The Walls Have Eyes...

How often do you turn around with the feeling that you're being watched?  For anyone who's been in the London Center in the evening when there aren't many other people around, did you find it just a bit eerie?  The ICLC is an old Victorian home, so I suppose haunting goes without question, but you never expect to see a manifestation of of all the creepy ideas swimming through your head as you hesitantly check to see if the London Center really is empty.  So consider my surprise when I stood up from in front of the fireplace in the Common Room to see a pair of eyes trained on me.  Not a pair I was expecting.  This happened in broad daylight, during a moment when I had a confident grasp of how many people were in the building.  Sarah and Bill were working downstairs in their offices.  No students were in.  And yet I was being watched.  Not by one set of eyes, but as I took closer note of my surrounding, I discovered it was by nine sets.

All of a sudden my eyes were opened to all the faces around the London Center!  I don't mean students or Elsie, I mean bizarre, expressive, character faces.  They're all over the place!  Paranoid much, you ask?  These Victorian features, coated in over a century of paint, are nearly hiding in plain sight.  I've compiled what I doubt is an extensive list of the ICLC's hidden faces.  Doubtless they watch the building day and night, noticing comings and goings, weighing in on who their favorite ICLC directors have been.

So, I'm introducing you to the faces of the London Center:

Tilly- Over the fireplace in the Common Room

Benjamin- Mantel in the Common Room

Melbourne- Mantel in the Common Room

Bobby- Mantel in the Common Room

Palmerstone- Mantel in the Common Room

William- Mantel in the Common Room

Derby- Mantel in the Common Room

Cecil- Mantel in the Common Room

Tony- Mantel in the Common Room

Harvey- Front Hall post

Al- Front Hall post

Louise- Front Hall fireplace (probably not Victorian?)

Frank, Lorraine and Suzanne- Exterior Facade above Entryway

Henry- Front Door (almost definitely not Victorian)

Francis- Front Office

Tilly and the boys listen from over the fireplace to Diana Rigg talking to an Interrelationships class in 1982.

-Claire

In a Relationship

The cat's out of the bag, and the congratulations are in.  I thought I would let the whole event sink in and settle down, and now that it has, it's time to interview Bill.

Claire Mokrauer-Madden: I just heard about you and Elsie!
Bill Sheasgreen: What about us?
CMM: Umm, that you're in a relationship?
BS: We are?
CMM: That's what it says on Facebook.  Doesn't that mean that it's real?
BS: Oh yes, that, of course.  I thought you were talking about something else.
CMM: Have you and Elsie done something else?
BS: No.
CMM: ...ok.  Um, I'm a little confused, so let's draw a veil over that one.  So!  You and Elsie are in a relationship!
BS: A business relationship.
CMM: Is that so?  What kind of business?
BS: Music and fashion mostly. 
CMM: Does she do the music and you do the fashion?
BS: No, I do both.  She keeps the books.
CMM: Oh, right... so what kind of music is it?
BS: For legal reasons I have to call it "Beatles cover" music, even though McCartney and I both know who wrote all those songs.
CMM: Please, let's leave the man out of this.  Tell me about the fashion side of the business.
BS: I'm rewriting what it means to be cool.  I'm turning the conventions that you take for granted each day up on their heads.  I'm putting suits on the rugby pitch, high heels on the beach and making hats at weddings obsolete.
CMM: This sounds uncomfortable, inappropriate and needless.
BS: Yes!  You've hit the concept on the head!  Why be conventional when you can set yourself apart?  I'm doing this on all sides of the business.  Don't you want to hear Hey Jude performed by an oompah band?  Or, one that I wrote for very personal reasons, Can't Buy me Love in its original Russian?
CMM: Please!  I asked you once already to let it go for a moment.  Sir Paul would prefer you not speak about him.  Tell me about Elsie's role in the business.
BS: Yes, Elsie, my business partner.  She manages our bookings and works as the company's agent/marketing department.  I wear my designs when I perform "his" songs, and often she helps coordinate my costumes.  We make a great team!
CMM: It sounds like you're the front-man and she's the power behind the throne.
BS: Oh no!  Elsie's very much in front of the throne.  I travel on a throne upheld by five professional throne-carriers, but she travels by public transportation, which is obviously much more efficient.  So she always arrives in front of the throne.
CMM: Hmm, that's a somewhat more literal interpretation of what I was saying than I expected, though that seems to be par for this interview.
BS: Yes, it is...
CMM: ...and do you have anything coming up, either in music or fashion?
BS: Well, now that you mention it, Elsie is working on her own fashion line at Top Shop.  She's sort of riding on the momentum of Kate Moss's work there, and she's feeling really good about it.  To my taste it's all a bit vanilla, but as she often reminds me, vanilla's a pretty amazing flavour.  I tried recommending she incorporate more plaid into her designs, and when she was finally done laughing, she ignored that suggestion.
CMM: That's great for Elsie!  When will we get to see her designs?  Are you doing her marketing?
BS: We're looking at a date in September, but nothing's quite finalized.  We've had an idea to do pop-up fashion shows in advance of London Fashion Week.  We'll be doing a few around London, so keep your eyes peeled!
CMM: Thanks for the heads up!  I definitely will!  Listen, this has been a great interview, minus the excessive bile towards Sir Paul McCartney.  You really should consider therapy for your issues with him.  Maybe even the two of you going to couples counseling or something.
BS: Couples counseling?  Elsie doesn't have nearly as many issues with him as I have.  I don't really think it would be worth her time.
CMM: Never mind.  Thanks anyway for the interview.  As usual, it would have been great if you had actually participated in it, but you didn't.
BS: I never do.

