London Week 1

Since the last post I've had the chance to explore both the LSE campus and my own surrounding area a bit.

If this first week is any indication, it's going to be one heck of a year both socially and academically (at least in inspiration, I've yet to see what challenges scholastically, lie ahead).

The first few days were extremely active socially at my residence. There were tons of organized events and everyone here is extremely friendly as we are all from all over the world and in a new place.

I feel as though I belong here

The first day I went to the LSE campus I ran into 4 people that I knew, 2 whom I didn't even know were here. It helps that the campus is small certainly. But every time I am down there I run into different people that I know.

Today, my friend Mark Kersten whom I worked with during the last federal election in Ottawa just arrived (he's doing his MSc in International Relations), so I showed him around campus and helped him get a cellphone.

Afterwards he convinced me to go to one of the many campus pub's for a drink. (After 5 days in a row of non-stop partying I was, momentarily, hesitant). I would not regret it though.

We took our beers and stood on the street (as is common practice here, to drink and stand on the street outside the bar), and my old roommate from my second year at McGill, Zak Banks was walking by from the library, and joined us for a beer.

Then this blonde guy walked by and we both looked at each other in recognition. I asked him where I knew him and he said "I know you, you're Chris MacLean. You're the ex-bf of Maja, you lived in Moscow right?".

So, Hanes, from Stockholm, as I was to find out his name, attended the Anglo-American School of Moscow just after I left, although a couple grades lower. He's here studying Information Technology. This officially completes the circle of people that I know here. I now have seen people from Ottawa, Montreal, Budapest and Moscow (each of the places that I've lived in the last 12 years) here (I certainly wouldn't be surprised if there was someone from Ecuador and someone from Singapore here (although the latter, I likely wounldn't know them)). There are a particularly high number of people from McGill who have come here, and the representation from Canada is much higher than our size and significance on the international scene might warrant.

There are still plenty of people, particularly from Budapest but also from Moscow, that I've yet to be able to see but apparently reunion planning is in the works.

All in all though, I feel as though this is really where I am meant to be. I feel incredibly comfortable, and it is quite amazing how many of us are here.


The area where I live

I've been given an informal tour of my residence during which I took photos, but I haven't as yet had time to put them up. I've mostly just been in my room to sleep, the rest of the time I've been out. Here's a few interesting tidbits I have learned about the area surrounding my residence/college.

-Charles Dicken's lived across the street from where I am currently living.

-Next to my residence lies a large park, called "Coram's Field" which is only for children to us (they don't let you in unless you have young children with you), and also nearby is an orphanage. A long time ago (before Dicken's), a wealthy person (I'm not sure who, perhaps Coram?), dedicated his large plot of land to helping vulnerable children.

-Dicken's wrote the novel "Oliver Twist" while living across the street, and it's probably (although still speculative) that the countless orphaned children he would have seen in this area would have served as inspiration for the novel.

I'll put up photos soon.

Surprises

1) The city of London, as many old cities, is organized in a sort of chaotic, decentralized, ad-hoc way. The streets are never straight and they always change names after a couple km's.

The reason for this is pretty simple, unlike North American cities, London was around way before urban planning even existed as an enterprise. Secondly, this is really just a series of villages and towns that after a while just grew into each other. For example, I actually live in Bloomsbury.

2) Surprisingly enough however, I've found that the institutional organizations also feel as though they are thoroughly decentralized and ad-hoc as well.

a) For example the gym of the LSE (let's face it, athletics aren't really a priority for them), is located above a cafe and accessible only by weaving through a maze of stairwells. To access the men's locker room is equally tricky as it is located on the otherside of the gym down a narrow hallway and then staircase.

They really just put the gym in the most random room that suddenly was available space for them. Needless to say I think I'll be joining the gym below my residence, which has a pool and decent rates for the residents.

b) Opening a bank account here has been outrageously difficult. Each bank branch, even if they are the same bank, requires different documentation in order to open an account. So I have to be very careful about the location of which branch I pick, because I feel that I will need to be able to get to it fairly regularly.

All in all

My first week here has been pretty non-stop. I certainly need to restore some balance (with exercise, rest and a re-focus on academia) to my day-to-day activities but in the big picture I think that will happen.

A blog entry on an alumni lecture by Lord Saatchi that I attended today will go up soon. Until then, may you live strong and properous!

Thoughts and First Impressions of London...

