The Joy of Being Young

Listening to: Lady Luck (Rod Stewart).
Very much enjoying: Murakami's Norwegian Wood.

Along the Thames

Flanked on either side by a muddled confusion of historical architecture and modern-day glamour, the Thames is still very much a working river. I can't help thinking about all the billions of people who have walked these banks over the centuries, and how the skyline has changed (and will continue to change...interminably).




Lines written near Richmond, upon the Thames at Evening
Glide gently, thus forever glide,
O Thames! that other bards may see,
As lovely visions by thy side
As now, fair river! come to me.
Oh glide, fair stream! for ever so;
Thy quiet soul on all bestowing,
'Till all our minds forever flow,
As thy deep waters now are flowing.

--William Wordsworth, 1790

Ever Had a Blue Day?

Lining the south bank of the Thames between the London Eye and the Royal Festival Hall is a lovely stretch of treed walkways and a dozen or so street performers in colourful costumes. Each performer maintains absolute stillness (sometimes to the point that you sometimes wonder if they're real live persons or not) until they hear the telling clink of coins hitting the bottom of the cash tin, which begins a short performance, no more than 10 to 20 seconds at most. The children are especially entranced and tug at their parents' sleeves, requesting coins, edging up quietly and a little fearfully, dropping in their money, and quickly dashing back to safety before the frozen performer begins to move. Kinda like real live wind-up toys. :)

I could never do this kind of work....I can't sit still for much more'n three seconds.

Listening to: Take It Easy on Me (Little River Band), on iTunes radioioSeventiespop.
Plans for the day: Collect scholarship and grad school paperwork in preparation for sending off reference requests to tutors and teachers.

The London Eye

The London Eye is a marvel of design and engineering. You have to stand right below to get the full "wow" effect. I haven't been on (yet)....There is ALWAYS a line-up, because it averages 10,000 visitors A DAY! But I'm also pretty happy to sit on the south bank and just be awed by the magnificence of it.

Yeeehaaawww!!!!

The votes are in, ladies and gentlemen, and it seems that the LSE would like to lock me up within their hallowed halls for one more year! (....and I'm gonna love every minute of it....) *grin*

After six weeks of waiting, exam grades were finally released on the 11th....and they were good, but still inconclusive, sitting SMACK on the borderline between A's and B's, between a First Class standing and an Upper Second.... I had to wait another week for the letter grades to be converted into percentages, which helped to clarify somewhat, but still very much borderline.

Finally, this past Monday, I met with my "handlers" who are very very pleased with my progress this past year. They are confident that this coming year (the third and final of my BSc degree), I will be able to improve my B+ average to an A. Admittedly, I'm not as certain as they are, and even though they are predicting "good potential to graduate with a First"....I still see it as a very steep slope to navigate. In any case, I am very satisfied with a strong Upper Second standing and an official offer to finish my degree at the LSE. :)

It has been a very long, stressful, exciting, magnificent, overwhelming year of very hard work and high anxiety. Now that I see that I can "anthropologize" with some of the best (*grin*), I am very very glad that I made the decision to do this and thankful for all of the good friends that have supported my efforts along the way.

Next up? Paperwork! Oodles of paperwork! There are Canadian forms that need to be filled out, to confirm that I will be remaining in the UK for at least one more year. There are British forms to be filled out, including the renewal of my student visa. And there are mountains of documents to gather and applications to complete, in the hopes of finding a school that would like to offer me a position as a grad student in September 2008. Wish me luck!!

Onward and upward!!!

Listening to: A lovely Carlos Santana instrumental piece.
Wondering if my new reading lenses might be ready today. Would you believe my eyesight has IMPROVED? Sigh. Donna's life is really weird sometimes.

The Inhumanity of Humanity

The year 2007 is the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in England. Yesterday, I took in an exhibition that tries to educate, make amends, and raise awareness about issues of modern-day slavery.

The Zong is an 18th-century replica slave ship that has been used for films (including the upcoming Amazing Grace) and exhibitions. After a perusal through some documents about the slave trade and a short film, we were taken by tender out to the Zong, anchored in the Thames River near the Tower of London.

The real thing would've been half again as large, but, even knowing that, I was still struck by the smallness of it. The on-deck area seemed very tiny compared to what I expected. Despite the fact that I was supposed to be learning about the horrors of slavery (and I did), I was also fascinated by the rigging, ropes, spars, masts, and other 18th-century sailing ship paraphernalia.

Upon descending into the hold, the impact of the small size and cramped conditions became profoundly clear. A ship like this would carry over 300 captured Africans, literally stacked together like so much cordwood, stuck into "shelves" no more than 2'7" in height, for a transatlantic voyage that took an average of 2-3 months to complete. The stench of illness, human waste, and psychological distress is unimaginable; the torture and inhumane treatment are true testaments to the need to understand and confront man's capacity for inhumanity to his fellow man. It must be remembered that black Africans were treated no differently than animals -- the slave traders (mostly white Europeans) did not view them as part of the human species. Hundreds were thrown overboard to drown, simply because a carrier's insurance policy wouldn't cover loss due to illness or death.

The issue of modern-day slavery brings up some "hmmm...." moments for me. I guess the anthropologist in me looks at the topic somewhat critically and I questioned some of the approaches implemented. But the numbers are positively frightening. According to the information presented, some NGOs estimate that up to 200 million people are enslaved in today's world. The question that arises in my mind is: How exactly do you define "slavery"?

You can read more about the Free At Last Exhibition here.

Listening to: Brown Sugar (Rolling Stones).
Celebrating: Two essays down, one to go. (*small sigh*)