I Survived: Exams

I think I've finally fully recovered from my first round of grad school exams. I can now return to both society and my human life.

You think those exams you took in undergrad were tough? Stressful? Anxiety inducing? They were. So now take those and multiply them by about 100000 and you'll get a sense of how my exams were.

Last week feels like it was yesterday and an eternity ago all at the same time. For the weeks leading up to them I was studying and worrying and thinking, "I'm worried, but I'll be fine". The two weeks before I basically lived in the library and became all too intimate with the woman who cleaned the private study rooms. I also somehow went a whole month without wearing real pants. Separate accomplishment.

So as to not make this post insanely long, I've devised a list to help me properly describe what taking master's exams is like here in London. Now, I'm not sure if it's like this other places in Europe or if King's enjoys a specific type of torture, but my experience has been scarring.

The Basics: 4 exams in 5 days on topics so vague you might not even recognize them as topics. See: Management.

Location: Kensington-Olympia Conference Center

Travel Time to Location: 1-3 hours, depending on how well you understand what the tube is doing. LOLOLOLOL

Things you can bring: Nothing. They barely allow people to actually be there.

Procedure: Mostly shuffling around in a giant conference center with 2000 other anxious people and not enough bathrooms until you get to sit in a giant room at a very wobbly t.v. tray in a plastic folding chair.

Governing Forces: Invigilators. They have clipboards and yellow traffic vests. Do. Not. Mess. With. Them.

Announcer: God. I call him this because he sets the rules, the tone, and is a bodiless being that speaks constantly.

Amenities: Areas of the floor to throw your coat. Also, partially working bathrooms. Sometimes.

Population: 2000 people attempting not to have uncontrolled bodily functions happen due to nerves.

Now, I may be making this sound intimidating. Good! I'm getting my point across! But really, on the way there the first day I was with my friend and fellow classmate and she commented on how quiet I was. I responded saying that I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, instead of words, it would be vomit. Quite an image I've painted for your there, huh?

These exams were absolutely the hardest most difficult and challenging thing I've ever done. I've never studied more and felt less sure about anything in my life before. You cover 3 months worth of material in class and then have to guess what the best topics would be to study. All of the exams are essay questions and you do not know what is actually on the exam until you're sitting in your seat and God tells you that you can begin and flip over the paper.

The essays are supposed to be well thought out, answer the question, and develop conclusions based on what you know. They also expect the essay to be structured well and you must cite references. Yes it's not enough that you crammed more information about Agency Theory and cultural and institutional issues relating to globalization into your brain than you thought was possible, but now you have to remember who wrote what! This was by far the most difficult part. In panic mode, you forget everything and want to cite either Smith or Johnson for everything. Those are common names, right? They probably wrote something, right?

Once exams are over, you tend to want to have an emotional purge, but really, you end up sleeping for about 20 hours. It wasn't until our first week back to classes (on the Monday following our last exam on Friday. No rest for those who voluntarily do grad school.) that you find out that you will not know your grades until March, and that they are only "probationary" grades until April. Our next exams are in May. There are apparently ethics meetings about the exam grades, each professor must grade their own and another professors, and additionally, the exams are then sent to another UK university to grade. Three people grade your exam. Not intimidating at all!

I must say, no matter what happens, I did my best and I feel pretty accomplished about these exams, even if they did give me stress I've never felt before in my life.

Just so you understand the exam halls, here are photos of the seating arrangements and what you're allowed to bring.  Please excuse the shaky photos. Nerves mixed with no cell phones allowed.

Fire Alarms and Lost Buses

Hello again! It's been a little while since I posted last, but unfortunately I got a bit of a cold after the last adventures I had and had some catching up to do with my classes.

Nothing much has happened in the last week and a half or so because classes are pretty intense right now. We're halfway through the semester already, which is totally crazy, and now we have what is called "Reading Week". It's a week we get during week 6 of each of our semesters to catch up on work, but of course our professors take the advantage to give us even more to do :)

That said, I thought I'd elaborate on a few funny things that keep happening to me in my day-to-day life here in London.

