One Year Later... (part II)

Here are more thoughts one year down the line. There's continued emphasis on the love affair that students have with London, which so many students are the happiest victims of. 

Melissa Frisco, ICLC alum from Fall 201, says this:
One year ago, I was so incredibly excited to get to London.  I had been there years before for a week and fell in love.  Now, one year later, I'm totally enamored.  I think I changed more in those four months than in the previous twenty-one years of my life.  I found my home - the place where I felt so comfortable and happy.  Now, I am fighting tooth and nail to get back there and settle down.  After my plans to obtain Italian (and therefore EU) citizenship fell through (silly Grandpa getting naturalised before my dad was born), I had to look for different paths.  There is still, of course, the chance to marry a hot Brit (as I was nominated most likely to do by Elsie herself), but now I'm looking into a bit more plausible approach - attending graduate or possibly law school in London.  No one ever said achieving your dreams was easy (or cheap), right?!  I loved everything about living in London - our West Ken neighborhood, the ICLC of course (and all of its amazing staff), my internship, my classes, the wonderful friends I made (British and American), and the opportunity to travel to six other countries.  I learned so much about the city, all sorts of different cultures, and myself.  I love telling people all these facts about London and England that I now know, some more random than others, and most learned from the wonderful Bill Sheasgreen.  I will see you again soon, London; you can count on it.

Melissa Frisco, the photo-bomber herself!

One Year Later...

It's nice when blog posts appear in my inbox.  Here is one such occasion.

A while back I asked people to let us know what life was like one year after London.  I went further and posed the questions directly to the students who were preparing to come to London one year ago.  I asked, did coming to London change your view of your education? Of yourself? Of the world? What were you doing a year ago today? How has studying in London impacted what you're currently doing?

River Ferris, ICLC alum from Fall 2011 sent me this:
I thought that for my submission, I'd show you how London has affected me, rather than tell you.  Attached are pictures of the wall in my Brooklyn apartment.  Giant British flag, postcards from all the cities I visited, tickets to all the shows I saw, and of course, my diploma from ICLC.  This is just a portion of my London mementos hanging on my wall, but I think you get the idea.

I can't believe it's been a year!

River

Please continue letting us know how studying in London impacted you!


-Claire

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

You Know that Road you Chose, What do you Think of it?

You know how Robert Frost took the road less traveled by?  He had two options in front of him, and he went for the one most other people hadn't.  Most roads people have to choose between aren't usually just two-pronged forks.  As soon as you pick one road another fork shows itself and so on, until rather than a fork your road looks like those old-timey rakes you sometimes see in movies that are made of craggly sticks branching out into tons of fingers.

In a recent conversation with Sarah, she showed me a website of IES students blogging about their study abroad experiences from the perspective of a year later.  A lot of these were touching remembrances of how studying abroad changed their lives and their worlds.  So it got us wondering if we could do something similar with the London Center.  We celebrated our 40th anniversary this year (not sure if we'd mentioned that here before!) and had a lot of positive feedback from students spanning 4 decades, as well as feedback from our current students about what they were learning from London. 

This project of asking students to write from the perspective of a year onward is fascinating because that's possibly one of the hardest times.  One year later the muscle memory of packing luggage and sweating over visa applications is still there.  Perhaps it's something about the weather or a specific smell in the air that makes causes a flash of panic that you don't have the right converter plug, or maybe the smell of something burning is still a fresh reminder of the first few nights you cooked in your flat.  For me, even a decade on, the things that take me back to studying abroad are the smells of particular teas and this one Kylie Minogue song that was really big.  They may not be the classiest memories, and may not be life-changing in themselves, but a theme that I noticed in the IES blogs was that people were talking about the subtle changes in day to day life.  I think those are the differences that we notice most.  When something is taken for granted, the first time it's different sticks with you.  Like the girl who studied in Paris and recalled that she had traded her stale cereal for croissants and pastries in the morning. 

Getting ready to fly out of Newark Airport, August 2002

On the London Center's website we have a section of testimonials that students wrote at the end of their semester in London.  Hoping to expand this, we would love it if our dear readers would contribute their own version of a blog post that we could publish there.  We want to hear how studying abroad has affected your life.  Did it help you to choose a fork in the road that you hadn't known was there?  ICLC students, parents of students and visiting faculty alike, we would love to hear from you all.  The only parameters are that we would like you to try and remember your reflections from one year on.  You're welcome to include your current reflections on studying abroad as well, as long as you're willing to say how long ago it was.  Please email your posts to iclondoncenter@ithaca.edu.  We aren't able to publish everything that is sent to us, but we thank you in advance for all submissions.

-Claire

Book Report

Around the London Center I think it's fair to say that the staff are reticent to give recommendations on life decisions.  Ask as much as you want, the staff genuinely have no way of telling students where a good place for you to live in London is, if this is the right work placement for you, if you should take that class. 

But if we're anything, we're all avid readers.  As a non-mandatory assignment, we usually choose a book of the term which has some relevance to the semester abroad, whether it be about London life, Shakespeare, or the nature of being abroad.  So this is where we take the opportunity to make recommendations. 