Elsie likes long walk in the summer and sitting along the Thames Embankment.  Bill likes Arsenal and QPR.

Elsie's Exploits on Facebook (or Elsie Exploits Facebook)

What did you learn in school?  Share with others.  Don't run with scissors.  8x5=40.  Don't be accused of being a creepy stalker by Facebook because they won't let you make friends for a week.  Not that the last one is something specifically on the curriculum, at least I don't think it is.

But this is what Elsie learned this week.  Technically not in school since we're in London. She learned it at university.  Here's her side of the story:

I'm a bit new to Facebook, but I thought I would give it a go, since I've made so many friends at Harrington Gardens in the last 40 years.  After my birthday party in April I did some serious soul searching, as one is wont to do when they have a round numbered or milestone birthday.  Over the years so many friends have come and gone, and I would like to reestablish contact.  As I'm in a relationship with Bill (purely professional), I had a peek at his friends and asked the ones I knew from years back if they would like to be my friend, too.  Unfortunately I've been going by my casual name on Facebook, and forgot that many people may not know me as Elsie.  My more formal name, the Ithaca College London Center, or sometimes just the London Center, is how most people were introduced to me.  I understand the confusion that can ensue when you meet a person and are told to call them one thing, only to find out later that they prefer to be called something else.  So when the postman, the gas man or TV Licensing come to the door I go by my full name, but as I get to know the students, they come to use my nickname, ISee Elsie.

Hopefully I have cleared things up with Facebook.  I have my postman name in light grey parenthesis after my nickname in the hope that old friends who didn't recognize my nickname will know who I am.  I'd like to phone up Mark Zuckerberg and just say, "My bad," but instead I've quietly accepted my week-long ban from inviting more people to be my friends.  I promise I'm not a stalker.  Real stalkers get restraining orders taken out against them.  I just want to make friends, something else I should have learned in school in my youth.  Anyway, I mostly just post things on my Facebook page off my Twitter feed, because I think everyone wants to know when I have a new blog post up or what the weather is like in London.  Sunny with a chill in the air right now, as it happens.

I welcome old, new and future London Center students to friend me.  I'm keen on staying in touch and keeping you up to date with what's happening at the Center.  I look forward to telling you what's playing on the Austrian radio station in the front office (It's Raining Men, by The Weather Girls, not Geri Halliwell), or that Bill is nearly done with his marking and more than ready to focus on the Olympics conference, or that Sarah and Claire really liked the apple tea that Jim Swafford gave them from Turkey.  There's less inane information to pass on as well, but these are also the things that give me character.  I'll try and find a balance between relevant info about London and the London Center and the minor aspects of daily life around here.

