TravelStream™ news feed for member mr.bernier on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/mr.bernier en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:29:14 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mr.bernier/1/1237667220/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mr.bernier/1/1237667220/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mr.bernier/1/1237667220/tpod.html Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:29:14 -0400 Travels to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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Washington DC, District of Columbia, United States

DC! So I go to DC to do the Career fair for the Presidential Management Fellows Program. It was a fairly stressful process, especially because you never know what the agencies are looking for exactly, or whether you'd be a good fit in their culture, what kind of other applicants they are getting etc. I spent about $200 dollars in the business center of the hotel, and lost my iPhone in a cab. I think these two things alone cost about the same as the airfare. Since all the pictures were on the phone, this entry is just a sad reminder that I was traveling for the 7 days before the entries to come.
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Windsor, Windsor and Maidenhead SL4 2HP, England, United Kingdom

An update! Finally.

These are pictures of Cumberland Lodge, which has been given by the monarchy to the people (via a charity) to discuss critical ideas that affect government. The original idea for an organization to fill this need came out of a criticism of Nazi Germany. A British subject brought to the King a request for assistance to enable students to critically evaluate the government, in a way that did not tke place as Hitler rose to power. Today, Cumberland Lodge is an absolutely beautiful and well-run organization and grounds.

In any case, after arriving, we took some great walks, had wonderful food, and listened and engaged with some controversial views on climate change.
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London, England, United Kingdom

Hey All!

What an update we've got for you! Hannah, Naomi's sister, has come out for a few days, and we took a trip out to Bath and Stonehenge! Enjoy the pictures!
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London, England, United Kingdom

Hey All,

I thought I'd share a few more pictures of what everyday life is like. Make sure to click the pictures to see the stories. There is a neat library that everyone uses for sleeping (its like the common room in Happy Potter), some pictures of school itself, and a Choir event I was invited to as part of the Christmas celebrations here.

Michael
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London, England, United Kingdom

Hey all!

Nothing much has changed, but we wanted to share these great pictures. Enjoy!
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London, England, United Kingdom

We have some wonderful news that we can't wait to share. A few weeks ago, I proposed to Naomi! (And before you ask, she accepted! :D)

We will be getting married next year, in California. We are very excited, and I am quite proud of how it all went. I proposed while we were on a walk in the beautiful Royal Botanical Gardens of Kew Palace, outside London. I've included a few pictures to give you a sense of it. I'd been carrying the ring around in my pocket for the entire time we'd been in London, waiting for the right moment. Getting into the London School of Economics has been such a trying time, Naomi is getting me through it. :)

To propose , we walked through the gardens as I looked for the perfect spot. I found a bench that had been donated by a husband in the memory of his wife, whom he spent his life with, and who loved nature and the gardens. I thought that was such a beautiful sentiment that we sat down and appreciated the quiet for a while. There is a sapling growing about 10 feet from the bench, and I hope to come back in a few years and see how it has grown with us and with our relationship. Behind our sapling, there are groves are naturally growing oak and other giant trees of all fall colors. The beautiful golden color isn't quite captured in the pictures, but it was just captivating. After sitting quietly for a few minutes, I talked to Naomi about my feelings, got down on one knee and proposed. Just as you might have expected, there were tears of joy and we spent the rest of the day wandering the park, giddy. At about 6:30 we arrived at the exit to the park, ready for dinner. They had locked the gates at 6 however, hours and hours after we had entered. They happily opened them for us a while later, and we were pleased to have a few extra minutes to sit and enjoy the trees.

We are nervous, joyful and hopeful, and I wish we were home (or we at least had a phoneline!) so we could see everyone sooner. Just know that you are in our thoughts, and our hearts.
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London, England, United Kingdom

Naomi has returned victorious! She had gone back to the States to apply for a visa to work in the UK, and we weren't sure how long it would take to finish that process. Our optimistic idea turned out to be correct! She left on October 4th and returned Oct 19th, which is really fast for that sort of thing. It is a good thing too, because I had been reduced to eating carrots and drinking water for dinner.

I, Michael, am doing fine--overworked though. I have had class after class after class, but now I have gotten down to the normal number of classes so it is going to be easier. You are supposed to end up with 4 classes, but I started with 6. It was just impossible. You don't know which classes you'll like though, so you have to try them all. In any case, it was a lot of work and now I am able to even just get work done. I had so much work it was hard to get anything finished. I did a presentation yesterday and I have another one next week on Thursday.