Well, its 2 am and I'm supposed to go on a tour of the Parliament (Or the Palace of Westminister as they call it here) tommorow at 8 am, but after a night of socializing and drinking (Goodenough College had free welcome drinks tonight), and due to my jetlag I'm still awake. So, I figure that sharing my first impressions with all of you is a productive way to spend my way to alert mind right now.

1) First off, I'm extremely happy with my residence. The people here are really nice and welcoming, theres loads of social activities planned for everyone to get to know each other and my room is decently sized and clean and completely satisfactory for me. Today I went to Soho to the Chinatown here (which is unbelievably SMALL?! I was expecting the Chinatown here in LONDON to be decently sized, I would say it's comparable to the one in Montreal), and learned just how centrally located my residence is. It's a 15 minute walk to the LSE, a 5 minute walk to SOAS, a 10 minute walk to Picadilly Circus, and also a 5 minute walk to Oxford Street.
(For Montrealers, it's pretty much like living on Sherbrooke and St.Urbain or something.)

2) Yesterday when I was walking around in a dazed state, I was almost hit by a car because I was instictively looking the wrong way (here you have to look right immediately when crossing the street, and then left). But outside of that, I realized when jaywalking the small, tiny, tiny streets, and looking at the endless lines of cafe's and pubs, that I'm really pretty comfortable here in Europe. There was a familiarity which returned that I haven't felt in a while. And I was surprised by it because I think I had forgotten just how comfortable I was and used to feel in Europe.
I guess that 6 years in Canada doesn't take that away from you.

The other thing I noticed however was that what was so surprising to me, and it shouldn't be, but is just how COSMOPOLITAN London is. The reason this conflicted in my head was because the Europe that I have experienced in my memories was one of a very homogenous, all-white population in Budapest or Moscow. So the presence of such diversity in a European environment threw my familiarity off. In a way however, this is like a perfect merging of my old and the new. North American diversity, in a European setting. :)

3) I still haven't met too many people from the LSE. Just one girl from Sydney studying Development, and then a couple of LSE alumni's. But thats what is so interesting about my residence, I will get to meet people from outside my classes. Tommorow after the tour of the Parliament, (of which I will attempt to post photos), I will try to post my photos on here.

4) I am now the co-President of the Tennis Club for my residence! We will be organizing tournaments, and possibly do some coaching (his idea, not mine). My partner is Micheal, my neighbor, a Phd student from Normandy, France. And I've seen his 5 Babolat rackets, which attest that his tennis skills are far superior to mine, which is good, because as Tennis Club Presidents, one of us has to be half-decent. :)

More updates to come...

Lessons from the Marathon

I meant to write alot of this immediately following the marathon but lethargy and then a climax of activity just prior to my leaving Canada made me more effectively able to procrastinate it.

Having said that, the marathon was definitely one of the top three most difficult things I’ve ever done in my life (the other two being climbing Kilimanjaro (in particular the final ascent) and specific portions of my phase III training (offensive and defensive operations and patrolling). So I will always remember it. At least, until I run another one.

As a side note, my Dad came into town, flew in from New Zealand so he could be with there when I ran my first Marathon and also to see me off to London and this next phase of my life. It was utterly shocking me, I was walking to my aunts house listening to the marathon playlist I had created for myself, to suddenly see him standing 1 metre from me. It was awesome. I felt tremendously grateful for his support, albeit with a little more pressure to do well.

For the first 21.1 km Juan and I cruised at a fairly solid pace, but by km 25 (we had set it up so that there were people cheering us at the 15km, the 26km, the 38km, and the finish point) right where my Dad was supposed to join us (he ran with us from km 26- 38), I really started to crash.

I had expected that I would crash, as all runners do at some point during the race, but I had anticipated that I would have lasted a little longer, and maybe fallen apart a little more gradually.

Around the 23rd km, I started getting goosebumps and feeling chills and generally feeling very cold, a bizarre feeling considering I was running and sweating. This kinda freaked me out. It was only the beginning of my challenges. Here are the lessons I've learned:


Lesson # 4 Start slow

No matter how many times Juan and I discussed the need to start slow, the excitement of the day, the crowd, the presence of the other runners, and our own innate competitive desire (or dislike for letting others pass us) won over and we ran the first 21.1km in 1 hour and 50 minutes, or on pace for about 3 hours and 40 minutes. Slightly faster than we would have liked. And this contributed to my crash at 26 km as opposed to around 33 km which is what I expected based on my training. If you run just 5 seconds per kilometre faster than what you did during your training, it can really hurt much earlier, later on in the race.


