So the last two weeks I've done a lot, but because I've done so much, I haven't had time to write about much of it. I probably won't until the flight home, so here's a little bit.
Last weekend, I did a bunch of tourist things. Saturday I went to Westminster Abbey and then did the Tour of Buckingham Palace that you can only do in August. On Sunday, I went to the Tower of London and then walked back about 4 miles along the Thames.
During the week, I was mostly writing a 3,000 word essay that was due on Friday. I went to a casino for the first time and won 100 pounds, so that was cool.
On Friday, I took a bus from London to Amsterdam overnight including getting off on a ferry from England to France and got into Amsterdam on Saturday morning around 9 am. I spent the day in Amsterdam and we stayed a hotel outside Amsterdam. On Sunday, we went to a Dutch farm that makes Clogs and cheese. I volunteered for the clog making demonstration and got to make a clog. Instead of cutting of the extra wood, the guy left it on so it can be used to hold my iPhone on my night stand. His wife was American and her cousins are on the Cal football team. After that we drove for 3 hours to Bruges, in Belgium. It was a really cool city and we walked around for 2 hours, got some food, and got back on the bus. We drove for another 1.5 hours, went through French and English customs and took a ferry again. Then we drove for 2 more hours before getting back to London a little past midnight.
This week I'm focusing on my final which is on Friday at noon. I'm focused on just appreciating everything and the environment this last week, rather than trying rush a bunch of extra sightseeing in.
I might go see some other things, but nothing is definite. My flight home is at 4:15 PM on Saturday and I get into LAX at 7:30 Pacific time Saturday night.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Friday, August 9, 2013
I hope this Professor likes me...
Yesterday when I walk into my discussion section:
TA: Warren, did you ask Torun (Professor) a question about Political Economy?
Me: Uhm, probably
TA: He asked me if you were in my class. He was very impressed with your question.
I never told the Professor my name. He had looked it up on the class website where there is a student profile with a picture of each student.
Today in lecture:
Prof: Who has heard of this idea of focal points?
I raise my hand. (The only one out of 50 people in the room).
Prof: Where have you seen this?
Me: It was in the assigned reading 2 days ago.
Prof: I didn't think that summer school students did the assigned reading.
TA: Warren, did you ask Torun (Professor) a question about Political Economy?
Me: Uhm, probably
TA: He asked me if you were in my class. He was very impressed with your question.
I never told the Professor my name. He had looked it up on the class website where there is a student profile with a picture of each student.
Today in lecture:
Prof: Who has heard of this idea of focal points?
I raise my hand. (The only one out of 50 people in the room).
Prof: Where have you seen this?
Me: It was in the assigned reading 2 days ago.
Prof: I didn't think that summer school students did the assigned reading.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Advice for People that need things (or that want to tell me about Jesus)
Disclaimer: Sorry for all of these little blurbs that are not exciting and not relevant to traveling, but I've been busy with school (my second class is much harder than the first) and I don't have time to write up big stories.
Anyways, I spent the morning in the library today because my 3 hour morning lecture was cancelled today because our midterm essays are due tomorrow. (First session I had a day off after my midterm, so a day off is not crazy out of the ordinary.) I still had discussion/tutorial/section/whatever you want to call it for an hour in the afternoon. So I left the library (after 5 hours) about 15 minutes before my class was to start at 3 PM. Since there's no real central campus, the walk is along a big street in London.
It's not uncommon here or in Berkeley for people to stop me when I'm walking to class and ask me for directions or something like that. So today as I was walking someone stopped me and seemed like the needed something.
Him: Excuse me
Me: Yes...
Him: "Hi, we're from a Christian Fellowship and..."
Me(interrupting): "Sorry, I have to go to class. I don't have time."
As I walked away I felt kind of bad. I guess that he could have been saying "We're from a Christian Fellowship and we got lost and need directions" or "We're from a Christian Fellowship and there's a man chasing us with a knife," but I'm so used to people coming up to tell me about Christianity when I don't have time that I assumed that they were going to tell me about the bible.
So here's a lesson in either case:
For missionaries: Don't come up to people walking on the street. They're going somewhere and probably won't listen to you.
For people that need something: Don't lead the conversation with "We're from a Christian Fellowship..."
Anyways, I spent the morning in the library today because my 3 hour morning lecture was cancelled today because our midterm essays are due tomorrow. (First session I had a day off after my midterm, so a day off is not crazy out of the ordinary.) I still had discussion/tutorial/section/whatever you want to call it for an hour in the afternoon. So I left the library (after 5 hours) about 15 minutes before my class was to start at 3 PM. Since there's no real central campus, the walk is along a big street in London.
It's not uncommon here or in Berkeley for people to stop me when I'm walking to class and ask me for directions or something like that. So today as I was walking someone stopped me and seemed like the needed something.
Him: Excuse me
Me: Yes...
Him: "Hi, we're from a Christian Fellowship and..."
Me(interrupting): "Sorry, I have to go to class. I don't have time."
As I walked away I felt kind of bad. I guess that he could have been saying "We're from a Christian Fellowship and we got lost and need directions" or "We're from a Christian Fellowship and there's a man chasing us with a knife," but I'm so used to people coming up to tell me about Christianity when I don't have time that I assumed that they were going to tell me about the bible.
So here's a lesson in either case:
For missionaries: Don't come up to people walking on the street. They're going somewhere and probably won't listen to you.
For people that need something: Don't lead the conversation with "We're from a Christian Fellowship..."
It finally happened
I finally got a british lingo word that shocked me and made me double take. Apparently British people (and Australians I found out too), only call some friends "Mate." They have another word for their best friends that would not fly in America. I'm not going to write it out, but let's just say it starts with a 'C' and it rhymes with "Punt."