I was intrigued by a previous book of the term as students have come back with strong feelings about the controversial nature of the narrative.  The book The Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Mohsin Hamid, is the story of a Pakistani man, Changez, who graduated from Princeton in the spring of 2001 and proceeded to work for the next year or so in New York City.  He experienced what it was to be a New Yorker and a foreigner at the same time, and as tensions mounted back home between Pakistan and India and nuclear war became a growing threat he gave a detailed description of the range of emotions he experienced.

I think this was a good choice for the book of the term because one of the things the author does best is describe what being a foreigner feels like.  "In a subway car, my skin would typically fall in the middle of the color spectrum.  On street corners, tourists would ask me for directions.  I was, in four and a half years, never an American; I was immediately a New Yorker."  Most of our students are unlikely to become British, but as soon as you have a place to live, you're Londoners.  Take a step back and imagine yourself feeling like a Londoner.

Some people have described this book as anti-American.  I disagree with that opinion, without saying that it's wrong.  It depicts the emotional range of a person on September 11, 2001 who is not American.  It depicts the wider repercussions around the world after 9/11 and Changez's response that came with feeling more and more foreign in New York in the year that followed the attacks.  Reading this book I saw through my American eyes the perspective of a non-American.  During and after 9/11 I remember the fear of war and a complete shift in the world I had grown up thinking I knew.  After 9/11 Changez went through a similar series of emotions, though his were tied into his own struggling love story.  Much of what happens in the romantic plot influences his actions thereafter, so we diverge from there, but the surprisingly shared perspective remains a common thread.

I went on to study abroad the following year, and I became aware of what it meant for me to be the foreigner.  I felt so very at home in London that semester, but I knew that as soon as I opened my mouth and spoke I was labeling myself as foreign.  The question is, what do you do with that information?  Do you thicken your accent?  Do you have a Big Mac when you feel homesick?  Do you immerse yourself in the local culture and ride the tube silently?

Many of you may have completed your time abroad, others may be about to come abroad and still more may have returned abroad.  For me, nationality was never something I thought much about until I knew I was a foreigner.  I live happily in my foreignness, and I hope I have successfully embraced it. 

-Claire
*These are my opinions, not those of the ICLC.

Bill's Top 10 Memories of Spring '12

In reverse order, here are Bill's top 10 memories of spring '12, with added commentary by Sarah and Claire (these really are Bill’s top 10, just like those were really his texts)

Devon looking up Putney on her first day in London

10.  Arrival day, January 10th, 2012, we meet you: hectic for everyone, but sure gets the adrenalin running. It’s our ‘putting faces to names’ day…and the first day we heard that cheery laugh. Claire and Sarah mostly remember how open some of our students were about taking strangers into their hotel room on the first night.  That was a very kind thing to do. (Just to clarify, the strangers were both our students, one of whom hadn’t been allocated a hotel room)

9. Welcoming our Provost, Dr Kelly, and VP Carl Sgrecci, and hosting the 40th anniversary reception.  40 not out!

8. Rounders’ day in Hyde Park, our first time playing the game which eventually turned into baseball; Sarah’s team sneaked a narrow victory over ‘southpaw’ Claire’s, partly through a rather liberal and some would say, dubious [or Welsh], interpretation of the rules.  Sarah’s number 1 highlight of the year: beating Bill to the post and getting him out!  The Welsh don’t just sing.

7. Discussing with my solicitors the 6 figure damages I might eventually receive from this blog post for interviewing me in absentia and putting words into my Listerine clean mouth that ‘might’ be there or might not.  OK, OK, they probably are there somewhere, but don’t tell the ‘blog-meister’.  Not as much as the damages Paul McCartney is seeking from Bill for libel.

The prize for making it to the top of the Tor?  Getting to be in this photo!

6. Our first trip - the devil’s chair, the pilgrimage up the Tor, the medieval clock, scissors arch and ‘memento mori’ in Wells cathedral, overnighting in Bath, checking for curfew violators, having a staff meeting at 2am… For the record, no that wasn’t Sarah trying Bill’s door at 2am.

5.Our three ‘shows’ – voice concert, acting scenes and fights – give me back my crisps! Tons of talent.  Claire’s happy that her ceiling hasn’t collapsed from stage combat yet.

4. Being lured away all too often from the grindstone by Professors Hrkach and Swafford in their bold attempt to find the hostelry that serves the ‘perfect pint’.  Where were Sarah and Claire?

3. The ‘gap year’ ceilidh in the Leith church hall during the Edinburgh trip. I like raffles. Bill won 5 times in a row.  This prompted Alex Holt to email Claire to ask if it was worth turning in the program evaluation as Bill seems to rig raffles.

2. Devon’s bagpipe ‘happy birthday’, preceded by the two candle bearing ‘altar girls’ [however charming, I regret to inform them that it’s probably too late to pursue a vocation in the church!]  We disagree.  We’re still planning on starting up our own order of nuns.  It’s our third backup life-plan.

The wind came first, then the hail.

1. Teaching [oops..scratch that… that’s from another list]; numero uno has to be the hail storm & hurricane descending from  Arthur’s seat; we almost needed to be helicoptered off! Don’t tell the home campus!  Sarah will never forget the moment she turned around to see 4 students hugging the ground for dear life.  She then turned to Bill and asked, “Seriously, what do we do if we lose students to the storm?”  He didn’t answer.