Lesson # 3 Nothing can compensate for running, Do more hill training

During the training I substituted soccer matches and several hours of tennis for some of my runs. The hardest thing about training for a marathon is having to limit your exercising and sporty activities to running. I haven’t lifted weights in 6 months, but I wasn’t able or willing to stop playing tennis and soccer this summer, which, given that I also had a full-time job and had mandatory rest days, sometimes made my running hard to manage. I think that substituting sports for runs as much as I did was a mistake as I don’t feel that I logged the kilometres necessary to get an ideal time. Secondly, the hills on the race day route really hurt me as I wasn’t able to get any hill training in since Ottawa doesn’t have any hills. When I started to crash at km 24, the hill on rue Berri (see below) really knocked me down.


Lesson # 2 Sometimes you have to accept your strength levels on a given day

I was sick for 3 weeks prior to the race and I think that this really hurt me during the race. I just didn’t have the endurance I was expecting (based off of how I felt during my 25 and 30 kilometre runs, I expected to crash at around 33 km’s).

It was really hard and really frustrating once I started to crash and slow down, to see that our pace was slipping away. I felt that I was letting Juan (who was feeling stronger than me) and my father (whom I’ve watched compete in triathlons, marathons and Ironmans) whom I desperately wanted to be proud of me, down by my struggles.

This, in addition to my own frustration really contributed to the degree of pain which I was feeling physically.

Sometimes you have to just accept that you aren’t as strong on that day as you might be on others and just enjoy the process of the struggle, and work to finish the race, seeing it as a learning experience, rather than fighting a losing (and ultimately more painful) battle to go for a time that won’t be achievable.

Lesson # 1 Train your mental endurance.

My mental endurance wavered, which was surprising to me (I’m certain that this was part of the problem), as I figured that my military training (5 days without sleep several times) and past athletic and competition experience would help me.

I knew I would be tired and it would be hard, but I think as a whole I underestimated how tough the marathon would be, mentally.

By kilometre 35 (after almost 3.6 hours) I felt unable to focus on pushing my body through the pain I was feeling. My mind started to feel apathetic, and became easily distracted and started to wander. Old memories would flood in, queued by the sight of buildings or places that I had been during my 5 year carouse in Montreal. Trying to stay in the moment is hard enough day-to-day but trying to do it after running 35km, when you are feeling sick to your stomach, and you’re exhausted of being in pain is a whole other story.



Post Marathon



The first three days after the marathon were unbelievably sore and stiff. On Day 3 walking on flat surfaces or uphill was ok, but down the stairs was still pretty torturous.

I did notice though, that whenever I was active, either riding a bicycle to the store or walking the dog, my legs felt much better. They need to move to get the lactic acid moving.

Conclusion

That afternoon, sitting on my aunt's patio with a post-race beer in my hand, Sergey asked me if I would consider running another marathon soon, with him.

Without initially answering, I stood up to make a toast to my family. The timing of my completion of the marathon was perfect, I thought, because it feel right before my 25th birthday and right before leaving Montreal. I told my family that Sergey had asked me if I wanted to run another one, and my response to him that night was, "well, it took me 25 years to run the first one, MAYBE in the next 25 years I'll run another one". :) I then thanked my family for being there, I have never felt the kind of family and friend support that I felt that weekend. Those who were close to me really came through for me and for that I will be eternally grateful and I will carry that with me here on my own in London, as a reminder that back in Canada, there are people who support me and care for me.

Today, as I conclude all these thoughts sitting at the desk of my new room in London, staring through my window overlooking a rich green park with oak benches and a hard court tennis court, I think, I will run a marathon again, and DEFINITELY within the next 25 years.

What is Success?

Came across two fantastic lectures on success that I wanted to share with you all (or at least keep track of for my own personal indulgence):

1) First, by philosopher and novelist Alain de Botton:



2) Second by John Wooden, often considered to be one of the greatest coaches in all of sports. He talks in the rambling and reflective way one might expect from an 89 year-old, about why one is a teacher, and what is true success:

Nature vs Nurture: The Violent Mind

I had an interesting conversation/debate with my mother and Laura during our 8 hour hike across Whistler Mountain to Singing Pass.

