marriage to Antonina amidst Swiss fresh air when he wrote this piece in collaboration with Yosif Kotek, a violinist. It's been used quite often in popular culture, so you'll probably recognise it when you hear it, especially the first movement.

Whenever someone wants a good recommendation for classical music, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade is one of the first pieces I point to. Based on the stories of Arabian Nights, Nicolai weaves the tale of Scheherazade (pronounced: sheh - hera - zaad), a well-read, super-smart Persian queen who herself is the storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights. Don't we like the story already?

Every day, Sharyar, a Persian king, would marry a new virgin, and then the following morning he would have the new wife killed. What a sicko - but you see, Sharyar's first wife cheated on him, and he couldn't get over that anger - so he wed and killed, wed and killed. After wedding and killing 3,000 women, Scheherazade stopped by to say hello and agreed to spend the night with Sharyar. Scheherazade asked Sharyar if she could say goodbye to her sister, Dinazade, who then asked Scheherazade if she could tell a story.

Sharyar was enraptured by Scheherazade's story, but as dawn broke, Scheherazade stopped. "Oh don't stop, go on with your tale," Sharyar insisted. "But your majesty, dawn is breaking," Scheherazade replied. "Oh go on then," the king anxiously said. "Live another day and finish the story." When Scheherazade finished the first story, she started on a second, and so it went, day after night, night after day. After one thousand and one nights, Scheherazade ran out of stories to tell. But after all those nights (roughly equivalent to three years), Sharyar had fallen in love with Scheherazade - and not to mention had three sons with her! The end.

As you listen to the first movement, you'll hear the 'theme melody' for Scheherazade, as well as of Sharyar, and Nicolai has weaved them through the rest of the composition. Scheherazade's theme is heartbreakingly beautiful, and it really is worth a listen.

LPO (Concert recommendation: 5 starts out of 5): I'm not sure why the LPO is playing No. 3 before No.2, but they are (possibly because No. 2 is better - mwahaha). I've not ever heard his third symphony, but I'm more than curious to hear another symphony by one of my all-time favorite composers. Jean is a Finnish composer of the early 1900s and probably considered to be a hero by the Finn's. To show for it, while the rest of the world has obscure fanfares as their national anthems, Finland gets an entire orchestral work - Finlandia - as their 'unofficial' national anthem. You might think of that as a rather snobbish thing to do, but when you hear his symphonies, I think you'll understand why.

Much like Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, Sibelius' works are those that I usually recommend to anyone who's been reluctant to listen to classical music because they think it's boring or because it might just put them to sleep. They are both highly melodical, very easy to listen and to follow. From what I've read, No. 3 is supposed to be pleasant, clean, and simple (read: 'classical'), unlike his No. 2 which is grandiose and patriotic (read: 'romantic').

Now, I didn't know this, but apparently Jean started writing No. 2 in Italy. That explains my love for this symphony - I have a weak spot for all things Italian! Half kidding.. Whether Jean actually intended for No. 2 to be taken as a patriotic gesture is still debated, but nonetheless the symphony has been dubbed "Symphony of Independence" to commemorate the independence of Finland, which was declared by its Parliament on 6 December 1917. Before that, it was an autonomous region of Russia, and the Russians had imposed a rigid prohibition on Finnish language and culture. The first recording of No. 2 was with the London Symphony Orchestra, but I'm sure the LPO will do a great job performing this piece.
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Thinking - a sin?

With a few requests to resume my blog.. here I am, back again.

My latest line of inquiry has been about thinking.

I'm often told that I think too much. As one friend, a hypoglycemic, put it, "Your thought process is faster than my metabolism."

As a direct result of my so-called over-thinking, I pay a lot of attention to a lot of detail. I notice things about people or events, and think about why they did it, why it happened, how they got there and such. So when the lady standing across from me on the bus is fidgeting with her shopping bag, smiling to herself and gazing out the window, I think: "She went to Sainsbury's. She's having a good day. Is she looking at herself? Maybe she lost some weight. Or maybe she's happy that she got all her chores done. Or she's looking forward to a good weekend, perhaps even a trip. I wonder where she's going. Where's she from? She looks eastern European." And off it goes, my brain.