Thank you for listening,
Elsie

(P.S.- I also have a fan page!)

Bill's Working on the Book

Bill Sheasgreen: Claire, I'm trying to write a book about London Center and its 40 years.  Would you help me?
Claire Mokrauer-Madden: Sure!  I'd love to help.  What can I do?
BS: There are so many facets to Elsie's history, and my specialties are World War II and later 20th century youth culture.  I'm considering presenting Elsie in her youth as a post Mary Quant-loving, experiment of the 1970's, but I can't seem to mesh that with her Victorian facade.  Any ideas how to resolve this?
CMM: I don't think the London Center was born as a bi-product of the swinging 60's.  As one of many American study abroad programs to have been established in London in 1972, can you talk about studying abroad in London and how the experience has developed over the last 40 years? 
BS: Perhaps.  I've certainly seen it all happen.  Disguised as a history lecturer, I was a part of London's 1970's scene on the King's Road in Chelsea.  I walked the same streets as Mick Jagger.  He learned his famous swagger from me.  That's a little known fact that could go into the book!
CMM: You seem to make a lot of assertions that I find hard to believe. 
BS: No, that's a true fact.  I would put you in touch with the man himself to confirm, but we aren't on speaking terms anymore.
CMM: I'm not surprised to hear that.  What can you say about Elsie in the 1980's?  Didn't Ithaca buy the building then?
BS: Yes, the 80's were a good time for us.  I remember when Ithaca bought this building, and the sellers were generous enough to include Fred as the caretaker in the deal. 
CMM: Fred certainly was the glue of the London Center while he worked here.  And if he was out of glue, it was nothing a few nails and/or screws, some honey mustard dressing and some white paint wouldn't fix.
BS: We were also doing much of our faculty selection from north London.  Not that we were biased, but it was nice to have a good group of Arsenal fans.
CMM: I was about to take exception to that and tell you I wouldn't help you with the book!  But if it was all in support of Arsenal, I bet you were blinded by passion.
BS: Perhaps we could include a chapter in the book about Elsie's Arsenal years.
CMM: Probably not.  But a chapter about Fred would certainly be nice.  Except for the London Center's more recent alums, most students who passed through our doors will have at some point been made to think that they opened the door into Fred's head and nearly knocked him down.  The closest thing we now have to Fred's practical joking is you Aprils Fools jokes.
BS: Oh, yes!  Shall we have a chapter about how successfully we've celebrated April 1st for so many years?
CMM: Perhaps.  Are you bummed that April 1st is on a Saturday this year and you won't be at work for it?
BS: Who says I won't be at work for it?
CMM: True point.  But will you be designing a prank for yourself?
BS: Undisclosable.
CMM: I don't think that's a word.  Don't use it in the book.
BS: But I will possibly be including April Fools jokes in the book. 
CMM: So have I helped you?
BS: Barely!  We haven't made it to the 90's or the 21st century!
CMM: Perhaps they can be included in volume 2?
BS: You think I'm going to make it to volume 2?
CMM: I have high hopes for volume 1. That'll be the hard one.  Volume 2 will probably write itself.
BS: I like your optimism, whether or not I share it.  You've been a big help, and I have a lot of ideas to use.  Volume I of the London Center's history is going to be amazing!
CMM: I wait with baited breath!

*Bill really is working on a book celebrating the 40 years of history in the London Center.  We look forward to the final product!

You'll Have to Sit Down for This One...

What do I do when I'm low on blog post ideas?  Embrace the random factor.

I may or may not have previously mentioned that the London Center is 40 this year.  As a result, you may imagine that we have been through our fair share of chairs in this building, but what you may not know about are the real classics to which we have clung.  Yes, your worst fears are true.  Today I will be reviewing the chairs of the London Center. 

My first chair is not just a chair, but the set found in Bill's office.  I would like to be able to put a date on them, but their classic design and unending series of tears in the leather just say to me that they have been around the block a few times.  These chairs welcome coffee talkers, visiting alums, faculty and the surveyors who will be giving Elsie a once over.  The set of four (2 taller armchairs, a lower armchair and a loveseat) are centered around a table that has hobnobs on it on a good day, and a semester's worth of Bill's Sport in the UK marking on a bad day.  On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best, Emily and Michael gave them a 9.85 overall for comfort, ease of use and closeness to biscuits.