Next, Bill’s top 10 spring ‘12 regrets…

Texts from Bill (not Clinton)

I recently discovered the blog Texts from Hillary, and I think I love it.  So it's logical that it got me thinking about our own Bill.  Of course Bill texts, too.  Here's a sample of some of the most impressive texts Sarah and I have received from Bill.  These are all quoted directly off our phones.

CMM: Running late.  Stupid District line
BS: Why not run the rest of the way?  Don't be a lazy sod
---
CMM: Arriving into Tower Hill.  Shouldn't be very late.
BS: Keep your head on.  Don't do an Anne or Kate!
---
CMM: I got balloons!
BS: I would not touch that line with a punt pole
---
CMM: Sorry I missed your call!
BS: 5 laps
---
CMM: Trying a new bus route, but traffic is rough.  Running a few minutes late
BS: Running?
---
CMM: On my way in.  Just leaving the German embassy.
BS: Did they ask the Beckenbauer question?
---
SD: Booked flight for ICNY.  Depart 15th, return flight 25th of March
BS: You disturbed the rugby.
---
(At the YMCA on the Bath trip) BS: Did you try my door?  Someone did.
SD: No it wasn't me.
---
BS: Had to do macho role and kill Mr. Turkey so will be late and miss bin men if they ring.
SD: [no response]
---
(On the Stratford trip) CMM: How long at the services?
BS: Long enuff!
---
SD: Can you let Linda know that I have no idea if or when I'm coming to Wimbledon as I'm waiting to hear from someone.
BS: (on one of his walks) You interrupted my discourse on the castration of William Wallace.
SD: I clearly planned it.  It was one of the students who gave me the tip off.
BS: Everyone understood the significance of your cut into my talk.
SD: I'll update everyone on Twitter in case some students weren't there.
BS: Only 3 students on the walk.
---
BS: Delayed by turkey shoot...ROVER
CMM: Is that slang?
BS: Queen's English, Shakespeare even, Chaucerian, maybe even the Venerable Bede.
CMM: Drive by shootings of turkeys in the bus lane by Range Rovers?
BS: Supermarkets have demasculated the modern male by depriving us of kill.  S Freud
---
SD: Prob get to Dorking shopping street at 12:15ish.  Will call you when I'm here or if there are any probs
BS: Gotcha.  On 11:01.  ETA 11:50.  How will we recognize each other?  Wearing blue QPR hat, John Lewis bag, following numero uno into shops, 3 paces behind.
BS: Hopping down high street.
---
CMM: On the bus to Elephant and Castle, then the tube.  Wish me luck
BS: Hope you win the lottery

Normally I do these interviews of Bill, and it's not much of a secret that he has nothing to do with them and they are completely out of my imagination.  But this has been an actual insight into what it is to work with Bill Sheasgreen.

-Claire

Cross Cultural Education: Travel

Many of you are traveling for break this week!  The London Center has come up with some phrases that may help you in the countries you're visiting:

I'm staying in a hostel, but my friend booked it and can't remember what it's called.  Is there an internet cafe nearby?
Italian: Io rimango in un ostello, ma il mio amico prenotato e non ricordo come si chiama. C'è un internet cafè nelle vicinanze?

Oh no!  I think I left my passport on the train!  Where's the nearest US embassy?
Greek:  Ω, όχι! Νομίζω ότι άφησε το διαβατήριό μου στο τρένο! Πού είναι η κοντινότερη πρεσβεία των ΗΠΑ;

 I'd like to buy this bag, but 1,000 Moroccan dirham is too expensive!
Arabic:                          وأود أن شراء هذه الحقيبة، ولكن 1000 الدرهم المغربي مكلفة للغاية!

What's the local delicacy at this restaurant?  I've heard the squid is very good!
Spanish:  ¿Cuál es el plato típico de este restaurante?  He oído que el calamar es muy bueno!
(all translations are from Google Translate, so I'm not sure if they're any good)

 ***

We also have some culinary tips:

• Spain: try the paella, the chorizo and manchego
• Holland: hema rookworst, bitterballen, and patat met
• Italy: pasta (though it may indicate that you're a tourist), gelato, and thin crust pizza
• Greece: baklava, as many olives as you can carry and moussaka
• Ireland: mashed potatoes, roast potatoes and Taytos
• Germany: wurst, schwarzewald gateau and Berliners
• Switzerland: fondue, roesti and bretzeln

***

And some common sense:

• If you're in Venice and the directions to your hostel involve getting on the bus, your hostel isn't in Venice.
• Even if you sound silly trying the local language, they'll respect that at least you're trying.
• If it's your hen do, have it in Orkney at your own risk.
• Losing your passport may extend your break, but not in the good way.  It will also extend your wallet in ways you hadn't thought it able.
• The weather in London will probably be better than it has been previously this semester.
• For the post card and souvenir competitions: more pornographic/erotic doesn't always equal more tacky.
• Those crazy Europeans drive on the other side of the road.  Who does that?!?!

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

Solitary Scotland?

Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the UK.  For now.  For a different opinion, see Renton's Rant in Trainspotting.  Architecturally, it wears its history on its sleeve.  It's got a castle, a palace, the Old Town and New Town.  Its terrain is made of extinct volcanoes.  It sacrifices itself every August to become the amazing madhouse that is the Edinburgh Fringe, a month of theatre, comedy, music and most types of performance.  Living in Edinburgh Zoo are the UK's only two resident pandas.  For now.  As the capital of Scotland, Edinburgh houses the country's parliament, a modern building opened in 2004.  The devolved parliament governs education, health, agriculture and justice.  For now.