But a moment's thought should reveal to anyone that everything - absolutely everything - originates first in thought. The begging question, therefore, comes down to this: We have brains, so is it a sin to use it?

I'm thinking things when people do or say things that involve me. Compounded by all the thinking I casually do on a daily basis, I've naturally built a sort of databank in my head of all the things people say or do in reaction to something. Hence, I don't simply speculate on explanations when something happens; I have a fairly informed guesstimate, borne out of hours and years of observing, thinking, and remembering.

But really, I make it sound more complicated and extraordinary than it actually is. Most people, in fact probably everyone, does this. Some people just don't actively think that they're doing it - the whole observing, thinking, remembering - whereas I do.

There are consequences, however; just as there are consequences for everything else. Sometimes, if you're not careful, you think so far into the future that you feel either hopeless, lost, confused with life and anxious at the endless possibilities and by proxy, uncertainties. Other times, you think through things so quickly and thoroughly - and no less for those around you - that you get frustrated that such thoughts aren't given to you in return. By reaction, the people around you get nervous that they're going to miss out on something you'd thought of already, and vice versa. And for most people - those of us who aren't such active think-a-holics - it just might get damn annoying that the Thinker is always thinking, and it's like a piece of elastic ready to snap any second.

I don't really like holding to a romanticised notion of the past (like the way way past), but life must've certainly been less jumbled with information, interaction, and matter. Nowadays, there's tonnes of subjects one could ponder about, and we're not left to ever 'not think', other than maybe within the hour or two of yoga classes. And even then, it's hard.

Thinking, though, isn't all bad. I, for one, think it makes me a pretty considerate person. I can think comfortably in advance and plan ahead. Planning ahead, in fact, comes to me like second nature. It's effortless and easy. Thinking also makes me more articulate about things. Because it's almost like you're constantly talking to yourself, you find ways to word things, to express them and make them more descriptive or less sensational, depending on your needs.

And of course, someone who doesn't think wouldn't blog like this!
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So OBVIOUSLY...

I've been busy!! I had a dissertation to write, jobs to apply for, and apartments to find. But now, all of that is over: I finished my dissertation, I have a job, and I've found an apartment. At least for the next three months things are pretty much set.

Will resume writing in this blog as I get back into my working schedule :)
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#1

...of how many more to come (or, not come), I don't know. My first real suit - that's something to be excited about, right? Now, all I have to do is get a job.
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Into Easter

It’s been about a week into Easter break. To no one’s surprise, the Library was bustling with students, once again, on the first day out of the Easter long weekend. If only people would stop recalling my books, I could legitimately spend my days at home instead of trekking to the school.

Not that the recalling of books would ever cease. I’ve been repeatedly amazed at how limited the book and journal selection is at the LSE Library. Recent books written on the most political and economic of subjects, such as the WTO, don’t exist, and their subscription to online journals is limited - you can’t access some journals volumes printed in the 1990s. It’s as if the school thinks the 90s is a decade long gone, of neither particular interest nor importance to students today. As a historian, I obviously object: history, of all things, matter more often and dominantly than we may like, recognize, or know.

I digress. It is now week 2 of Easter break and my review/essay-writing schedule stares at me from the bulletin board. This is no ‘break’ at all, with three assessed, 4000-word essays, 4 exams, and a thesis looming darkly over the back of my head. I would be tempted to call it a ‘break’, watching people leave residence for a week-long trip to the Eurocontinent, fly home to their respective countries, and/or party hard night after night… yes, for some it looks as though this is some ‘break’. But really, for all intents and purposes, if you seriously take a glance back to reality, this is what the Canadians call ‘Reading Week’. A good chunk of students go off to ski or snowboard or even dare to surf - if not, at least a camping trip of sorts would be in order. And of course, there are some who stay put, and do exactly what the week says it’s for: READ.

The belated posting of the 2008 exam schedule gave me a pleasant surprise, although it seems to have pointed a dagger to the throat for most others. I have three days in between each exam, and all my exams are at 2:30pm, instead of the dreaded 10:00am. I start with the easiest, and end with the most difficult. Not bad at all.