Emily stealthily checks the arms of the chair

Michael is loving the loveseat

The next chair is also part of a set and also green.  Under the stairs in the front hall there is another loveseat and an ottoman that is most frequently used as a seat.  It seems that the comfort of these items of furniture balances out the danger involved in getting into and out of them.  They are truly seats for experienced sitters.  They sink and suck you in when you sit on them and have a table, a wall socket and a radiator nearby, as well as a small window.  What would only make the situation better would be if so many people didn't bump their heads on the stairs standing up to leave the sofa.  Also, if you listen closely, you can hear Harry Potter quietly doing magic in the cupboard under the stairs and plotting his escape.  Points out of 10? 9.2, say Brittany, Carolyn and Cristin.

Neither Brittany or Carolyn bumped their heads standing up!

Cristin didn't mind that there's no back to the ottoman

Next we moved up to the Common Room.  Here is a similar style to the set in Bill's office.  These chairs are old, broken in and wear their age well.  If I were to compare them to zoo animals I would say they are most comparable to wise elephants.  The leather sags in places, but these chairs don't seem to be forgetting the last 40 years.  Literature lecturer Lee White gave them a 6 out of 10.  He wasn't impressed by the chair's lack of support and was disappointed by how far away it was from any biscuits.

Lee wears his disappointment about the lack of biscuits

Fourth is our freshest set of chairs.  Within the last year the faculty room received leather armchairs which are still so new, they smell a bit like the shop.  These chairs don't leave the sitter too high or too low, but rather just at the right height.  Ian Green, film lecturer, felt they were some of the best in the London Center, giving them a 10 out of 10.

Ian's comfy in the new faculty room chair

The final set of chairs is easily my favorite.  If I was told they came with the building, I would believe it.  These old, green friends have been repaired innumerable times, but being too good to let go of, they are currently haunting room 8.  They're lumpy but loveable, socially awkward but trend setting.  They're representatives of life- they dictate where you're allowed to sit on them (bumps vs. holes), but welcome you with aged velour upholstery.  They take and they give- they're not just a place to sit, they're a way of life.  11 out of 10!

For Rosie, the party starts in these chairs

If you're really well behaved I'll let you know next week which classroom chairs we're still using since the 1980's!

-Claire

Valentines Day- The Subtext

Does she like me?  Does he like me?  Am I obsessing over Valentines Day too much?  These are the panicked questions that surround Valentines Day.  We silently ask them to ourselves, and they can become overwhelming.  But this isn't the subtext I'm thinking of.  This isn't the real subtext.

For years it's troubled me that Valentines Day's initials are VD.  I was once wished a happy VD, and I wasn't sure how to take that.  The overseeing powers of New York City must have noticed this, too, because they give out free condoms on Valentines Day (I don't know if they still do this).  This got me thinking about the other possibilities of what Valentines Day could be.  Aside from venereal disease, there's also The Vampire Diaries, vapor density and, though more of a cousin, VJ Day.  It makes me wonder if we're exploring all of our VD options.  Flowers are a classic, but what about giving fake vampire teeth?  Perhaps instead of chocolates you can give hydrogen (for measuring vapor density against).  Most appealingly, instead of a trip to an STD clinic you can go to Japan.

For many students this may be your first foreign Valentines Day.  It's just as marketed in the UK as it is in America (some say even more so), so there isn't much difference there.  At the ICLC we're trying to promote open mindedness in love.  I arrived this morning to a message that seemed to say that I love work placement site contact details.  On our Valentines board there are messages of love to classmates, flats and public transportation.  On our candy love hearts at coffee talk, some of them say, Looking Fab, while others say, Just Say No.  This all encompasses our many interpretations of what the day is about.  Bill gave gifts of candy and spicy food suggesting we make his heart burn.

Flowers, chocolate and some creative additions

Here are some of the things that we're loving this year at the London Center:

• The girls of Cumberland Mansions
• Dr. Kidd
• Soup, tulips, snow, rainbow sunsets, 80's pop, old cars, sun-roofs and otters.  And strong tea.
• Blue roses and ponies
• Eva
• Pedro
• Bill
• Jackie
• Richard
• Flat 30 and chocolate
• Park West
• Jack 
• Devon

This was how my desk looked this morning...