When the south wanted to secede from the Union in 1861 war broke out in America.  When the governing party in the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish National Party, suggested independence from Britain a referendum was put on the cards.  Current plans by the SNP are to hold the referendum in autumn 2014.  Though I don't think it's fair to describe David Cameron as the Abraham Lincoln of the UK, he is urging Scots to vote against independence saying, "Together we are actually stronger."  In response a spokesperson for First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, described Cameron's argument as a "threadbare case for an outdated nation."

What would Scottish independence mean?  Will there be conversations about ownership of the North Sea oil (if there's any left)?  Will Scottish Parliament look after a new Scottish military?  Will you need your passport to go to Scotland from the rest of the UK (which you do not currently need)?  Could it also mean an import tax on Irn-Bru and haggis will raise their prices in England, Wales and Northern Ireland?  Will Scottish Pounds (which already look different from English and Northern Irish pounds) inflate at a different rate from Great British Pounds?

Will Scottish Gaelic be brought into the national curriculum?  Currently only 1.2% of the population over 3 years old speak it.  In Ireland, Irish is taught in most schools and teachers must exhibit a certain amount of proficiency to be employable.  21.7% of the Welsh population can use the Welsh language.  Could a surge in Scottish nationalism revive the language (these facts come from Wikipedia, so make of them what you will)?

With the pandas on loan (sounds nicer than 'leased', which is the word the BBC used) to Edinburgh Zoo for at least 10 years, will China and Scotland develop a relationship separate from the one between China and the UK?  What will that relationship be?  What will the relationship between Scotland and the UK become?

Personally, I don't think I know enough of the reasons behind the SNP's proposed referendum for independence to take a stance on the issue.  Historical cultural differences between Scotland and England aside, I understand that though the SNP proposed the independence referendum in 2007, they delayed holding it in 2010 out of concern that there wasn't enough support.  In Scottish Parliament's General Election in 2011 the SNP increased its majority over Scottish Labour and the Conservatives.  Perhaps this has brought more confidence to the SNP bringing the referendum forward again.  I wait with interest to see what happens as 2014 approaches.

Arthur's Seat, conquered last spring

As an outsider on this issue, I would like to list a few things that I think make Scotland great.

• Robbie Burns
• Nessie
• Irn-Bru
• Tartans
• Ceilidhs
• David Tennant
• Neeps and tatties

 Whether it's separate from the UK or not, I stand by Mike Myers when he said, "If it's not Scottish it's crap!"

-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

How Are We Settling In?

Today marks the first day of the second quarter of the semester in London.  How does the time fly!  I'm getting the sense that everyone is settling into their classes, their work placements, their flats.  Students are finding budget airlines and hostels, learning to use the bus, finding places to go on the weekend in London.

With any luck you're also starting to feel like Londoners.  Has anyone stopped you on the street to ask you for directions?  Were you pleased with yourself when you knew which way to send them?  Did you fake an accent so they wouldn't know they were asking someone who has only lived here a month?

Here are some things going on around here that all good locals should know about:

• The Six Nations is a rugby tournament between England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, France and Italy.  It's shown on tv in many pubs around town.  Even non-rugby fans come out for this one.  It started last weekend (4 Feb.) and will run until 17 March. 
• The Queen's Diamond Jubilee is this year.  She found out 60 years ago (yesterday) that her father, the king, had died and that she was now queen.  The big party is the first weekend in June, so if anyone asks what you're doing for it, you can casually reply that you'll be out of town that weekend.  (It'll be similar to Elsie's Ruby Jubilee)
• The 2012 Olympics are in London this summer.  Again, if anyone asks if you're going to any events, you can casually reply that you're getting out of town and renting out your flat.
• The honours list went out earlier this year and now Helena Bonham-Carter can join Elton John and Mick Jagger leading the British army into war.  Well, it doesn't quite work like that, but you know what I mean.  Also, an honour that had been awarded a few years ago has recently been rescinded.  Ex-Sir Fred Goodwin, head of Royal Bank of Scotland leading up to the credit crunch has received a lot of flack for being a dilettante as the country sunk into financial disrepute and he retired, claiming a massive pension.  He's now on the same list as Robert Mugabe for having his honour taken away.
• Karen Gillen has announced that she is leaving Doctor Who.  How will the Doctor find a replacement for Amy Pond?

 There are loads more ways to get into the local mindset and immerse yourself in the culture of living in London.  Even grocery shopping is a cultural experience.  You can wait until the end of the semester to do all the touristy things you were too settled-in to get to.

-Claire

Celebrating 100 rather than 40 for a change

I've just spotted that this is our 100th post.  I'd like to say that my delay in putting this up has been because I wanted to attach importance to our 100th, but that's not true.  As so often happens, I have been a bit stumped for ideas.  And then our first student of the spring semester arrived (yes, already!), and I had an idea!

