London Update

It snowed on Thursday...keeping me from going to Stonehenge.
see all photos »

Hello all!  I never realized how long it has been since I've put an update on RealTravel so I decided to write another one.

So I had a Matlab tutorial on Friday morning for the engineering class that I am in.  It took me 2.5 hrs to complete the lab because it was so tedious.  I'm so glad that I am going to Harvey Mudd College.  At that school "Professors expect you to care and be smart" as Tom D. put it.  The students don't care about what they do: they're not really applying what they're learning and after they graduate they won't be ready for a job.  At HMC, professors ask us to immediately be engineers.  They throw us out on bridges to do experiments, make us do mock CEO-briefings, and force us to figure things out on our own.  It's not so much the lessons they teach as much as it is the process that we students go through to get there.

The Lyceum Theater where I saw the Lion King
see all photos »

Oh, I forgot to mention that on Thursday, Hao and I went to the Lyceum Theater to watch The Lion King.  It was amazing!  I do admit that I enjoyed Les Miserables more.  But The Lion King's costume and set design were amazing!  If you go to their website you can see some sample video clips of the show.  It was so neat because some of the "animals" paraded through the stadium area where the audience was sitting.  Hao and I got great seats that were front and center for 20 GBP each!  Apparently, if you go to the box office an hour before the show starts, the student discount brings the ticket price to 20 GBP!  This is the rule-of-thumb for all theaters!  So now I plan to see Evita and Chicago...what do you all think of Phantom of the Opera?

Grandpa's turtle neck! Hao and I went to the Lion King and we got awesome seats for 20 GBP!
see all photos »

I haven't had a football match in a while because they've been canceled.  Wednesday was the last game we had where we lost 3-5.  Saturday's match and today's match were canceled because the pitches were too soggy.

I was able to finally head back to the Imperial War Museum for the ... 4th time I believe.  I went to watch the video "Crimes Against Humanity".  It was about the political oppressions and genocides occurring in places like Cambodia, Somalia, Iraq, etc.  It was so surreal to see what happens in Third World nations and I was really glad that institutions like the IWM were trying to at least spread awareness of its existence.

I'm still feeling a bit sick.  Sacha told me that there's this thing going around called the 4-week flu.  Apparently it takes about 4 weeks to get over it.  I am in my 3rd or 4th week and I do feel much better though not completely normal.  I still have a slight cough, maybe twice a day and some nasal congestion.  No fever, body aches, or headaches though which is really nice.

I still have yet to head out to Stonehenge.  I REALLY want to get out there tomorrow so I can finally cross it off of my list of things to do.  Plus, tomorrow's weather is supposed to be pretty good.  I have a program that can tell me the weather in London, Claremont, and Honolulu at the same time!

I've been cooking for myself more and have found the enjoyment of salads!  Nothing like fresh vegetables.  I've mostly been making pastas and throwing in a bit of seasoned chicken with it.  I don't ever make my own tomato sauces though, I'm not ambitious enough for that.

On Monday, there was a power outage on campus and everything was canceled, no classes, no internet, no meetings, no nada!  I had a class and a meeting with a professor so it sort of set my day off.  Also, my professor made no attempt to contact me about rescheduling...I'm still awaiting a response from him.  This is pretty characteristic of the relationship between students and professors here at King's College.

Today after class, I went to the library to do some research on foreign aid.  We're covering it in our Third World Development class.  I found out that foreign aid is not necessarily a good thing!  It fosters corruption, further separates rich from the poor, and often doesn't solve man problems.  Anyway, the point is that I'm learning a ton in my non-engineering classes!

Right now I'm looking into going to grad school after HMC and am looking into UCSD, UCLA, USC, Caltech, Stanford, and UC-Berkeley.  What do any of you know about grad schools?  I feel like I know nothing...not even what grad students do...class?  Research?  Teach?  What?!

Tomorrow = Stonehenge, Saturday = Blenheim Palace and Oxford...more blogs to come for those for sure!  Talk to you all later!