See, Laura believes that in the Nature vs Nurture debate, the balance is about 10-90. So 90% of what determines the person one becomes is due to environmental factors.

My mother, on the otherhand, believes that genes matter far more, she quoted around 40-60 as the more accurate balance in her mind.

My response to both of them was that they weren't giving enough credit to either influence.

Overall I do think that we give far too much credit to "genes" in society. I think that environment plays a very very important role in how a persons brain and social behaviour develops, and that environmental conditions can often render genetic predispositions to be impotent. But I also think that, conversely, the power of particular genetic dispositions can also sometimes override any environmental constraints.

(For example if someone has a genetic condition that makes them 450lbs, no amount of ballet lessons are going to make them very able as ballet dancers).

This debate has implications which make it an often controversial and/or emotional topic.

Some people feel as though, by attributing behaviour and interests to environment, its not giving enough credit to free will. Others might argue that to say that certain people are hard-wired to be better than others is something which is dangerously close to defending classism or racism.

I think if anyone analyzes how the brain develops, especially as a baby, the overwhelming influence lies in the environment you grow up in. However, from a macro perspective, within societies, there seems to be evidence of brain development and behaviour disproportionately in one direction.

Professor Jim Fallon at the University of California has this GREAT lecture which explains how this phenomenon occurs, as he touches upon this debate through the prism of analysis of the brains of violent murderers.

Reflections on Move #13

Let me be very clear, I HATE moving.

The process of having to go through all of your stuff and put it away in different boxes; the guilt you feel as you realize that you haven't justifiably used or needed well over half of what you have, the further guilt you feel as you realize that, under the circumstances you can't really pass these useless items on to someone else, and instead you have to just throw them, in the process contributing to the endless pile of refuse that continues to grow menacingly as our species neglect and irresponsibility continues to prevail.

Coming with all of that is the emotion that you feel about the fact that a transition in your life is upon you. The strength of this emotion is compounded by the exhaustion that you feel working full days at work and then spending your afternoons and evenings moving.

All of this makes me wonder, why in the heck have I moved SO MUCH?

Not including any of the moves before my 5th birthday (because who remembers anything before your 5th birthday anyway?), this was the 13th move of residence that I have done in my live, spanning across 5 different countries.

Fatal Flaw

Given that I want a job and a life where I (and my future family) will most likely be traveling frequently, is my disdain for moving my fatal flaw?

As every literature dabbler knows, every protagonist has a fatal flaw. The one thing which he cannot avoid which is his undoing. In tragedies, it is often what the hero loves the most, that hurts him the most. To give a simple Pop culture reference, Spiderman loves Jane, but cannot have Jane because it would mean he could no longer be Spiderman.

The only resolution I can see to this is that hopefully, my future moves will be more simple. This move couldn've been more complex, two people going to different continents, at different times, with one (my) parents both overseas and the family house is on the other side of the country.

Emotions

I felt particularly emotional moving this time around. Far more than normal. Especially when you consider that I had only lived in this apartment for 8 months, making it the place with the second least amount of time spent of everywhere I've lived.

I can only come to 3 possible conclusions as to why this was the case:

1) Now that I am older, I am more aware of just how dramatic these changes and transitions in life are.

2) Given that this place (Canada) was the first place in my life where I actually entirely constructed and created my world and my life and everything was done on my own choice (rather than moving simply because of my parents work), I therefore feel the consequences and costs of the move that much deeper.

Or 3) I have somehow become more aware of what I feel about things around me?

My feeling is that it is a bit of all three, probably mostly 1 and 2.

In any case, after 3 days in a row of 18 hour days, working army from 7-3 and then organizing the move, I'm glad its over.

And while I don't look forward to the next one, I accept fully the inevitability of its arrival, it is simply a consequence of how I have decided to live my life.

There is something about Africa...

There is something that is special about Africa.

In his book, "The End of Poverty" by Jeffrey Sachs, he quotes the great biologist E. O Wilson, who argued that "human beings are 'hard wired' to feel a special resonance ("biophilia") with the African savannah, the place where our species arose some 150,000 years ago."

I have lived in and travelled to more than several countries within every continent (not Antarctica), and there's something about Africa that touches the bones and the blood of all who visit there (not the northern Arabic part per se (Egypt and Tunisia just had a different feel)), .

I spent my early early childhood, from age 1-3/4, in Malawi and then Zimbabwe.