I'm going to make comparisons:

• Last year at this time we still had Fall 2010 students stranded at the ICLC due to adverse weather conditions at Heathrow.  The Fall '11 students mostly left 2 weeks ago.
• 53 students just returned to America.  125 will shortly be arriving.
• Last year's Doctor Who Christmas Special had Catherine Jenkins.  This year it has Bill Bailey.
• Last spring we had one visiting faculty member from the home campus teaching at the ICLC.  This spring we have 3.

I'm going to state some little known facts:

• Keith Moon is posthumously developing an interesting relationship with the ICLC.
• Kenneth Branagh is the ICLC's bizarre watchman.
• We aren't sure, but there's compelling evidence that Bill may live in the ICLC.
• Jack Hrkach believes in Elsie.  So do the rest of the staff.

I'm going to dispense some advice:

• If you can't carry it, you've packed too much luggage.
• Toiletries are heavy.  Buy them when you get here.  Similarly, so are peanut butter and mac and cheese.  Eat like a native for a few months!
• Make sure your money is in your checking, NOT your savings.  If you are drawing from an ATM you will not get a choice to take from your savings.
• Keep up to date on what's happening here.  bbc.co.uk

Spring 2012, we'll see you soon!  Fall 2011, I hope you're missing us already!  Spring 2011, the sandwich press is safe!  Fall 2010, what were you doing at this time last year?

-Claire

Employee Appreciation Month

At the London Centre November has three significant events that ‘FEED’ into each other. First, this month is ‘Employee Appreciation Month’.  At the ICLC, that means chocolates and other gooey goodies as we have no on-site store wherein employees can claim their rewards.* In the accompanying photo you see Claire enjoying the 2nd of her ‘appreciation’ appetisers, a delightful croissant from London’s best café, the Café Forum on Gloucester Road.

Is Café Forum even making appreciative bags?

Second, we celebrate Thanksgiving with an all-day smorgasbord of unadulterated plain and chocolate hobnobery that leaves bellies aching for the evening feast of turkey, mashed potatoes, veggies and chocolate mousse in Guinness [an old Puritan favourite]. Belts now loosened, we waddle right into ‘Bake Week’ at the end of the month, a week in which staff, lecturers, and students bake goodies for a worthy charitable cause. Claire can be seen in the photo well into her training for the excesses of November. She is so far, and today is just 8 November, ahead of her two EAM competitors, Sunshine Sarah in San Diego and Mother Heather, in the race to benefit from the charitable cause of the term, namely a three day spa recovery weekend in Buckinghamshire. Well into the lead, her points score almost insurmountable**, the only impediments to Claire winning the spa weekend are that she might blow up first and/or she won’t be allowed to wear her fashionable Charlton Athletic FC hair clips. Spas do have standards after all.

* At last week’s staff meeting the Director had to reject the staff request that jewellery be added to the list of ‘appreciations’. Police were summoned to disperse the staff sit-in at 11pm that evening.

** So waif-like that she is almost invisible, Elsie was disqualified from the competition.

-Bill

Summer Madness

I live in the London Borough of Hackney, one of London’s poorest boroughs. It is a typical inner city borough:  it has oases of gentility and privilege, schools are not particularly good but standards are improving, council flats [social housing] litter the borough map, asylum seekers and one-parent families find a home here and multiculturalism is a fact of life. Diane Abbott is our Labour MP: she is the first Afro-Caribbean woman to be elected to Parliament, is on the radical side of the party, and stood for leader after Gordon Brown resigned in 2010. To her credit she was on the streets of the borough this week urging the disaffected to think how rioting and looting was scoring an ‘own goal’ and was a slap in the face to everyone working to improve living conditions and life opportunities for the people in her constituency.

The borough has not been immune to riots and destruction.  Hackney was bombed heavily during World War II because of its proximity to the City of London, the rail lines that snake their way through it and the reservoirs that contain the water supply for north-east London.  The house in which I live, built in 1874 [older than our London center], still carries the scars of Luftwaffe bombing.  Both pro- and anti-Fascist marchers took to Hackney streets during the ‘30s. Since moving here in the early ‘80s, there have been two serious riots, one linked to Toxteth [Liverpool], Handsworth [Birmingham] and Brixton [south London], occasioned by police victimisation of the Afro-Caribbean population, the other in 1990 occasioned by the Government’s highly unpopular Poll Tax legislation in Mrs Thatcher’s final years in office.

Like most people of my generation, I’ve been on protest marches and attended demonstrations. I was part of the crowd during famous student protest against the Vietnam War in Grosvenor Square in 1968, I witnessed student rioting in Paris in 1968, I was tear gassed along with hundreds of other students in College Town [Ithaca, New York] in the early ‘70s [Vietnam and Cambodia]. And I had a brief but fascinating discussion with a protestor outside Hackney Town Hall on Mare Street, E8 during a ‘peaceful’ poll tax demonstration.  I had brought my young son along to the rally/vigil. About 10 minutes into the protest, a young man came up to me and said, “Get the kid out of here NOW.” I heeded this advice and, sure enough, as soon as we had unlocked our bicycles, all hell broke loose. At someone’s given signal, peaceful demonstration transformed into anarchist riot.

I feel there are similarities and differences between the Poll Tax riots and what has happened in London these past three nights. First, a similarity:  there are people organising the “hit, smash, loot and burn” tactics: I saw two men last night on my HIGH STRET talking on a mobile phone about what shops were open, what closed – were they undercover policemen? Or were they part of the anarchist group? OR maybe, like me, they were just passers by talking on the phone?