The assessed essays are a bit of a downer. As you can imagine, considering how all my work so far has counted towards 0% of my final grade, that the essays constitute 50% or more of my final grade is both a curse and a blessing. On the one hand, my formative grades seem to say I should just play my game and if written in the usual manner, the outcome should be of a similar numerical figure. On the other hand, £13,000 goes down the drain should I royally screw it up. An all-or-nothing deal is not exactly we, the North American-educated, are used to - but, there is no turning back now.

If there is one fat, ‘F’ I should be receiving, it would be in Job Hunting. Job hunting sucks, period.
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Here came Lent - Now, gone.

10 weeks sounds like a long time, but it really is not. The Lent term began in the second week of January, and its end arrived just as I started to feel like I was finally getting used to it. This sense of familiarity, however, was covered up by a hurricane of assignments (unassessed, of course) in the final two weeks. There was no time to look back and reminisce about where the 10 weeks had gone - papers needed writing, presentations needed completing, tests needed taking.

At the very end of February, I took an examination with the United Nations. The UN had been very mysterious about the format and content of their exams, so I spent the the last two weeks of February memorizing resolutions, conventions, terms, phrases, all 8 Secretary-Generals, dates, facts, and case-studies. The exam itself was not surprising, either in content or format. 3 full essay questions, and 8 short-answer questions - 4.5 hours of straight writing. Needless to say, it was a long and grueling 4.5 hours and my hand hurt at the end of it.

Preparations for the UN exam took up the last two weeks of February, so I ended up neglecting a lot of school work. Luckily, I had planned for this to happen, by being at least a week ahead of all my classes until those two weeks. Afterwards, there were only two weeks of school left anyway, and I simply played the catch-up game until the end. Not a big deal.

What really is surprising - and I say this knowing that I’m repeating myself - is how quickly the 10 weeks had flown by. The Michaelmas term felt much longer. Although there is one more term left in the summer, and a few classes here and there, this past Friday was the last day of ‘real’ classes. No more lectures to really attend, no more unassessed assignments to turn in. Three more assessed papers, four exams, and one thesis - and I’m done. Scary.

But I suppose they say that time flies while you’re enjoying something. In hindsight, the Lent term may have been more enjoyable than the Michaelmas, but I attribute this more to the fact that I knew my way around things in January than I did in October. Plus, I knew what to expect, and so more time was spent doing the work rather than figuring out the logistics (recalling that course selection was a bit of a nightmare).

11 weeks until exams, 6 weeks of Easter break. The first thing I did on my first weekend off since January? Read Harry Potter.
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Basketball!

You may think there isn’t much going on beyond academics at LSE. After all, it is a pretty small school, with give-or-take 8,000 students total, and the campus is tiny. Athletic facilities are nearly non-existent, except for the so-called ’sports hall’ in the Old Building basement with a pathetic basketball hoop and the basic gym in the East Building (which I actually don’t mind at all). There isn’t really much space for ‘hanging out’ and sitting around on the LSE campus, and hopefully this will be slightly ameliorated next year when they open the New Academic Building (when I’m not here anymore!).

But, despite the ‘pathetic’ basketball court at LSE, it has a basketball team. I joined the team in October during the Athletic Union day, and it may have been one of the best decisions I’ve made at LSE. Being made co-captain subsequently was nice, but what was more awesome and important was that I met a really fabulous group of girls - like-minded, fun, talented, and smart. In fact, we may have been a little too smart at times, analyzing certain basic basketball rules and the sheer nature of the game, but that was really what made it almost new for me. Indeed, I was used to playing the game with people who knew the game in and out, and I was also used to coaching a group who had no idea what the game was about. My team was an interesting mixture of people with a wide range of skills and capabilities - from the highly experienced to the not-so-experienced - but all so smart that it didn’t take much to explain the basics. Explaining the subtleties, however, was a very different task I had not encountered before.

The LSE Women’s Basketball team had, overall, a fairly impressive season record. We were entered into two different leagues: the BUSA and the ULU. We ended in the third seat for the BUSA league, and second in the ULU. But again, it wasn’t so much the game record I was concerned about (although admittedly, winning is nice); the entire team improved substantially over the course of the season, and our second-to-last game against the University of Bedfordshire (1st seat in BUSA), in which we played put up a huge fight (despite physical disadvantages!), stood as solid proof.