I have made lots of friends at school, and it is really diverse. I have 2 friends from South Korea, 1 from Greece, 1 from the US, several from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, and a lot of others. Others that I've met and had lunch with or talked for a bit with but haven't had a chance to hang out with are from Kyrgyzstan, the UK, Peru, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Azerbaijan, and a bunch of other places as well. The diversity of perspective really gives a value to the program.

The Commute isn't bad, now that I've had time to really experience it. The time on the train gives me a great time to read, and while it can be distracting sometimes, it is also nice to get some time to just reflect on what I am thinking about and not feel like I have to be doing 5 things at once. Because I don't pull out my laptop, it is a lot easier to just focus on doing one thing. I have had some of my deepest realizations while on the train.

The weather here hasn't been bad really. We've had lots of overcast days, and maybe 4 or 5 days of rain, but I've enjoyed it in a way. I'll need an umbrella now and again, but it is nice in a way, sort of like Christmas.

Anyway, I've got reading to do on Complex Emergencies, so I am off!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mr.bernier/1/1223419080/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mr.bernier/1/1223419080/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mr.bernier/1/1223419080/tpod.html Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:12:22 -0400 Travels to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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London, England, United Kingdom

Hi All,

Not really much different from yesterday in terms of substance except the end of my day today.

After going to three classes, I went into the library for about 3 hours to study, knowing I had an appointment at 7 pm (more on that later). There are some pictures from inside the library. The LSE Library is the biggest social science library in the world. Don't let the qualification bother you though, we only work on social science, so if they put a book on minerals in there no one would need to read it.

AAAAAAAAnyway. I leave the library, bleary-eyed, at 7 and go stand in line for "The International Criminal Court ten years on: An appraisal." Fro the abstract: The Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) was adopted in Rome on 17 July 1998 by 120 States. The first prosecutor of the ICC, Mr. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, took office on 21 April 2003. His mandate is to investigate and prosecute the most serious crimes, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. After getting searched (his targets have money, guns, and a reason to want to kill him) and heading upstairs, I watched a couple protests and then we got down to business. It was really fascinating, and I am really enjoying the wide range of opportunities that LSE can provide.

I also wandered into a few rooms in the new academic building and snapped some pictures in there as well. The technology is just about the same as everywhere else in the school, though the colors and seats are marginally nicer. The seats most everywhere are pretty nice actually.

Hope everyone is well!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mr.bernier/1/1223327520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mr.bernier/1/1223327520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mr.bernier/1/1223327520/tpod.html Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:00:47 -0400 Travels to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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London, England, United Kingdom

Whew! With Naomi out in the States, I have been to class and have returned victorious! Or at least a little tired.

Anyway, I went to "Development: Theory, History and Policy," a required Stafford Loan presentation, to "Nationalism, Democracy and Development in Contemporary India," and then back to the Fees office (for the fourth time) to get a letter for the Bank, then to the Bank, then to the American Embassy.

The first class I went to was crowded, with a very sick few students, but it was really interesting. It brought up a lot of important issues about identity and colonialism and the kinds of legacy we leave and can inadvertently return to.

The Stafford loan presentation communicated clearly the irritation that others feel when dealing with the government, just as we do. They spent 15,000 dollars on an audit report demanded by the US government. When they [the accountants] used the date: 15 July, 2006 it was rejected. It should have been July 15, 2006. The entire report had to be recertified. Another problem they had was they have to identify the school year's start and end. It can't be longer than 365 days. So they always like October 1 - September 30. In a leap year that is 366 days, so it was rejected. His point in telling us this was that this same level of critical examination will happen to us to avoid being rejected later on. The director was nice enough, but said that if they wanted to be able to offer loans to other US students in the future, they would have to keep a ridiculously restrictive grip on minutia, per the request of the government.

