Ivy League

Welcome October. Welcome autumn, falling leaves, layers, the changing of seasons and the cloudy, rainy days that will from here on out mark my days in London. Autumn has always been my favorite time of year. It is the time of year when school begins, when fresh autumn fruit can be plucked from the trees, when soup always sounds delicious and it is the time of year of coziness.

Classes start for me next week. And while I was dreading the thought of going back to school and back to studying and reading during the summer, while in Spokane, I am now EXTREMELY excited to be heading back to the classroom. My classes will be with small groups of people and my program itself is small - only 18 people. Last night the group of us went to a pub on campus called The George. It is a great, small, pub full of LSE students. For the first time since I have been here I felt like an actual graduate student - like the sort you see on t.v. and in the movies. This is because our conversations surrounded politics, social movements, education and various other 'academic' topics.

While I am able to participate fairly well in these conversations being at LSE has never made me feel more inferior and so thankful at the same time. Everyone I've met is very well versed in history and the impact history has on today's social issues and politics. Furthermore, I am the only person I know of in any graduate program who did not attend an ivy league school or the equivalent version of ivy league in their own country. I mean, I have met people from Welsley, Duke, Dartmouth, Oxford,Berkley, Stanford, Princeton, Harvard... the list goes on. I almost don't want to mention the name of my school when asked, people are always shocked that they have not heard of it, or, if they have that it is not ivy league. Expectations are different here, hopefully i will be able to measure up. Maybe I will perform like Gonzaga's basketball team and perform up to the level of competition I am playing against. Luckily, my competition are people from the top of the league :)