The result is that I do not actually have any distinct memories from my time there, my earliest memory is from when I was 4, living in NDG in Montreal, I remember my father picking me up from school, I had painted a snake, and we walked home, stopping in the grass for a pause and he gave me a cookie.

However, there was something about "Africa" that always touched my heart or gave me a special feeling.

They say that cat's always remember the place they were born, and when they feel that they are about to die, they return to the place that they were born and wait to die there. There was one such Orange tabby who did that in our home in Singapore, my Dad tried in vain to "shish" him away but he was utterly resilient and indeed died a few weeks later.

Anyways, the point is, while I had no direct memories of my time as a toddler there, (everything I had were memories implanted by stories my parents would tell, and there were plenty of them), there were certain triggers and sensations that I would get when I was exposed to something I associated with "Africa".

One of the most obvious ones is music. Any time I hear Paul Simon's "Graceland Album",

Toto's "Africa



Or photos and typical African voices



I just get this feeling inside me, like a familiar, cozy, beauty.

I also have a blanket that was weaved for me by my parents neighbors in Malawi when I was born. It is brightly coloured (as most African clothing and material is), with orange and yellow spike patterning and it commemorates the 40th anniversary of the United Nations which coincidentallys falls near my birthday. I'm not sure why she choose the knit that for my blanket, but I do think its interesting. Nonetheless, I absolutely LOVE this blanket. I feel an unexplainable attachment to it.

During the christmas break of 2000-2001 I got the chance to return to Africa, finally. My Dad and I went to Tanzania and climbed Mt Kilimanjaro and safaried the Ngorogoro Crater as well as the Serengeti Plains. My memories from that trip remain perhaps some of the most distinct that I have from any place that I have been.

1) I remember going for a run with my dad, the stark contrast of our bright white shoes against red clay/dust, the unbelievably majestic horizon, plains with Acacia trees (see below), little kids suddenly emerging out of grass dwellings and running barefoot playfully and excitedly with us yelling "Wazungu Wazungu" which is swahili for "White man".

2) I remember just after we had climbed Kilimanjaro, we were all sitting with our guides and our cooks at the base having a post expedition beer (called Kili, actually). The white and brown face of the mountain was lit up in the background as the sun was setting on the opposite side of it, just behind us. Suddenly out of nowhere the cooks and guids began to sing, they sang about the mountain, for those of you who have been to Africa, you know, the sounds were just gorgeous as they were all in perfect harmony with one another.

3) Perhaps the coolest thing I have ever witnessed in my life. During New Years Eve of that holiday we were on the Serengeti plains. The hotel we were staying at had a large patio with a panoramic view of the entire plains with the sun setting behind it. At midnight a friend of my fathers, Gary MacPhie, brought out his bagpipes and began to play. If any of you know the bagpipes, you know that it is an instrument which for some reason seems to evoke emotion really well. These sounds, in combination with the view of the Serenget plains had everyone at the hotel, and especially the locals, absolutely mesmorized and in awe. It is something I will never forget.

And yet, with all of this comes the extreme poverty, the sometimes shockingly horrendous things that people do to each other there, the suffering and the tragedy.

My uncle, Alan, lived in South Africa for only 2 years of his life, but to his day (he now lives in Belgium and plays the viola for the Belgian National Opera), he says that his experience and memories from his time there remain the most impactful, special and overwhelming of anywhere else he's ever been.

But my uncle and my mother have both talked and emailed me about how Africa has a unique kind of energy that is so different from everywhere else. An electricity that is overwhelmingly beautiful, but one that can turn violent or tragic quickly.

Alan says that perhaps its because life is so full of this energy that it often seems to end quickly there. Like a candle or a match that burns too bright, it cannot sustain itself for as long.

I asked another friend of mine, Stephane, who spent his adolescent years in Guinea, to tell me what he thinks and feels about it.

"Its out of time, full of smells, majestic beauty but violence and languidity as well, an unbelievable mix" he said.

The impetous and swell of passion that sparked this blog entry was hearing African music coming from the headphones of someone in the lunch line today.

Although I feel I can say with relative certainty that Canada is where I would now call home. That unexplanable feeling that I get when I am touched in someway by Africa, means that it will always have something that Canada can not replace.

As I reflect on this post I realize that 2011 will be 10 years to the year, since I was in Tanzania with my father. Perhaps I need to return to Africa before then...