Though there are many ways of celebrating February 14th.  The ICLC is sticking with the traditional expressions of love for the most part, but if a trip to Japan is on offer, I won't turn it down.

-Claire

Bill Sheasgreen- No Longer Shrouded in Mystery

I realize that I write a lot of blog posts about Bill.  It's not that I want to be him or anything- he has difficult shoes to fill (when they match).  But when writing about Bill, it's as if the material writes itself.  And I mean that in the most flattering way possible.  Whenever I interview Bill, there's no need for me to actually talk to him.  He seems to be a really good sport about the things I claim he says, which in reality he has nothing to do with.

I write about Bill because he's a universal factor of the London Center.  Not only has he been part of it since its toddler-hood in the 1970's (he only narrowly missed its birth), he is currently one of the main forces that keeps it a study abroad destination that IC students recommend to their fellow students.  As well as most of the ICLC's students from at least 1997 onwards knowing him, Bill is also a fixture of the American study abroad community in London.  I was once told that fame depends on the circles you run in- within Bill's circles, he's famous.  And if I keep tagging him in blog posts, he'll become famous on Google, too.

No, I'm not fishing for a raise.  I'm prefacing a blog post that he pretty much asked me to write: an alphabet of why it's good to be Bill.  He didn't ask in so many words, but he did suggest it.  Sort of.

Here is a compilation of nouns that resonate fond thoughts with the man.

Arsenal- he loves them
Bicycle- may not cycle much these days, but still carries a pump for stranded cyclists at the airport
Claire- gets to work with her
Dance- cuts a mean Dashing White Sergeant

Dancing the night away at a ceilidh

Elsie- he knows her better than anyone else does
Fred- without whom Bill doesn't get to read The Sun
Gardens, 35 Harrington- he never quite seems to leave this place
Heather- gets to work with her
Ithaca- goes there each year
Jokes- his favorite holiday is April 1st. Beware!
Keeps everything- forever.  Explains his office floor
London- he's lived here longer than all 3 of his staff combined
M- if this were James Bond, that's who he would be
North London- without which he couldn't deride south London quite so much
Olympics- has hosted a few conferences on those
Pukka pads- seriously lost without them
QPR- a good day out with sport students (or anyone who wants to see a footie match)
Rugby- likes it almost as much as cricket
Sarah- gets to work with her
Transport for London- does that for free
U-boats- Bill knows a lot about World War II
Visibility- anyone seen his orange Guardian bag in a while?
Walks- is the master of them

Looking for Bill?  He's the man in the bright coat

X-ray- he's had plenty of those
Youth culture- a reason to take his students to east London
Zebra crossing- he's probably just as famous on Abbey Road as the Beatles

This year the ICLC is celebrating its 40th anniversary.  Yes, Elsie has been around longer than many of the buildings on our home campus in Ithaca.  Bill is the latest in the succession of ICLC directors and is the longest standing.  I hope that after reading this you feel like you know the man behind the London Center a bit better than you did. 

You can't knock the man's generosity

 -Claire

A Day in the Life of Elsie

I think you have all heard of Elsie.  You may even be her friend on Facebook.  Though the fact that she has a Facebook page is ironic in that she never shows said face.

I first heard of Elsie from Bill.  He described her as 'our poltergeist'.  And truly, she isn't for the faint of heart.  See a previous blog post as a testament to that.  Initially I thought the word poltergeist was harsh on her, and it drew up memories of the horror movie of the same name, but Wikipedia calls poltergeists troubled spirits, and I think that is an accurate description of Elsie.  35 Harrington Gardens is a Victorian family home that has been converted into a few incarnations, most recently as a college campus.  Imagining it as it once may have been draws up images of Dickensian characters- Miss Havisham sitting in a green wing-back in room 8, Oliver Twist banished to the stationary cupboard for asking for more food and Ralph Nickleby making a fortune off the debts of others in Bill's office.  Of course we have our references to more modern characters, too.  We have our own cupboard under the stairs that most work study students look for Harry Potter in.