After the too-long Stafford meeting, I went into the smallest college classroom I've been to yet. It also had the most students of any seminar-style course. This was not a good match. There was probably room for 30 students, desks for 50, and 75 in the room. Very interesting, but I won't be taking it. I think it will require too much backtracking to get up to speed, and not return the kind of value to me that an economics course would. Also, I have to cut a class or two from my schedule since I have 10 classes chosen and they intend each student to take 8 total. That is, 8 classes for the entire Masters. That gives you a sense of how in depth the courses are. The readings are intense and long. Each class is assigning about 100 pages of reading at a minimum per week, not including the background you need to do for papers and presentations. That means 400 pages per week for two terms. As I write that, I realize that it isn't impossible at all, though it will take 60 or 75 pages a night. Anyway, there was lots of talk in this course that I didn't get, except in the general political sense. I'll save my time for the population class :)

I had been carrying around $18,000 dollars in loan checks until today, so I was glad to be rid of them. The tuition is significantly more than that, but this is just the first term. Now I have the checks deposited, and the final one will be ready in a few days. Normally it takes 10-14 days to clear an official student loan check (6-8 weeks for a regular check) but Citibank is doing it in 3 days for LSE students because of a special relationship. It is really nice to have an American bank that operates out here, because that is pretty rare and the exchange issues are handled more smoothly by a bi-national branch.

The American Embassy's Google maps entry is wrong. It leads you to the main Royal Mail Station for the Zip Code. I walked there first, (for a second time, as the first time was on the weekend, when they were closed) and then looked up directions and walked out to another area of London. When I arrived, everyone was acting very strangely. The Eastern European security guard and her Filipino associate were unhelpful. To be clear, I was just confused that I had gone to the wrong embassy. When I asked my Eastern European comrade if I could drop off my ballot, she seemed confused. Eventually, I figured out that she didn't know the word, and said vote for President Obama and she got it. She wouldn't let me in though, which was again confusing, since I was told to go to the embassy to drop it off. She said embassies don't have anything to do with voting, and that I would have to mail it--she even pointed out that no postage was necessary. (Embassies are voting locations in some cases and points of mail in others, and it is only postage free in the US.) She called her supervisor and asked me for the papers I wanted to drop off. I showed them to her, and she started to read the address of my random registrar of voters, as if he would know of Santa Clara County, or Berger road in San Jose. I pointed for her to the line that said "Official Ballot" and "Elections Material Enclosed" but when she read it with the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle it didn't make sense. Her supervisor said he'd come over and see it. When the British guy (?) arrived, he was much clearer. He listened patiently while I explained (now outside the security booth, for security I guess) how I was told to drop these ballots off at the embassy etc. etc. He just responded that it was currently 4:50 and the section closed at 4:30. Oh. Well. I'll just come back tomorrow then.

Exhausted, I took the subway around for a while until I figured out how to get going towards home. All in all though, a great day. I am really pleased with the students and serious intellectual inquiry that is happening here. Hopefully we'll get into some real issues by next week.
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London, England, United Kingdom

Hi all!

Just wanted to drop a line to let you all know how things have been progressing. Not much has changed, I have been to a few induction ceremonies and social mixers, but they just told me what I already knew--this is going to be tough and valuable.

Entries recently have been sparse as Naomi was flying out yesterday. We got a good amount of time in over the last week, so it was nice in that respect, even if she'll be away for a while taking care of her final visa preparations. On the one hand it is only a month, but on the other, this will be a stressful month for me, and she has always been a very calming influence on me.

Here are my classes:

In the Michaelmas Term (Fall Semester)
Development: Theory, History and Policy I ; course deals with definitions, causes and consequences of, and obstacles to, development, as well as patterns of growth and distribution of poverty and inequality in development processes.
Complex Emergencies; The course looks at social, economic and political processes accompanying humanitarian disasters and civil wars.
Global Political Economics of Development I; examines the politics of the international economy. We analyze the overarching rules and regulations that structure the international economy, and thereby provide context for development policy.
Population and Development: An Analytical Approach; critically examines the different analytic approaches to the main interrelationships between population changes and socio-economic development.


Lent Term(Spring Semester)
Development: Theory, History and Policy II; same as above
Managing Globalization; course examines what (if anything) policymakers in developing countries can do to manage the continuing expansion of global trade, the multinationalization of production, and the seemingly inexorable rise in cross-border flows of financial capital.
Global Political Economics of Development II; course examines the political economy of 'North-South' relations,
focusing on how changes in the international policy framework level
affect developing countries' economic trajectories and national-level
strategies for interaction with the global economy.
Managing Humanitarianism; course looks at international, national and local responses to
humanitarian disasters and civil wars, with a specific focus on efforts
to ameliorate social, economic and political processes.

So far the people I have met have seemed knowledgeable, experienced, and very friendly. I am excited to get started--which unfortunately for the length of this entry means I have got to get back to my reading.
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