First, Fire Alarms. I realize these aren't a "London" thing, but honestly, they go off ALL THE TIME. They're extra sensitive to the point that your toaster will set it off even if you put it on the lowest setting, keep the window open, and practically fan the toast SMELL out of the window while it's crisping.

I have now evacuated every King's College building I've ever set foot in. They go off multiple times a week at all times of the day or night and it's required to evacuate. In one week alone, I evacuated my apartment three times, the library once (at 11:30pm), and the building where my classes were twice. But I suppose I can't count the classroom evacuation twice because one of the times I was in the cafe and got stuck behind the fire doors. I'll still count it, though.

The other funny part, is that they have gone off so many times falsely in our building that we were told not to evacuate unless they last more than 30 seconds. So, sometimes you're in bed, the shower, etc and you hear it so you start to get up, get one shoe on, and it stops. The current record for this is 10 times in one night - at midnight.

Second point of interest, the city buses. They are by far the quickest way to get places in a lot of situations as well as your only option if you want to travel anywhere after 11pm as the tube stops running after 11. Fun fact - they're called Night Buses. Like in Harry Potter. I know, right?

They're not purple and it's Night vs Knight, but still. 

Now, coming from Chicago, I didn't have a high bar for the buses here in London. And honestly, they are awesome in comparison because they have letters that correspond to where you get on and off and the bus drivers are actually helpful. That said, there are a few quirky things about the buses that one must learn before deciding to ride.

1. Don't get on a Hydrogen bus - odds are, if you're going more than 6 blocks, it will probably break down. I know they're trying to be environmental and I totally love that, but they don't work! You can tell it's about to break down too because the bus makes an unexpected turn onto a side street. The bus driver then insists that it will be back up and running if he can just kick it back into gear. I'm not sure if that's a technical term, but it involves a lot of key turning and the bus making that "errr errr err" sound. After a while, the bus driver will give up and tell you where the next stop is.

2. The routes are crazy. As I've mentioned before, Citymapper is the best app in the world and can get you anywhere at anytime. So, picture this, you get on a bus heading towards your destination and you sit down so that you can see both the sign that displays what stop is next and you have your phone out with Citymapper open so that you can follow the blue dot on the red line to make sure you know where to get off.

Then, this happens: 

Your first sign of trouble, the display switches to an asterisk instead of the next stop. 

Then, you look down at Citymapper and see this: 

Confirmed, you've been rerouted. 

There is never any notice given for a reroute and for some reason, no one else on the bus ever looks concerned, upset, or bothered in the least. I've also learned to accept this and somehow, it always gets back on track at some point and I make it to my destination. I still have absolutely no idea why this happens though, and I have set it as a goal to figure out the mystery of the reroutes. 

These odd things about London are part of the charm, even though it doesn't feel like it when the fire alarm is going off at 1am because someone wanted a toasted PB&J. 

Cheers! 

Week 3 - Lizzing London

Grad school is hard. I mean, I know that's pretty obvious, but until you get into it you don't really think about it that much. I give props to anyone who does this while working / being a parent / doing anything else because of the sheer amount of reading and work that needs to be done!

Classes are going well so far and I'm enjoying the content, but honestly, they all sort of blend together a bit. I have all of my classes on Mondays and Tuesdays (That's 6 hours straight each day) so by Tuesday night (right now) my brain feels like it's seeping out my ears. Quite the image, right?

I had a meeting with my "tutor" today and I felt so much better about things after that meeting. At King's each student is assigned a personal tutor for the year. They are a professor who is teaching one of your classes during the year and is someone you can go to for advice, help, questions on material, and potentially as references after the program is complete. This is something that I think King's does really well - and I know it sounds like I'm sponsoring them now, but really, this is pretty awesome. It's basically someone to say "Yep, stuff is really hard and it's only going to get harder and there is a ton of reading, but honestly, if you didn't think it was hard we wouldn't be doing it right". Pretty relieving!