There are a few colleagues with whom I’ve become close over the school year. But the girls I met on the basketball team have probably been the most significant and most memorable. Yes, the facilities could be improved, but that would have merely been a bonus. The team gave me a good reason to meet people across departments as well as programmes (we were 50% postgrad and 50% undergrad) - and I’m so glad I took advantage of it!
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Amendment

An entire season of Grey's Anatomy later, here I am sitting alone in my dorm room in the middle of London, looking around to see piles of books, a slew of papers in shambles covering every inch of my desk, and wisps of curly strands of hair in my peripheral vision and can only wonder, "What's the point?"

Sometimes it doesn't feel like anything that I do really matters that much. I work my ass off to get a really good grade for my paper and sometimes I do, other times I don't. I learn languages so that I can talk to different people in the world they understand and make sense of and derive truths and lies. I read books, books on politics, books on citizenship, books on music, novels, biographies, autobiographies, human anatomy, music compositions and cooking and baking and listen to podcasts from the BBC and the Economist. And I stop and wonder, "Why?"

My flatmate is being noisy as usual. I can't tell the difference between her squealing and screaming and when I think she's crying she turns out to be squealing in laughter and when I think she's laughing she is screaming in the middle of sex. He laughs and laughs and talks loudly. I get up from my desk chair to get out through the door, knock on her door, put on a half-casual, half-exhausted look to tell her, "I'm sorry, you've just got to keep it down, it's 1:30 in the morning." But I catch my blanket. And then I sit down, readjust my blanket, and wonder, "Why?" And now things are being thrown around next door. Should I go and tell them to be quieter? But then again, why should I, why would it matter?

I reflect on why I decided to study the topic that I do. Global politics. GLOBAL POLITICS! In London. At one of the best institutions in the world. Allegedly. With some of the smartest people in the world. Apparently. In London, one of the greatest, the most extraordinary, cosmopolitan cities humankind has developed over the course of its history. Supposedly. In THE most expensive cities in the world, known to humankind. Definitely. WHY?? In truth, it was partially a decision out of convenience, in a few ways. I didn't think I really knew what I wanted to do after being a pseudo-teacher for a year, and all I really knew was that I didn't want to stay in Tokyo. It was also convenient that the man I thought I loved and loved me would be in the same city. I had to pick from five offers, from three very good institutions. The best offer came from this school. So I made the decision.

But I was wrong. Wrong on a lot of different levels. Life, love and everything in this world - yes, everything - is what you try to make of it, and that trying is an important part of it all, but you don't have full control of what it becomes, and that, too, is also a very important aspect. Ourselves, this world, spelt W-O-R-L-D on the computer screen or handwritten on a piece of paper or in the form of a blue ball or clouds or a face. It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. Because something that you thought was THAT could easily turn into something that barely resembles it as you remember it. The transformation, as well as its product, doesn't make it anymore fake or real, true or false. It changes, yes, and sometimes, if you're lucky - luck (which is not just a random force) is also important - you get to see all the great things it can do. Other times, you become a witness to the deepest, ugliest, most horrific reality you can barely imagine.

People do things for a reason. A reason that is clearly justifiable in their minds. At times a constructed justification, perhaps, but nonetheless justifiable and as long as it is justifiable, it is viable and it is one gleaming, very tangible reality. Things happen for a reason. A reason that you never find out until you do. And when you do, you tell yourself, or your friend tells you, "Oh well, I guess that's life." And then that reality is justifiable, too. Deaths, lives, pains, joys. Happinesses sadnesses jealousies wonderings hopings thinkings writings killings livings beginnings endings. All, justifiable. it's what we do. Justify. Why? Because we are taught to do so. We are raised to be strong, to move on, to live a life and dream, and that requires justifying. So we justify. Over and over and over again, oblivious to the remnants of our repeated justifications. Not that there's anything wrong with that, because we have to live. We have jobs. Essays to finish. Friends to hang out with. Kids to take care of. Food to procure. Diseases to cure. People to mourn about. People to love. Justifying. Every moment, every day.

