Monday

Today was the first day of classes. In that regard, London is no different than any other nation.(well except for Costa Rica, which was cool because palm trees grew out of my classrooms. But, hey you can't ask for everything.) I sat in a lecture for 3 hours, which oddly didn't seem any longer than the normal 50 minutes.

After class, each department had a "welcome party". Unless you are a major suck-up (which I totally am), students don't generally attend these in the states because they are down right boring. But not in London! I enter the Senior Dining Room on the 5th floor of the Old Building on Houghton Street to be greeted by men in suits carrying around trays of food of Goat Cheese and English Sausages. Bartenders walk around filling your goblets with your choice Chardonnay, a host of red wines, or Pelligrino. I meet the chair of the Economics Department. He's a slightly peculiar old man. He has the grey, wiry professor hair, and continually wipes his mouth as he is engaging in conversation with me. Actually, I expect Einstein acted very much the same way: super intelligent, but a little socially awkward.

I started chatting with Sunny, whom I shared ice-cream with the day before. We ended up meeting people from Hong Kong and Brussels, from Harvard and Yale and South Korea. Yes, I put those three of those together. I'll leave it up to you to figure out why. Anyway, The group of us went out to Cafe Rouge after the party to celebrate French Food and get to know each other better. It was super cool, and I am excited to be in London, to meet new people, to drink Chardonnay at school sponsored events, and to learn.

In fact, that's the most spectacular thing about studying outside of your comfort zone. You find that you are learning both in and out of the classroom, while you are awake and searching for knowledge and when you are asleep and knowledge just comes to you.

I was debating (one of only numerous times) with Troy over if I should change majors. Do I really want to pursue economics? What am I going to do with my life? And his subtle questions of , " What happened to working for the UN?" refocused me. I realized, once again in this impressive city, that I do want to impact this world. It may sound (or possibly even be) arrogant, but I am from the States. That automatically makes us wealthy and intelligent. So, I'm slowly learning that I am going to change the world. Like it or not, we all change the world, when we are standing in line at the supermarket or playing with the kid in the park or watching the news at night we all make decisions that will influence the world we live in. Apathy really isn't even an option for Americans, we either are impacting in a positive or detrimental matter. We can't choose to not be. So right now, that's what I'm learning, and I am content to be in London: to talk to the men who have been camping out 24/7 at Exmouth Market to inform people about the situation in Iran, to watch the magic that happens as the sun pulls the cover over its head slowly revealing the sparkle of the city night over the Thames, knowing that each adventure, each experience, is shaping me to influence the world.

I was hanging out with some guys tonight (haha. That statement is SO weird. I went from all-girls school to like 90% boys school) and this kid from Poland was saying how he just didn't understand religion and started asking me about it since I was from the Midwest (I'm not really from the bible belt, but that's the view he had of what the Midwest was like). I wish I could tell you that I pulled out this amazing testimony of who God is and what He can do for you, but I didn't. I simply said, it's sad that people don't read the Bible or Qur'an or the religious texts before making the decision for themselves. He asked me if I had, and I said truthfully, "yes" and left it at that. Should I have said more? Should I have told him "I totally believe in this crazy story that God sent his son to earth to die this horrible death for all of us, so that we may be able to not be separated from Him, so that we could personally understand more and more about our God each day?" I walked away feeling as if I had disowned my God a little bit, and for that I will always regret. The point of this paragraph, is that I'm so not perfect. I'm so not even used to being around unbelievers anymore that I don't know what to say or how to act, and that scares me.

So my challenge to myself while in London is to rediscover who I am, and how I fit in my community. Oh yeah, and to get an A. That's always one of my goals. :)