A major difference between the riots of 2011 and earlier ones is that the social media confer a distinct advantage to the rioters. Police response is bound to be slow and ponderous when compared to the speed at which a determined set of rioters can appear at a new venue. Another big difference between earlier riots and these is the lack [or at least weakness] of a legitimate cause.  Five days after the police shooting in Tottenham, is an explanation being articulated. Yes, the police shot dead a man last Thursday, possibly in suspect circumstances, but no report has emerged from the investigation.  Yes, life is tough for young people: university fees have risen to £9,000 a year [about $15k], jobs are scarce, the cost of living is rising, etc. There is more inequality in David Cameron’s Britain, public services are being cut, the economy [job creation] is sluggish, etc.  While the ‘us’ go to fashionable restaurants and send their offspring to exclusive private schools, the ‘them’ struggle to make ends meet.

But the evidence so far is that the August 2011 rioting owes little to a sense of grievance about growing inequality and lack of opportunities. Another very human trait is at the fore, covetousness: you can get an expensive phone, flat screen TV and new Nike trainers if you hang around the High Road long enough.  Parents can’t control their offspring or, in some cases, parents have given their offspring a shopping list of goods to acquire.

Maybe, I’m an optimist, but I feel that things will die down as quickly as they materialised, and there will be an autumn of trials, soul searching, media investigations and police reviews.  Condemnation is universal. Opportunistic snatching, burning and destroying don’t belong on anyone’s agenda in 2011. Let’s hope the contagion of this summer madness dies out soon.


-Bill

Hamlet Might Have Said As He Headed To Wittenberg, 'To Pack or Not to Pack?'

As August approaches and the number of days until your departure becomes more and more surreal, the ICLC staff are busily getting ready to welcome Group 79.  New carpets are being put in (we don't do that for just any group! Perhaps for a forthcoming group we will put in a new boiler! Or a kitten!), tickets are being ordered, mass emails and quizzes are being sent out.

On a side note, has anyone out there ever heard the phrase, "If Jamie Oliver (or anyone else) saw that, he would have kittens!" as a way of saying that person will have a tantrum?  Is that a British-ism? 

Jack Hrkach- Captain of packing lightly

We've touched on some of the major points of getting ready to come over- money, housing, football solidarity- and one major one still lies ahead: Packing.  For everyone but those with the most special personalities, this is a dreaded job.  There's the weather to consider (don't forget your winter coat, even though London winters aren't much like Ithaca winters, we have had some snow the last few years.  Last year's even made the news!), activities (will you be going on many walking tours, will you need to dress smartly for your work placement?) and airline luggage allowances to name a few.

Here are a few key things to remember when packing:
1. You are coming for 4 months, not forever.
2. If your luggage is too heavy for you to carry on your own, you have too much stuff and need to take things out of your bag.
3. If you bring enough clothing so that you can be fully dressed for 2 weeks, you're doing fine.  Don't weigh down your bags with enough clothing never to have to do laundry.
4. You will accumulate things to bring back by December.  Leave room in your bags for them.
5. The UK has loads of toiletries.  Many are the same at those sold in the USA.  And if they don't have what you like, be brave and consider it a cultural experience.
6. What is your airline's luggage limit?  You don't need to pay extra- that's a sign that you have overpacked

Having done a quick reread, I apologize for sounding a bit pedantic.  This is all common sense.  But it's also easy to ignore.  Perhaps there is one thing that you can't live without, but remember to be practical about it.  If it's your duvet you may want to tough it out with a British one for a few months.  If it's your Arsenal jersey, bring it by all means!

No joke, Drew really is attached to his kilt!

What are some important things to bring?  A converter plug for your computer is good, no need for many other electricals.  Good walking shoes hardly ever go amiss.  You're here to immerse yourself in British life and culture!  It will be ok to leave some of the USA behind for a few months!

-Claire

An Interview of Bill Sheasgreen (at which he wasn't present)

Bill Sheasgreen- director of Ithaca College's London Center, Egyptologist by trade, cricketer on the weekends and all around popular guy at the ICLC.

Claire Mokrauer-Madden: Bill, thanks for taking time out of your busy day for me to interview you.
Bill Sheasgreen: No problem, I'm glad to do it.
CMM: I understand that you moved to London in the 1970's.  What prompted the move?
BS: I was going to Cambridge to write my PhD.  I arrived into Heathrow with all my luggage, and I planned that day to go directly to King's Cross train station to catch a train up there.  But as soon as I came out of the underground station at King's Cross I came face to face with why the area around King's Cross had such a poor reputation.  The area has since been rejuvenated, but back then I was shocked by what was in front of me.  I turned right around and headed back into the London Underground, heading for the Piccadilly Line to go back to Heathrow and fly back to Canada.  But part way along the journey I had a revelation.  They called out that the next stop was Gloucester Road and I remembered that famed early 20th century Egyplologist, Howard Carter, the man who found King Tut's tomb, had lived in that area.  I decided to alight there and pay homage to his home.
CMM: Didn't you have a lot of luggage with you?
BS: No, I'm a very practical packer.  I brought enough clothing so that I could get by without doing laundry for about 2 weeks.  I had also ordered my Cambridge University uniform and had a few sets waiting for me at my halls of residence.
CMM: That sounds reasonable.  Is that why you have been toying with the idea of uniforms for Ithaca College London Center students?
BS: Partly.  The rest of the reason is that American students, whether they are 2, 12 or 21 go to school.  In Britain only children go to school. As more mature students they attend college and university.  But when our American students arrive here they say that they are going to school.  As you have noticed about the school children passing down Harrington Gardens on their way to school, they all wear uniforms.  As our students believe that they are also attending school, and we want them to have as much exposure to cultural immersion while studying abroad as possible, I believe the ICLC should begin having uniforms for students.
CMM: I see your reasoning, but I can't imagine that will go down well with the students or with our colleagues back in Ithaca, NY.