And that's the world. A world like that has no 'fix'. A world like that has no 'cure'. People aren't meant to be eternally happy. They were not meant to be eternally unhappy. Some forms of perceived happiness, in fact, are unhappiness to others, and vice versa - this is a very well-known phenomenon. So there is no cure. Which is why I'm here.

So, an amendment to my new year's resolution: Focus. On nothing more than the barren reasons for my existence. Sans flair, sans emotion, sans life. Just, focus.
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2008 Commences.

At certain moments throughout 2007, I seriously doubted whether I would actually get through 2007 alive to see 1 January 2008. But I have, and that's a good thing. My yearly horoscope last year said that 2007 was going to be a great year for me, and it wasn't. This year, they predict that I'll be undergoing an internal transformation... we'll see about that.

As fireworks crackle through the cold and humid air of London this evening, I thought I would share a few resolutions, a few goals, and a 2008 Reading List that does not include the thousands of articles and books I'll have to read for course work. Not that anyone actually cares, but I didn't particularly have any desire to finish reading the 20-paged article tonight (alas, it is already 2:30 am) and I felt like procrastinating.

Resolutions
1. Stop procrastinating.
2a. Understand that not everyone holds the same morals as I do.
2b. Understand that not everyone has morals, period, and there's nothing to be done about it.
3. Recognize that I am actually appreciated in my entirety, the sensitive, intuitive, crazy nut-case that I may be.
4. Get back into a fitness schedule and "adjusting to life in London" is no excuse any longer.
5. Stop doubting life. It just happens, in all of its qwerkiness and hypocrisy.

Goals
1. Find a job to last me through another year of London.
2. Finish my thesis before May.
3. Visit Vancouver.
4. Understand economics.
5. Eat more veggies.
6. Stop eating wheat.
7. Figure out if I'm actually allergic to alcohol.
8. Expand my cooking repertoire.
9. Expand my baking repertoire.
10. Be reasonably able to speak French, but keep the Italian.

2008 Reading List
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (TBF)
The Satanic Verses - Salaman Rushdie (TBF)
Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson
Blake - Peter Ackroyd
East of Eden - John Steinbeck
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz - Mordecai Richler
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
On Beauty - Zadie Smith
History of Love - Nicole Krauss
Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer
Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
The Bastard of Istanbul - Elif Shafak
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Winter in London

> Midnight Eucharist @ St Paul's Cathedral. Christmas Eve.


> The end of 2007, Trafalgar Square.
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Off to Milan in 30 hours

"What an awkward countdown." - This must be what you are thinking. It's awkward because in the next 30 hours, I sleep, work a double-shift, take a cab to Victoria Coach Station at 1am, hang out until 3am, catch the National Express bus at 3:30am for London Gatwick Airport, hang out until 6am, and catch a flight to Milano Malpensa for a (hopefully) relaxing weekend in Milan.

Stay tuned..
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The National - Best. Show. Ever.

I went to go see The National play at Shepherd's Bush Empire tonight, with a friend. It had been a while since I'd been out for a non-classical concert, so for one thing it was a nice change. I had also 'turtled' into my shell that is my room for the past two weeks, completing two presentations and two essays, so I felt like this was my reward for all the socializing time I had given up. And man, was it ever a treat! I'll be looking for a second-hand CD store the next few days to get a hold of all their CD's, because they were fucking good!! Such a presence on stage, and very intricate layers of music going on all at once. While at times percussive and explosive, they still managed to sustain the complexity that really lay at the heart of their music. At no point during the show did I feel that what they presented was clichéd, simplistic, or uncreative. A solid, solid show.
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Settled? Settling

The fact that it’s been ages since the last time I updated this blog should be a telling proof of how busy I’ve been. I can positively say that within the last two weeks I’ve devolved into a geeky hermit who’s already checked out 20 books from the library, and has spent at least £10 printing articles in the computer lab. This is probably more indicative of how not to spend your entire year in London than anything else.