In my mind Elsie was a little girl in Edwardian London.  She lived in the house as the youngest in a large family of children, in which she was the youngest, the most indulged and, clearly, the most mischievous.  No one now knows what became of her as adulthood approached, but somehow a part of her young self seems to have been caught in the family home.  If she keeps a diary, this is what I think it said on Wednesday.

  6am- Had breakfast with Jack.  He didn't know I was there.  It was his birthday so as my present I didn't stick socks in the back of his washer to clog it up yesterday.  Feeling good about that today.

  8am- Got this week's Time Out off the doorstep.  Can't wait to read it!  I'll return it Friday.

  8:03am- Moved around the papers in the faculty pigeon holes.  Now to shift the student post...

  9am- Bill, Sarah and Claire are all in now.  Think I will start prank calling them and hanging up.

  10am- Torn between attending Contemporary British Politics and Contemporary British Fiction.  It may be too early to catch Prime Minister's Questions, so I may just sit outside and quietly knock on the door of room 1.

2pm- Bummed there was no stage combat this morning.  Made the thumping sounds on the floor anyway so that Claire would think there are students practicing fighting.  Now must eat all the chocolate hobnobs before the students come down for coffee talk.

  3:45pm- Didn't get to eat all the biscuits, was sidetracked by the possibility of going out with Intermedia.  Nick is new.  Perhaps I can cause a little havoc in his class.  Been musing about this.  Considered doing the same for Jim yesterday, but may just sit quietly in his class and take in the material.  At least I can relate to that class.

  5:40pm- Claire is out of the front office.  Now is my chance to hide her Charlton Athletic pen.

  8:20pm- Work study are locking up the building.  Time to make noises in the dark parts of the building.  Just to keep things interesting.

  8:45pm- Settling in for the night.  Will probably start by making a mess of Bill's office and then breaking some of the locks downstairs.  And if I'm really ambitious I may hide the sandwich press.

  Midnight- Cleaners are here.  Can't find any bin bags.  Hahaha!  They'll never guess where I put them.

Accurate or inaccurate as this may be, we try and stay on Elsie's good side. On a side note, does Elsie write with a hint of Bridget Jones' style?

Elsie has her own chair.  Sometimes she lets Bill sit in it.

-Claire

A Lot of Social Media!

Today has been a big day in the life of good old Elsie.  She's getting ready to turn 40, but determined to keep up her image of youth.  So now she Tweets.  And she's even on Facebook. 

I See Elsie (this is Elsie's full name, but she prefers to go by her surname rather than her first name) is becoming more and more Google-able by the minute.  And to think, it all started with this blog.  She doesn't make that many physical appearances around the London Center, but she's made her presence known on our computers.

She wants to keep in touch with London Center students, past, present and future, and she wants to do it in as many ways as possible.  Hopefully no one but the ICLC staff goes into Elsie overload.  Because that shouldn't be a problem for us.  The only time Elsie really becomes an issue is when she starts tying up the phone lines, but that's been covered in an older post. 

Without waiting for all the lights on our phones to go red (again, refer to that older blog post), Elsie can now be found here: @ISeeElsie and here: ISee Elsie and of course here.

Elsie doesn't often show her face, but she also doesn't walk around with a blanket over her face very often.

-Claire

Reasons to Celebrate

1. New carpets.   
2. Bastille Day.  It's today.  France is probably partying in the streets.
3. The fall semester starts in a little over a month in London.
4. Visa applications being approved.
5. A really good job packing your luggage.
6. Finding a flat.
7. Friends coming to visit London.
8. Kittens.  Just to continue the theme.
9. Catching a 6:03am flight.  Not as easy as it sounds.
10. Birthdays.  Claire just had one.  Bill's was a few months ago, and Heather and Sarah have them coming up in a few months.  Everyone has one this coming academic year, even those people born on February 29th.  And the London Center is turning 40 this year!  

