Jason's Daily Notes

Another week, another set of deadlines, and another set of problems have cropped up in my life.

It's week 7, which means I'm already most of the way through my term at LSE. Starting next week, I'll start submitting summative coursework (meaning my work will actually count toward my final grade) - the pressure is on!

I have 2 essays that I'm continuing to worry about. I also had to help with a Development Society presentation yesterday, which took up my afternoon and evening.

Monday: I had a full day of classes, during which I was reminded to really get grinding on my essays. My classmates are already ahead of me (how they do it? I don't know - I've been doing reading and taking notes every day)! Sickness abounds and I'm making sure that I keep my hands washed and clean at every opportunity so as not to get sick. Anyway, as I do every Monday, I went to swing dancing class, probably the highlight of my week, and afterwards I come home, exhausted, and hang with the flatmates while having some garlic bread for dinner. A few minutes later, the police arrive at the apartment and knock on our door! They had received a complaint from the woman living upstairs that she had noticed a man standing outside our flat and looking into the windows for over an hour. She found this really suspicious and reported him. Luckily nothing actually happened, they just issued us a warning to be vigilent. The girls found it scary and disconcerting; I was just laughing so much at how much it reminded me of the Bed Intruder that we know so well from that YouTube song.

Tuesday: I recovered slightly from my cold. Bought some things from Tesco. Stayed in the apartment the whole day and tried to make some progress on my essays, but not much resulted. I had one class, 5-6pm, which I quickly went to and went back home. It seemed somewhat useless to go to that class, and the teacher is starting to get on my nerves with his OCD-like tendencies and general assertively nervous personality. I came home and prepared dinner: a tofu stir-fry. I had invited someone over who was looking for a new place to live, Alec from New Zealand. He joined Swag and I for dinner. He seems nice, he's working in marketing for a sort of novelty company in Brixton and simply hates his current living situation. I was more surprised that he had never eated tofu before!

Wednesday: I went to my final presentation skills class at 10am, or at least I tried to, because there was a big traffic jam on Waterloo bridge. The buses were backed up across the entire bridge - so the driver just opened the doors for us right there, and I walked from the bridge to campus. I was 15 minutes late. Great. During the class I got a text from Swag saying that my passport had arrived, so I responded telling him to open it. Later, I got from his voicemail that my visa had been denied. Because they couldn't process my credit card.

Bad news! I have spent so much time dealing with the frustrations of my UK student visa: From driving to the application centre on Fairfax last spring, to getting stopped at the Manchester Airport for nearly 30 minutes in June, to having my loan letters shipped from LA to London and spending a day getting photos and documents together for my submission. I wasn't able to register at LSE because I didn't have my passport on me. I couldn't open a bank account because I didn't have my passport with me. And then the whole problem of my application arriving at my old address, meaning that I had to travel across all of London three times just to find out that they had shipped it back already! I'm conservatively estimating that's 18 hours of my life wasted already. All that effort, and now I find that I have nothing to show for it.

I'm not angry; I'm just building up such a strong resentment toward the UK and it's system right now. I have absolutely no intention of working or living here after I'm done with my studies. I don't even want to do business with UK companies.

So, Thursday: I woke up early to see if I could finally open a bank account, now that I have my passport. (I need a bank account so I could just access the money in my loan cheque!) I walk there, and after being referred to some sort of manager, he looks at my passport and sees that I don't have a proper visa, that my current visa expires next month. So he says he can't do anything.

Fuck.

My options right now are either to stay in the country (illegally) until I fly back to the US, spend an extra $600 or whatever to buy a new flight before my current visa expires in December, or risk another visa application that could take 2 months or more (and cost £400+) and might mean that I wouldn't be allowed to travel to the states for my international term.

I'm still very busy with schoolwork. I tried to accomplish some reading/research yesterday (Sunday) at the library, and I did get some done, but it's frustrating that after 3 hours I could only get partway through 1 book.

Swag and Nike went to Leeds. They hitchhiked Friday night and returned Sunday afternoon.

There were 3 couchsurfers over, who were technically Swag's guests, but they became mine when Swag left for Leeds.

9 November 2011


I’m at the library, working on a paper that will take days of reading. I have so much work to do, it’s unbelievable. Let’s just go down my current to-do list, shall we?

• Research dissertation topic – find professors that fit topic

• Research/work on Business in the Global Environment paper (contrasting trade post-crisis) (2 weeks)

• Work on strategy group presentation (Thursday!)

• Work on strategy hand-in exercise (next week)

• Work on Systems Thinking essay (3 weeks)

• Read case study (Burberry) for Marketing (Thursday)

• Work on presentation skills journal

• Research potential events for development society

• Meet with Azeem

• Meet with Louise (make up for birthday fail)

• Make appointment with career counsellor

• Follow-up with Duke regarding registration

• Catch up with Marketing (watch missed lecture)

• Research career options: Shell, Amex, Novo Nordisk, etc.

• Transfer loan money into main account

• Pay credit card

• Buy food

• Find time to skype

• Go out with IMEX classmates for dinner/drinks

• Go out with M&S classmates for dinner/drinks

• Respond to couchsurfing requests

• Meet with Flora / HB society re: receipts

• Inquire with student office about event reimbursement (DevSoc)

• Swing dancing with Jane (?)

Welcome to my life. Things have been busy since day 1 of term here, and now that I’m in week 6 (day 40 or something), I barely have time for myself. There’s no way I can sustain a blog at this rate, and my former habit of journaling/documenting my daily excursions has fallen by the wayside. I can barely remember the names of all the people I meet each day, though I’m trying my best.

It all sounds horrible and overwhelming, I know. But the fact is that it’s really fun. I’m feeling challenged and I’m becoming more focused than I have ever been. I don’t know how my classmates get by without feeling constantly stressed (I’m sure they do. They just don’t show it.), because they’re ahead of me in applying for jobs, and several already have their own companies that they’re running (impressive, eh?). I am just trying to get through this term with decent grades. I can figure out my career afterwards, although I’m feeling really attracted to doing something entrepreneurial and independent. And my classes are so interesting! I’m really enjoying learning about different marketing strategies, the behaviour of consumers, global competition in various industries, competitive strategies for companies, how to keep an audience’s attention, and what kind of feedback loops occur in everyday life! Did I mention that famous classical pianists and guitarists come every week for a free concert? And that there’s free vegetarian (Hare Krishna) food on campus everyday?

London has been good. Well I’m just saying that because I have been too busy to notice much of the city. I haven’t even had time to see the “Occupy London” protests over at St. Paul’s. However, I have noticed how frustrating it is to live here – queuing everyday for everything, waiting 3 weeks to get the internet set up, trying not to elbow somebody in the face (because it’s so crowded on the tube and bus that you have no choice but to be constantly in other people’s personal space), choosing between the worst kind of food options (either unhealthy, expensive, or tasteless), or simply trying to understand what the hell everyone is saying! At least the weather hasn’t been so bad (seriously – everyone else is bundled up for winter, but it’s only like 12-15 deg C / 52-60 deg F). What has been annoying is that my body hasn’t been as healthy as I’d like it to be – I’ve been sick (ill) several times already. And my bed is not comfortable – my back has been achy for weeks, though it might have been due to me carrying my laptop with me every day because we didn’t have internet at home yet! Ugh.

That’s all for now, I’m trying to finish reading at least two books before getting dinner and going home.