Nonetheless, no one can really deny the keen mood that constantly hangs in the air. Such a mood drove a good handful of students to pack a sleeping bag and stand in line (since what obscene hour, god only knows) in the Old Building in order to obtain tickets to see Alan Greenspan talk. It has also consistently driven half the population at the LSE to step into the aesthetically appealing, yet funnily dysfunctional library at least once a day, and driven the other half to resist (deny?) any urge to go near it, let alone lay hands on a book in its shelves. Last week, it also drove a large majority of students who wanted to book a seat for the International Organizations’ Day to overload the school’s network system so much that it caused it to shut down for an entire afternoon. The list continues.

What exactly have I been doing? I have classes on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and have had two presentations to prepare for within the last two weeks. I have two essays due this Friday (week 5). I play for the LSE women’s basketball team, and I work a double-shift, waitressing, every Friday. I’ve also been to the Barbican to see the London Symphony Orchestra perform Mozart’s Requiem, and spent an afternoon at the Borough Market, browsing through and tasting every kind of cheese imaginable with an old friend from grade school. I’ve taken part in the “G4 Summit” @ George IV Pub on Wednesday afternoons, finally stepped into the LSE Gym, taken advantage of 90p lattes at the Garrick on early mornings, and have indulged (twice) in a breakfast a la British at The Shakespeare’s Head. Sure, I haven’t exactly been plastered every night, nor have I basked in glory in the pub quizzes at the 3Tunnes. But I’ve managed to carve out for myself a piece of the London Experience. A few hiccups here and there, but all in all it’s been fairly alright thus far.
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Oh my god I'm in London

Skipping ahead to London.. (New York/Philadelphia entries to come later)

That's what I thought I'd think the moment I landed in Heathrow. But actually, I didn't. It's been three days since my arrival and it still hasn't hit me yet. I guess that's just how it goes. I expected a large, thick curtain to be lifted off my eyes, revealing something extraordinary, magnificent, and different. In reality, it was more like wiping away some spots off my glasses and putting them back on: most of it I'd seen or encountered before, and there were some details in the picture that were a bit blurry.

I took the Underground from Heathrow, and noticed that the London Tube doesn't smell like smoke, or sweat, or even urine, but excessive amounts of different colognes and perfumes, mixed together. I was slightly dizzy coming off the Underground at Angel Station. When I arrived overground at Angel at 6am, it was again the smell of the city that I first noticed. It wasn't like 6am in Beijing where you breathed in and out CO2, or like 6am Tokyo where you can smell the previous night's parties on the streets infused with carbon monoxide, or like 6am Vancouver where you can smell the ongoing rain, or like 6am Florence where you were tempted by whiffs of espresso and freshly baked brioches. I smelled 'Europe' but definitely not its continental counterpart. I smelled newspapers, trees, fresh cologne, and an aire of an inexplicable sophistication wavering through the busy, hurrying crowd. That was my first impression of London.

I spent most of the first day catching up on sleep, and exploring Angel in the early evening with a friend. On the second day, I ventured out to take a look at LSE, happily took a picture of it, forced my way into its famous Library and made use of the internet, took a picture of the spiral staircase (of course!), visited the bookstore and got a Watermark's card, booked a dentist appointment for mid-October, and then walked along the Thames from Aldwych to London Bridge (which is not Tower Bridge), and paid a visit to my residence in Southwark.

On my third day (today), I called up LSE Accommodation to see if I can move in a couple days early. Every night up until 30 September costs me an additional £15 but I thought it would be worth it - I haven't had my own room in so long! The said it wouldn't be a problem. Fantastic. I called my movers and asked them to deliver my boxes the next day. Then, I went and printed off copies of my resume and walked around in grey weather, looking for a job around Southwark. I visited T-mobile later in the day in an attempt to get myself a phone so that I'm more connected to the civilized world, but failed, when they said I have to sort out my bank account first so they can run a credit check on someone who just landed in England for the first time. Of course. By the time I left T-mobile, however, the banks were closed, so the HSBC Bank question and T-mobile question is left for tomorrow afternoon, after I've fit everything in my room at Sidney Webb.

Oh my god I'm in London.
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"Vive la Quebec libre!"