Recalling my student days, we didn't usually need much of a reason to celebrate.  Receiving lost luggage was a reason for celebration, seeing a film was a reason to celebrate and even Tube strikes were reasons to celebrate.  The ICLC has more fixed criteria, but turning 40 surely meets it.  In that time we have had over 6,000 students, well over 100 faculty, approximately 78 trips to Stratford upon Avon, 8 directors (plus a few interims), and an unquantifiable number of cups of tea during the Irish Lit class.  When asked to count how many times ICLC students have arrived late due to delays on the Circle line, that task was found to be impossible.  Yes, a lot has happened over 40 years at Harrington Gardens.

Put your party faces on, the ICLC is turning 40!

Being the 40th anniversary of the Ithaca College London Center, it is our Ruby Jubilee.  Therefore the theme color of the year is red.  Gifts will be given to staff members who have rubies as their birthstone.  All baby girls born to people with any association to the ICLC will be named Ruby (their middle names will be Elsie.  Their surnames will be left to the discretion of their parents).  As it is a Jubilee year for us, that Tube line will run a special service to Gloucester Road (via the Circle, District and Piccadilly lines).

There may be some facetiousness presented here (except for the gifts to staff members with rubies for birthstones), but we do intend to celebrate!

-Elsie (who has been on holiday)

Censorship

I don't support censorship.  I support free expression from people and others being allowed to form the opinions as they please.  But today, due to adverse weather conditions, the majority of the Fall '10 ICLC students are still in London, even though the original plan was for most of them to leave today.  A lucky few are on their way home, but most are not.  Some have been able to rebook flights, and some have been getting friendly with customer service.  For many big events around the ICLC I am the first person to pull out the camera and click away.  But today there are a lot of fretful faces.  Heathrow's inexperience with snow disruption is not how we would like everyone to remember their four months here. 

Not that I'm trying co cover up the fact that today has been long and a little rough, but here are some fond memories from the last 4 month.  The captions are punctuated with exclamation points to make them extra exciting!

Remember how much fun everyone had at Avebury?

Making Interrelationships journals was really fun, too!

It was a great time going on walks with Bill and getting left in the dust!

Dave had a great time stealing Bill's Pukka Pad (with Gen)!

Everyone was so excited to go to Edinburgh in August!

Bill really doesn't even have to make much of an effort to get a laugh out of the girls!

Orientation, when everything in London was so new and different!

A few months ago you could go out to a rugby match with fewer than 6 layers of clothes on!

Tim Kidd enthralls another group of students in Stratford!

Wales has castles!

Wimbledon's newest commentators!

Last Friday was a slow day on the donation front.  Sarah and I were trying to get the ball rolling!

Remember all the good times we had in London!

-Claire (and Elsie)

Dual Citizenship

My right to work at the ICLC is based on the fact that I am a dual citizen.  I am both American and German.  Don't worry, despite some rumors, it is completely kosher and loads of people are dual citizens. The Germans are aware that I'm also American and the Americans are aware that I'm also German.  Being a German citizen makes me a member of the European Union and eligible to work in all EU countries.  Being a natural born American citizen makes me eligible to be the president of the United States.  So both passports come with perks.  Today I would like to announce the "dual citizenship" of the ICLC's blog.  Begun using Blogger, we are moving over to the IC blog format and continuously experimenting with it.  The original blog will still be there, but it is now a dual citizen of Ithaca College and Blogger.

Decoration in my office

On a side note, the ICLC will have at least 3 dual citizens coming to study in London this spring.  I have seen a number of cases of students coming over here to study, falling in love with Europe and chasing up their roots to find out if they can become dual citizens.  Even if it isn't possible to to get a hold of that second passport, digging into family history and ancestry can be really interesting.  A few years back I researched where my great grandfather on my father's side had been born in Northern Ireland.  When my brother came to visit me in Dublin, we took a bus north of the border and found the site of the family farm that his birth certificate said he had been born in.  It is now a tile shop, with very generous proprietors who gave us a large ceramic tile with a picture of a French boulangerie to commemorate our trip.