One possible version of the uniform for faculty

BS: No, you're right, I have received no support for this idea.  Nonetheless, I continue to keep the innovative ideas coming.  And Professor Hrkach has agreed to trial my Uniforms for Faculty idea.
CMM: Anyway, getting back to your move to London, what happened once you found Howard Carter's house?
BS: Well, after a short wander I found it at the end of Harrington Gardens.  I had passed up and down both sides of the street and knocked on a few doors, so by the time I found the house I was feeling pretty well acquainted with the area.  I decided that if South Kensington had been good enough for Howard Carter, it was good enough for me.  So I moved there.  I worked on my PhD remotely so that I had as little contact as possible with King's Cross station and eventually began teaching at the Ithaca College London Center down the road on Harrington Gardens.
CMM: Thanks for taking a few moments to answer my questions.  I hope that in time you get over your fear of King's Cross!  Do you think that one day there will be a blue plaque at 35 Harrington Gardens marking your career, just like Howard Carter's?
BS: No worries there!  I put in the application in 1983!

-Claire

"The Fever" Strikes the ICLC

For the safety of everyone, I would like to put out a warning that there is a minor health risk at the ICLC.  Symptoms of the condition include, a compulsive need to mix in the mass of people in central London (masses which are growing by the minute!), urges to buy tacky memorabilia and facial twitches that resemble excitement.  Yes, Wedding Fever has penetrated our defenses.  William and Kate are getting married and people are traveling the world to see it happen.  We tried to hold off "The Fever" as long as possible, but with ground zero of the outbreak being in the UK itself, we're lucky to have held out so long.

Examples of 2 main symptoms shown here: excitement and tacky memorabilia

The latest victim to be claimed is our Director, Bill Sheasgreen.  In most cases the symptoms are only temporary, and usually dissipate over time (though it is unknown how long they may last).  No cure has been found, and most people are told to wait out the symptoms and hope for the best, but with the fever spreading across the world since last October, it is thought that it will reach epic heights on Friday April 29th, 2011. 

Our thoughts are with Bill as he struggles through the fever.  We are pleased to say that Wedding Fever has not affected Bill's ability to direct the London Centre, it has only caused him to put up contentious decorations in the ICLC.  Sarah and Claire have remained immune throughout the ordeal and hope to continue that way.

-Elsie (who is safely quarantined)

Bill’s First European Adventure: Hans, the 2 Susies and Martin Heidegger!

Like you, I was a study abroad student in my early 20s – just a few years ago now! Except, I guess that it wasn’t really a study abroad experience as I was full time in a British university and we didn’t have any “fall break”, but we did have a huge Easter break. We also had “winter break”, which lasted about 5 weeks between the beginning of December and the middle of January.

So, what to do in my first ‘break’ period when studying abroad? The answer came in the shape of two buddies on the university basketball team, Paul and Jeff. Paul had bought a second-hand Volkswagen beetle [named “Hans” – Paul was an American of German extraction and was training for the Lutheran priesthood] and he, Jeff [from Boston], Chris [an anthropology student from Berkeley who impressed me throughout the trip by reading Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit [Being and Time] in the back of the beetle, and I took off on a trip to Morocco.  Morocco was a pretty exotic destination way back then for four inexperienced North American travellers. We didn’t have credit cards, nor had ATMs been invented way back in the Neolithic 1960s. We carried our cash - francs, pesetas and sterling – with us. We kept to the back roads through France and Spain as the European motorway – first invented by Hitler in the 1930’s – had not spread far from the land of its birth. In France, we stayed in that great chain of French Hotels – the Hotels de la Gare – which are conveniently located adjacent to the railway station in every middle- sized French town. I thought at the time that, if I were a business student and not an Egyptologist [which I was, believe it or not], I would do a thesis on the business acumen of the “De la Gare” family. What foresight to have established a hotel in such proximity to the railway station in just about every French town! In Spain we stayed in pensiones: hostels hadn’t been invented yet.