Of all the cities I've ever visited or lived in, Montreal was a city that was most conscious of its own existence. Walking down the streets, whether it be Saint-Laurent, Mont-Royale, or Saint Catharines, the proud vibe resonated vibrantly and consistently. And even though parts of Montreal are considered more Anglophone or Francophone, the dominant language in use - despite it being a Canadian city - was French. Everyone spoke in French and all the signs were in French. If you didn't know the history of Montreal or Quebec or even Canada, you would not know that this was an English-speaking city (which it is).

The language barrier, surprisingly, was intimidating. Surprising, because I feel rarely intimidated by the lack of knowledge of a certain language - I usually end up picking it up within a short period of time. I had previously heard that the French are so notorious for being overtly proud of their language (for good reason?) that they find foreigners' attempts to speak the language to be distasteful. Of course, my friends are different - they'll help me pronounce "Mont-Royale" with the back-throat "R" and compliment me if I'm articulating it close enough. But having been informed of French linguistic pride before, I was scared to even attempt pronouncing anything in French, and boldly stuck with English. This, however, was highly uncomfortable for someone like me who enjoys and also finds importance in conversing in the region's language. Feeling like an alien, I sorely wished that I had French under my belt - and I had scarcely wished so for Spanish in Peru!

While one magazine's claim that "Those who choose not to live in Montreal solely because it is Francophone are pussies" can be violently debatable amongst socio-linguists and cultural theorists, that the city is, for all intents and purposes, French, shouldn't put anyone off to live in it or at least visit. It is unique and vibrant and lively in its proud way and perhaps for this reason, full of character and so much color. For one thing, I enjoyed great coffee and grub, and also a hip music scene that would have been enjoyable if it were not for froshers of McGill bombarding the bars. Like many European cities, some neighborhoods are old old, and others quite new. I can definitely see myself hanging out in Montreal for a tad bit longer - and would have if LSE didn't beckon me.
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Ontario: Yours to Discover

And it certainly has been mine to discover, with the help of my good friend Alicia who drives me around to places and shows me boats and takes me to great restaurants.

In truth, I really love this small, quaint town of St Catharines. It has so much character on its own and is so peaceful and quiet - totally different from the loud and busy streets of Tokyo. Furthermore, Alicia's company has been therapeutic, to the extent that I feel so much better about where I am in life and who I am, and am grateful for the awesome friendships that make my life the wonder and beauty that it is.

Niagara Falls (picture above) was also a great time. I wandered through this casino-town built on the shores of one of the world's greatest natural wonders, thinking about how sad it is that such a natural beauty has to be accompanied by an unrestrained form of commercialism and hedonism. I myself could literally sit on the look-out dock and watch the Falls for hours on end, breathing in air that is actually more oxygen than carbon monoxide, feeling the mist of the waters from afar (and this you actually can) and listening to the echoes of roaring, powerful waters.

And now, after having finished an entire bottle of wine with Alicia and having thai curry at a local bar restaurant, I am, for the first time in a few months, totally tipsy and it feels great. But not it is time to go to bed. So much for my brief moments of intoxication.
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From Pittsburgh, PA to St Catharines, Ontario

So my week in Pittsburgh was fantastic and I greatly enjoyed staying with my friends Daniel and his wife, Joyce. Pittsburgh is such a character-full city, with most of its buildings - new and old - constructed with red brick. The Heinz factory lay nearby, and bridges stood over the merging of two great rivers. A wonderful city, and most importantly, wonderful company.

I always hope, when riding any type of vehicle (train, bus, airplane) that someone interesting would sit next to me so that the hours spent sitting can be spent entertained. Well, my train ride to Buffalo, NY where my friend Alicia awaited me, manifested this hope into reality but in a most extreme manner.

I sat next to an African-American man with corn-rolls, who was taking the train out to Chicago and then to Michigan to visit his 16 year-old son. But it wasn't him who turned the 2.5 hour ride to Cleveland interesting for me; it was a Chinese lady, probably in her late forties, who sat across the aisle from me. When everyone boarding from Pittsburgh settled down into their seats, she let out a huge "OH MAAANNNN" in a tone of complaint. I hadn't a clue what she was complaining about, exactly. She continued to sigh, and move about in her chair, talking to herself. Then she got up, and starting folding and refolding her blue blanket around herself, until it was wrapped around her to her utmost satisfaction. It was then I realized that this woman was probably mildly autistic.