Wall decoration outside Sarah's office

There is a show that the BBC makes called Who Do You Think You Are? and I have decided that I would like to become a celebrity so that one day they will do an episode based on me.  The premise is that they take a well known figure (usually a tv celebrity) and help them track down their roots.  Often the celebrity has some sort of question about a relative that they are interested in answering.  Sometimes they trace families back to the person's grandparents, sometimes they are able to follow them backward centuries.  I have seen a few episodes where the people were even traced back hundreds of years to royalty.  My grandfather, on my mother's side, was convinced that we were illegitimate Hapsburgs.  I'm ok with this allegation because being illegitimate probably means that there isn't much of a history of in-breeding in the line I descend from.  I know that the point of the show is to get people interested in making their own discoveries about their past, but my mother and I had a look at some old papers that my grandparents brought over from Germany, and they are written in a beautiful Gothic German script that is nearly impossible to read.  The language barrier was a bit rough, too, even though my mother and I have both studied some German.  The German language seems to go through overhauls once in a while, so it was a little like trying to read your family history as if Jane Austen had written it.  No, I think I would like the BBC to help me with my research.

The Union flag with the Scottish Royal Standard sneaking in on the side

We have a worldly staff, with all members culturally associating with more than one country.  Bill was born in Canada but has spent more than half his life in the UK.  Sarah is Welsh but grew up in Holland.  Heather is American and is married to a Yorkshireman.  Choosing to remain a bit of a mystery, it seems that Elsie, who is mostly manifested in our blog, is a dual citizen of Ithaca College and Blogger.  Congratulations Elsie!

-Claire (Elsie would have helped, but she is on holiday celebrating her new citizenship)

I saw Elsie! (Pretty much)

This is a completely true story:

This morning Sarah was in my office with me.  We were the only two in the building, as it's Fall Break and most people are enjoying some time away from the London Centre.  Weren't we surprised, then, when my phone started beeping to let me know that I had an internal call coming in!  There is the normal phone ring that you get when an external call comes into the building, but that wasn't what I heard.  The internal ring is more like a beep.  It's a repeating monotone and the caller's extension appears on the phone's screen.  The extension that appeared was 200, which is the phone on the Work Study desk across from mine.  No one was sitting there.  Last night when we were closing Sarah went through the building to make sure it was empty and to lock it up.  This is what happens every night.  I set the alarm when we left, and I am sure there was no one else in the building with us.  I was the first one here this morning, and when I opened the door, the alarm was set as I had done it the night before.  There was no one else in the building!

Elsie left her mark in push pins.  I may have helped her.  This was back when I thought she was a figment of Bill's imagination.

As I said, Sarah was in my office when this happened, and we were the only ones here, so we know that it could only be Elsie calling.  Sarah said that this reminded her of the first time she was alone in the building.  Bill, Heather and the students were away on a trip, and Sarah was working hard, when the lights of the 6 phone lines coming into the building started flashing for her own personal light show.  Only slightly unnerved, she checked with Heather and Bill when they returned to find out if this was something they had ever seen.  Heather said she had seen it plenty of times before.  So perhaps Heather has more in-depth knowledge of Elsie than the rest of us guessed?

This is what my phone looks like when I get an internal call, though I wasn't fast enough to capture it with Line 1 lit up.

Not that I'm trying to spook anyone as Halloween gets closer, but I had always thought of Elsie as the creature that would reach through the balustrade for my ankles as I ran up the stairs from locking up the basement in the dark (the light switch is at the bottom of the stairs, so it's a dim trip up).  Or perhaps she would be the one banging on the radiator behind the closed door of room 8.  I guess I just didn't expect her on the phone.  I think that one has been used for the plot of more than one horror film.  Come on Elsie, show us a bit of creativity!

I guess the moral of the story is that Elsie doesn't make outgoing calls, because if she did, it might be a worry to us all that she is going around the ICLC to phone her friends, and she might be giving the alarm code away.  But the alarm was untouched this morning, so she probably doesn't know how to work it.  On the other hand, she may not know how to dial out of the building either, so she keeps it to internal calls, which is fine since Bill, Sarah, Heather and I all know the alarm code already, so she wouldn't be divulging confidential information to us that we don't already know.  Or maybe Elsie just forgot to dial 9.  Luckily this happened when we were both in.  Tomorrow I leave for Ithaca and it will just be Sarah.  If Elsie grabs her ankle on the stairs, who will hear her scream?

And these are the things that happen in the ICLC when the students aren't in.