"An Average London Day" by Ryan Mutton

Ryan Mutton, a Theatrical Production Arts major has sent in a post that details exactly what your typical day as an ICLC student would entail...



At 7:45AM my alarm goes off.

Sometime in the next few minutes I drag myself out of bed.

My roommate is still asleep. She doesn't have class until almost 2pm.

I share a room with a girl, it's casual. Two of my friends did it last semester as well. It isn't a big deal if you know them. We don't spend much time in the flat, let alone our tiny bedroom.

After a quick breakfast I start the commute to my work placement. The fact that I live in a city, not a small town or campus, is still a bigger shock to me than being in another country.

In my home town I can get anywhere I need to be in fifteen minutes. In Ithaca I can go from my bed to class in two minutes, I've learned that the hard way.

In London my commute is thirty-five minutes and three trains. It isn't challenging by any stretch of the imagination, it becomes rather automatic very quickly. It's just over an hour of my day that is hard to make useful.

I read the Metro, a free paper, on my way into work. There's no wi-fi or cell service on the tube, so no Facebook.

I make it to my work placement early and make myself a cup of hot chocolate, much to the chagrin of my boss. My British coworkers drink tea, a lot of tea. We banter, watercooler talk with more teasing, before getting to work.

I found my placement through a classmate who worked at the same company last year. I'm the fourth Ithaca student in four years to work there. While the London Center assigns you someone to help you find an internship they're not the only way to track one down. Ask your friends who have been to London about where they worked.

While eating lunch I grab some free wi-fi from work. It is 1PM in London, 8AM back home, and Facebook is slowly becoming interesting.

It's really easy to keep in touch with friends and family back home, but coordinating a Skype date can be challenging with the five hour time difference.

After lunch I commute to the London Center for my afternoon class.

This time its only two trains, but it's closer to 45 minutes. Class is three hours, but only meets once a week. It feels very much like grad school. There's not much testing, grading is primarily essay and discussion based.

After class I have one last commute, twenty minutes and one train, until I'm back in my flat. Feeling lazy I stay in for the evening. The biggest commute left for the night is the couch to my bed.