Moments later she declared to the conductor walking past, that she needed to use the restroom. The conductor put a finger to his lips and explained where the toilets were located in the car. It took four more repetitions of directions to the toilet facilities before the woman started walking in the direction pointed by the rather frustrated conductor.

My interesting train ride physically began when the woman returned from using the restroom. She walked rather energetically up the aisle towards her seat... and then passed right by it. Opening the door to the next car, she slid through them and continued to walk. Few seconds later, she came back, looking confused. Staring at the numbers above the seats, and concluding that her seat did not exist in this car, she returned to the next car, only to return a few seconds later. When she went off to the next car again, I couldn't stand just watching anymore, so I pulled off my iPod and my alpaca sweater onto my seat and ran - yes, I had to run as she was now running down the aisle - to guide the woman back to her seat.

"Ma'am, are you looking for your seat?"
"Wha...?"
"Are you looking for your seat," I repeated, a little bit louder. She nodded. I gestured to her to follow me.

When we returned to the original car, I pointed to her seat and her blanket, and told her that that was her seat. However, she remained looking confused, and after a few seconds of pondering she shook her head. "This isn't my seat. My seat is number 53. This isn't my seat. 53. Number 53."
"But that's where you were sitting, that's your blanket, right?"
"Yeah, that's my blanket. No, I'm sitting in number 53 with the same colored blanket. Next to a fat white chick. I remember because I felt squished against my window. You have to help me. I have to get back to my seat. It's number 53. This isn't my seat.." and it went on.

It took a good 15 minutes to convince the lady that the seat she was looking at, with the blue blanket, was indeed her seat. I even conceded to take her to seat 53, which was occupied by an elderly couple who was fast asleep. "See, this isn't your seat." Pulling her by the arm towards where I had seen her when I first got on the train, I pointed again and told her, "That's your seat."

When she finally sat down and I was able to convince her that it was now time to sleep because everyone else in the car was also sleeping, it had be an entire hour into the train ride. It was nearly 1 in the morning and I was getting drowsy. The woman kept trying to have conversations with those sitting behind her, telling them she could 'help them' - in what way, I wasn't entirely sure - and I kept putting my finger to my mouth, encouraging her to keep her volume down, and telling her, "Not now. Later." Furthermore, she kept insisting that the Chinese youth sitting behind me was my brother, that everyone in the car were "my people" and that they knew me, and that I looked like her younger sister who apparently only cared about her 'faith'. Whatever she thought after my appeasements I don't know, but she finally did stop talking and started gathering her blanket, with which she attempted to hit my legs. When I just smiled, she took her blanket and started wrapping herself with it.

I closed my eyes and was starting to drift off into my dreams when a "Oh god!! Oh no!" woke me up and startled me out of my seat. I looked to my right, and surely enough, there was the Chinese woman again, looking confused and worried and fluttered. What now?? I thought.

"I've lost my bag. It was up there (pointing to the overhead storage space), a black bag. You have to help me find it. I'm sitting at seat 53. This isn't my seat.." and the whole ordeal had started all over again. What concerned me most was not that her obsession with seat 53 was up and running again, but that, according to her, her passport was packed into the lost black bag. Thinking that the best idea would be to speak to the conductor about it so they can search for it rather than herself, I told her, "We'll find it. But not now."
"NOo, but I need that bag now. My earphones are inside it and I need them. My passport is in it. Shit. I need to find my bag."
"Nooo, you are not walking around, we'll find the bag, don't worry," I said.

In a few moments the conductors came walking down the aisle. I stopped one of them and explained the situation. The conductor then told me something I didn't even think about: "At the station she got on from, she had been tested for alcohol and they found that she was drunk."

Drunk? I could no longer figure out whether the woman was mildly autistic for plainly drunk and unemployed and nuts. The good news was, upon hearing of the entire ordeal, the conductor decided that he would keep a careful eye on her in case she caused any more problems. When I got off at 3am in Cleveland, OH, the woman was no longer in our car but was relocated to some other car. Thank god!!
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