Aside from school, I have had more of a chance to enjoy being in London lately since I've gotten a better handle on my schedule and how to plan my days. Since I have somehow lucked out and gotten two days of classes, that means that I have five day weekends. European weeks? I wish.

Last Friday, I went on a night bus tour that was set up by the building I live in. Not much to say here aside from - wow, my city is amazingly beautiful.

Some of my coworkers from my office in Chicago were here last week and it was SO NICE to see familiar faces and just generally hang with people who already know me. I didn't have to be as on my game as with my friends from school. (We're still new and in the "please like me, I'm making good impressions" phase of our friendships). We went to the Borough Market, walked around Kensington Gardens, and went on our own little pub crawl in Queen's Park with some friends from the London office. It was awesome. And super London-y because it rained the whole time. For what it's worth - my raincoat is perfect.

Weekly list of my favorite things right now:

- Getting the front seat on the top level of the bus. See the Shard? I live right next to it. Ah!

- Indian food is literally amazing here. All of it. Anywhere. Even the frozen meals.
- CityMapper app. It is on the list again because I couldn't live without it.
- Having a "regular spot" at the library where I meet my friends.
- The fox in the courtyard now has a name. Foxy. Really original.
- Making a breakthrough in my flat. If you know me well, you'll already know this story.
- I'm rubbish (see see!) at taking care of plants. I think. Unless it's supposed to look like this:

Thing I learned to fear this week - flying daddy long legs. Yes, these are real. They are just like those spiders in the U.S. that have super small bodies and really long, thin legs and are totally creepy BUT THEY FLY HERE. I would have a photo of this, but in moment of sheer panic, you tend to forget all about capturing moments. They come in your window when you least expect it and the next thing you know you have a boot on each hand and you're jumping around your room yelling "I've aggravated it!!" Don't ask me how I know this.

Cheers!

Lizzing London - I'm here!

Hello from London! This has basically been my subject line in every email I've sent in the last two weeks. I'm finally here and somewhat settled into "normal" life. I've been here for 2 weeks now and can say that I do feel like I live in London! Here are some major topics and some updates.

Classes: 
Classes started last week and I love them so far. Although, there is so much reading my eyes might fall out of my head. I am starting week 2 tomorrow and basically have all of my classes on Mondays and Tuesdays only until my certification workshop starts in late November. That leaves a lot of time to do fun things - like more readings for class haha. But really, it does help that I have a 5 day weekend and can really space out how I want to work.

My Flat:
The building is tucked away behind a busy high street in the borough of Southwark. That flat is laid out very oddly, but it's pretty functional nonetheless. My room is a bit bigger than I thought it would be and I have plenty of storage space. I have three roommates that I'm very slowly starting to get to know who are from China and Mexico. The building is only for Postgraduates at King's, so I've met a lot of people who are doing as much reading as I am so it's nice to have some study buddies.

The area: 
I basically live in the Lakeview of London with just a hint of Wicker Park mixed in. It's technically in Central London, but just outside of all of the major landmarks. I live south of the river, so when I travel to one of the campuses, I get to walk across Waterloo bridge and see this:

OMG, right? I get to live here!



People: 
I've gotten to meet people from all over the world since the building I live in is only for International students. My program is also very international with students from 35 countries out of the 90 of us - pretty awesome!

I have learned so much already just being here two weeks. Here's what I've been thinking about the most.

- I take English for granted and I'm totally spoiled by the fact that everyone else has to speak English to me.
- I need to learn 10 languages ASAP.
- I can get by with only 4 pillows on my bed.
- Coffee and I are BFFs again.
- Weekends are for class reading. As all days of the week are.
- Getting lost in London is a right of passage. Unlimited data for GPS is a must.
- The CityMapper app is a literal life saver.
- Buses are awesome for getting you places, but they often don't take the route they're supposed to. Be prepared for unannounced detours for no reason at all.
- The coins are still confusing.
- Groceries are the most expensive thing ever.
- Foxes to London are rats to Chicago.