We had a great time in Paris where we met two young women, both called Susie, from the University of South Carolina who were studying in Lyon. The wine flowed and a good time was had. We discovered that the French approach to plumbing – public urinals for the messieurs – and the all too familiar “hole in the ground” indoor toilets – was both more liberal and more primitive that was our custom. And none of us had ever seen a bidet before! The British at least – god bless them – had sit-down toilets; long may Mr Thomas Crapper, the inventor of the modern water closet, be remembered and praised for his invention. As I was from French Canada, I was the designated French speaker and interpreter. I remember my embarrassment and confusion in central France when I asked for “pain” in a “boulangerie” and the serving women didn’t understand me. In retrospect, it wasn’t the Quebecois accent.  Rather it was my cultural ignorance: just asking for “bread” in a bread shop didn’t work; one has to know the names of the different kinds of loaf on sale. So my 15 years of French were all to no avail because the French were far more sophisticated about bread than we lamentable, one-dimensional, sliced-bread eating North Americans. Later on, when the Volkswagen broke down in freezing weather in a snowstorm on the outskirts of Paris, I had to hitch a lift along the highway to get to a garage and ask for a replacement “distributor cap”. Except that I didn’t know the French term for “distributor cap”: it is not, for example, the “chapeau du distributeur” as it should have been; nor was it “le distributor cap” as the weekend is “le weekend”; instead it was, and probably still is, “le tete du delco”, a piece of French trivia that I have never forgotten because of the pain and anxiety it caused me at the time.
Spain was decidedly more foreign than France was, but nothing could have prepared us for Morocco. We visited Tangiers, Rabat and Fez. The first two were reasonably “modern” cities, but it
 was hard to know if we were in the 14th century or the 20th century in Fez. Fez was distinctly “untouristy” and made us aware of the enormous cultural gap that existed between Moroccans of the interior and North Americans.  I remember feeling uncomfortable in Fez: although we were humble students, we were westerners and incomparably better off than most of the people in Fez.

We spent more time in Spain on the return trip. On New Year’s eve in Valencia, I ran into a guy I played football with in Montreal. We had both graduated from college about 7 months previously. In France, we stopped in Lyon to meet the two “Susies”, the girls from South Carolina we had met in Paris on the way down.  Then “Hans” broke down: first the windshield wipers went, then the distributor cap. We were all glad to see the white cliffs of Dover. Although we had only been in England since September, it was now our “home”. I bought a copy of Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit. And, no, I haven’t finished it and wouldn’t know even where it is.

No doubt many of you will feel the same after returning from spring break. Have a great time and be careful out there. In my next blog I might just get around to telling you about my first ever spring break, also with the two Susies!

-Bill

The Many Forms of Travel

Travel- what can I say about it?  We all do it.  We travel to work, we travel to study, we travel for pleasure.  Travel to work is the one where we look for patterns.  You see the same people from day to day on your train or bus or in the street.  And when the pattern varies, you notice.  Perhaps so much so that you comment on it, for example, if your train leaves 2 minutes earlier than it is scheduled to leave so that even though you thought you were going to be on time you actually ended up having to wait 20 minutes for the next one, or if your bus is rerouted because the police have blocked off a sizable portion of the Walworth Road due to some undisclosed event.  Traveling to study is pretty obvious.  All our students got on a plane to come to the ICLC.  It's something interesting and different, and, unique compared to the other 2 kinds of travel, it's perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  Traveling to study is a springboard for a lot of traveling for pleasure for many of our students, too.  This is the kind where you have to hope that no patterns form and that each place is interesting and different.  I have noticed a few themes in study abroad inspired travel for pleasure.

There is the study abroad student who is determined to go to as many places as possible.  As a result, when their 4 months of study are done, they have also packed in trips to Paris, Dublin, Rome, Prague, Munich, Athens, Barcelona and Amsterdam.  And that's not including break week or trips with the ICLC.  This type of travel requires an enormous amount of energy and a love of waking up early/sleeping in airports.  I commend that dedication!

The next type of student travel is the one to family or friends in Europe.  This often takes students to places which are less tourist driven than the cities previously mentioned.  They might have cousins in Marseilles or friends studying in Marrakesh.  In this type of travel students often get a much more local experience by visiting someone who lives there.  They eat in small restaurants off the main roads and visit markets that they may not have found on their own.  And your hosts may even be your guides to take you to the highest point in Bratislava or introduce you to contemporary Estonian folk music.

Another type of travel that takes students to less obvious destinations is the mission to discover their European roots.  This has taken me to Ireland, France and Germany.  I have seen it take other students to Holland, Denmark, Brittany and Glasgow.  This type of travel can be tricky because it may be focused around a small or little known landmark, such as a house, farm, shop or street.  While finding these particular spots may end up being fruitless (my mother and I traveled all the way to Strasbourg before she admitted that she wasn't sure what her mother's house number had been as a child, though she was pretty sure she might be able to recognize it is she saw it in the row of buildings that all looked the same to me) getting there is usually a story in itself.  What makes this kind of journey even more difficult is not knowing whether the place you are looking for is actually still there or not.  My great-grandfather's family farm had been replaced by a shop that specialized in ceramic tiles.

The other type of student travel is the the UK based journey.  Some students prefer to get to know the ins and outs of London on their weekends or to save money on day trips to places like Brighton, Oxford and Cambridge.  Some students have family in the UK who they spend the day with and some use these day trips to case out possible graduate schools. 

I think most students fall under more than one of these categories at one stage or another during their stay over here.  Just to make it more interesting, the ICLC has competitions for break week.  There is a competition to bring back the tackiest souvenir and the postcard competition in which the card must be written in the native language of the country it is from and posted into the ICLC.  There are also the competitions that are judged at the end of the semester for photography and travel writing.  More details will be posted about the competitions.  Good luck and happy travels!

-Claire (not Elsie, she's away in Finland)