My stint as an MBA student...

So, we had a three day weekend this past weekend and it was uneventful, which was nice. We do so much during the week that the weekends are often very nice breaks to just chill around the apartment. We just went to a couple pubs and made a couple nice dinners for a change and it was all very relaxing. We also are beginning to wind down with classes and as a result have to begin working on our final projects. I am writing a paper on Speaker's Corner as theater. Speaker's Corner is essentially a concentrated area of free speech in the middle of Hyde Park where people can go every Sunday and stand on a box and speak their mind. I am writing a paper arguing that, through the eyes of Bertolt Brecht, Peter Schumann, and Peter Brook (three theater experts that we have studied in the course) Speaker's Corner is theater. It is about as interesting of a topic as I could come up with that didn't delve into the business side of the theater world in London, which would have involved a massive amount of research and interviews that I didn't want to do. As a result, I got to go to Speaker's Corner and take notes on all the theatrical events happening around me. A couple highlights:

1.) A man yelling F*** Mohammed, F*** Jesus, and F*** you who was standing next to a man with a sign that said "Everything is OK". The profane man was actually trying to prove a point but it wasn't well received by much of the audience...
2.) A man yelling that the white man took all the land from the red man and that they should give it all back.
3.) A man with a sign that read "I am an attention whore, listen to me"
4.) Many, many, many people preaching their particular religion. Islam is especially common.
Anyway, it is a very interesting place that I would recommend anyone visiting London should see.

Today, four of us had the opportunity to sit in on a lecture at the University of London. It was excellent for me for a couple of reasons. First, I finally was able to escape the land of fiction and theater. Second, these grad students were learning many of the things that I have already covered in my undergraduate degree. This gave me confidence in Ripon that has been lacking of late. Third, these people pay a lot of money to attend school here and as a result they get dinner catered for them in the middle of the class and we got to eat for free (always a plus when you are dealing with the kind of exchange rates we are dealing with over here)! Also, one gets really tired of Spaghetti after a while. But seriously, it was a really great experience that I didn't expect to happen but our Profs. Son-in-Law was the Prof. of the class and invited a few of the more business minded students on the program to come and sit in on the class. We learned about marketing to the developing and poorer nations of the world and discussed if it was ethical to make money off of the poor. It was interesting and a surprisingly Riponesque class considering there were about 20 students including the four of us. We split into small groups and had class discussions, both of which were unexpected surprises for me going into a Grad. School classroom at the University of London. I enjoyed it very much though!

We'll I think I will stop for now. I really need to get back to my paper but at least this was a somewhat productive form of procrastination on my paper. It is a whole lot better than Solitaire or checking my email incessantly. Keep in touch!

Much Love,

Lee