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Socialism
For those of you that don't know, I decided that I didn't like Econ last semester. That was kind of a problem since I was an Econ major. I decided I wanted to be a social welfare major. But, because my Econ degree was already half done and no one outside of communist Russia would ever hire a social welfare major from Berkeley, I'm sticking it out and doing a double major.
As more time goes on, I realize I dislike econ more and more. In writing a 20 page paper on collective action and cooperation I figured out why.
Econ: I could help you. You could help me. We would both be better of. But I don't trust you so I won't help you because the worst possible thing that could happen is for me to help you and then you not to help me. Instead, neither of us will help the other and neither of us will be better of.
Social Welfare: I could help you. You will be better off if I help you. So I am going to help you. If you decide to help me, that's awesome. If you don't, at least one of us is better off.
Econ is about minimizing personal losses. Social welfare is about maximizing collective gains.
Basically I'm a socialist. And it only took 6 weeks in Europe (or 2 years in Berkeley)
As more time goes on, I realize I dislike econ more and more. In writing a 20 page paper on collective action and cooperation I figured out why.
Econ: I could help you. You could help me. We would both be better of. But I don't trust you so I won't help you because the worst possible thing that could happen is for me to help you and then you not to help me. Instead, neither of us will help the other and neither of us will be better of.
Social Welfare: I could help you. You will be better off if I help you. So I am going to help you. If you decide to help me, that's awesome. If you don't, at least one of us is better off.
Econ is about minimizing personal losses. Social welfare is about maximizing collective gains.
Basically I'm a socialist. And it only took 6 weeks in Europe (or 2 years in Berkeley)
Friday, August 2, 2013
LSE Game Theory Example
Proffessor: "imagine there is a prime minister who likes young ladies. The young lady prefers to go to Tiffany's before she goes to bed with the prime minister"
Sunday, July 28, 2013
American Bar and American Religion
Tuesday night, I went to a bar/club with some people called O'neils. I had heard of it as an American bar, but it was actually almost a club. However, there was no cover, so that was cool.
I got to try a new drink at the Bar called a "Honey Bomb" which is like a Jaeger Bomb but with Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey Whiskey (my favorite whiskey) instead of Jaeger. They had really cool shot glasses and they poured the red bull in the bottom and then the Honey Jack on top and when you drank it the red bull came through the honey jack and mixed really well.
There was a band playing a bunch of super American songs (American Idiot, I love Rock N' Roll, etc.) and at one point, all the kids from Indiana University started chanting U-S-A and got the whole 3rd floor of the bar to do it so that we could hear it from the second floor.
On Wednesday, I did not have class so I went to the Prince of Wales Theatre (haha stupid Brits and their spelling.) For every show, Book of Mormon has a raffle where they choose people to buy front row seats for 20 pounds. You can put how many tickets on your raffle ticket that you want (either 1 or 2). They start giving out the forms for the raffle 2.5 hours before the show and do the raffle 2 hours before the show. Since they have a matinee on Wednesdays, the drawing was at noon. Since most people put 2, they ended up drawing about 12 cards. Two other friends came with me, but they left after we didn't win the raffle (the play is sold out until September). I got in the returns line for people that returned their tickets. I was third in line, but the people in front of me only wanted a pair of tickets so I was first in line for a single ticket. It turned out that someone who won the raffle didn't want the tickets (which is dumb because you have to be there when you win so they had already waited around for like an hour), so the 2 people in front of me got 2 tickets in the front row or 20 pounds ea. 10 minutes later the same ticket guy came out and told me he had one ticket for 47 pounds. I bought it even though I'm pretty sure it's the single worst ticket in the theater (theatre), but I didn't care since I had wanted to see the play for so long.
It ended up being a great play and I was really happy that I stayed in line.
Afterwards, I basically went home to start studying for my final on Friday.
I got to try a new drink at the Bar called a "Honey Bomb" which is like a Jaeger Bomb but with Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey Whiskey (my favorite whiskey) instead of Jaeger. They had really cool shot glasses and they poured the red bull in the bottom and then the Honey Jack on top and when you drank it the red bull came through the honey jack and mixed really well.
There was a band playing a bunch of super American songs (American Idiot, I love Rock N' Roll, etc.) and at one point, all the kids from Indiana University started chanting U-S-A and got the whole 3rd floor of the bar to do it so that we could hear it from the second floor.
On Wednesday, I did not have class so I went to the Prince of Wales Theatre (haha stupid Brits and their spelling.) For every show, Book of Mormon has a raffle where they choose people to buy front row seats for 20 pounds. You can put how many tickets on your raffle ticket that you want (either 1 or 2). They start giving out the forms for the raffle 2.5 hours before the show and do the raffle 2 hours before the show. Since they have a matinee on Wednesdays, the drawing was at noon. Since most people put 2, they ended up drawing about 12 cards. Two other friends came with me, but they left after we didn't win the raffle (the play is sold out until September). I got in the returns line for people that returned their tickets. I was third in line, but the people in front of me only wanted a pair of tickets so I was first in line for a single ticket. It turned out that someone who won the raffle didn't want the tickets (which is dumb because you have to be there when you win so they had already waited around for like an hour), so the 2 people in front of me got 2 tickets in the front row or 20 pounds ea. 10 minutes later the same ticket guy came out and told me he had one ticket for 47 pounds. I bought it even though I'm pretty sure it's the single worst ticket in the theater (theatre), but I didn't care since I had wanted to see the play for so long.
It ended up being a great play and I was really happy that I stayed in line.
Afterwards, I basically went home to start studying for my final on Friday.
Prince of Wales Theater Tuesday Night
BT Tower announcing "It's a Boy" view from my window. (Click to enlarge)
Honey Bomb and a Jaeger Bomb
Just before the theater opened the doors
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