The Aid and Trade debate: Africa and globalisation

Today I decided to go to another lecture at the LSE.

The speakers were Professor Devarajan, Chief Economist for Africa at the World Bank, and Eric-Vincent Guichard, who was also at the World Bank from 1990-1996 as portfolio manager, but is now an entrepreneur, the founder and CEO of Homestrings.

The debate wasn't your typical Aid vs Trade argument, "but they'll become dependent", "but they're already in a poverty trap", "but aid won't get them out of the trap" type thing, it was somewhat broader view of the whole issue.

Basically Prof. Devarajan's view was that everything that Africa tries to do is tied up in a political mess, which causes government failure, and then he gave some proposed solutions. He was very easy to understand.

The other guy, not so much. I did understand some of it- he proposed that the old paradigm of "Aid vs Trade" was passe, and that a new paradigm of "Pre vs Post commodity boom" was needed. Then I got really confused when he started talking about the Diaspora and Diaspora bonds :/
*Pauline Hanson voice*: "Please explain?"

It finished at about 10 to 8 and then I made my way home. I'd missed dinner and so I signed up for late dinner. Late dinner is at 10-10.15. The senior kids are supposed to come and serve the food.

They rocked up at 10.15. Hmmm they really didn't take it seriously. There were 2 of them, and they were just taking the piss out of everything. Until I asked them whether we could have the light on, I think we were expected to eat in darkness. And then after they served us, they played with the shutters of the canteen, pressing the button and opening and closing it. Real mature, peeps :|

Then I went to sleep. I have a slight sore throat :(

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Coat

Today I bought a black coat from the op-shop for £15 (where on earth in Australia do you get coats for that little, let alone good ones or ones that you'd wear?).

I quite like it.

I was looking at coats in one op shop, and a lady asked me what size I was and I told her and she was like "there's an absolutely gorgeous coat at Scope", which was the op shop across the road. You could tell she would have bought it, but it was too small for her. She described it to me. So after I finished looking I went across the road. I would have gone there anyway, but now I had something to look for.

I bought it. It was a toss up between that one and a GAP one (in the first op shop), which was 50% wool, but it was only a short coat, and I wanted something long. So I bought this even though it's all nylon and polyester. I have woollen jumpers anyways :)

Schedules and to-do list

There are days when you have a cross between a schedule and a to do list, and your day consists of working through the particular things at particular times.

Today is one of those days.

Busy busy.

Although I've concluded that the reminders app and calendar app on my phone should merge. And the reminders app should automatically arrange them in chronological order. Would help my OCD-ness towards organisation.

Rudeness

Some people are so rude. Like the woman supervising the self serve checkout at Sainsbury's- just then.

I ceebs going over the details. In short, she was just not very agreeable. Gosh, if you're being paid to do something for people, at least do it without offending them.

Daylight Saving

Daylight saving ended this weekend, so we all turned our clocks back and got an extra hour of sleep. Much needed after that party.

London is now 11 hours behind Melbourne.

Halloween Party

Last night was the KCH halloween party. I went as Elphaba from Wicked.

Twas a good night.

But the loud music ended at midnight. Sharp. Laaaaaaaaammmme.

Teresa's 21st

Today (well yesterday now, because it's past midnight) was Teresa's 21st birthday. Happy birthday Teresa!

The plan was to go to Dirty Martini Cocktail Bar at Covent Garden at 6ish then Zizzi on the Strand for dinner.

I got home at uni about 3.30, and all I remember doing was rush around until 6.30 when we finally left the house. Oh and also bust out Disney tunes with Susan in my room. Alex next door knocked on the wall, and then 5 minutes later we heard him go to dinner.
He's probably wondering what on earth he did in his previous life to end up with a crazy neighbour like me.

Yeah well in between 3.30 and 6.30 there was a lot of chatting to people, getting laundry done, trying on dresses to decide which to wear, doing hair, makeup, passing around Teresa's card for everyone to sign, then waiting for Berlin's clothes to tumble dry, which is how I ended up with Susan in my room killing time by having a little singalong and writing some Christmas cards. (Yes, already. But only in spare moments.)

We ended up just going to Zizzi. Well Teresa sent a message at about 5.15 saying we should probably leave about 5.30, but no one was ready, the card was still being passed around, Berlin's laundry was still in the dryer...

But turns out Lorelle and Abigail were ready and they came by mine to get me before they left, but I said I wasn't ready and I'd just meet them there, so they went to meet Teresa downstairs, then just after they left my room Teresa came up (with Susan) looking for them, because Teresa needed to print something with Abigail's printer, and I told them that she'd just gone downstairs to reception, and that I'd meet her at the bar later, and Susan decided that she wanted to sit in my room and look through her bag to make sure she had everything for her trip to Paris this weekend... (She was going straight from dinner to Victoria Coach Station)... That's how Susan ended up in my room in the first place.

So after that lot of fuss Teresa, Abigail and Lorelle left, and Susan and I were in my room and Berlin was in her room waiting for her laundry. We started listening to Disney songs, then when we ran out we wanted to find some more on YouTube but the internet was down... this is when I remembered the genius of something called a personal hotspot. I have unlimited data on my phone plan. SO WE TURNED MY HOTSPOT ON AND STREAMED YOUTUBE. It was amazingly fast.

We left at 6.30. The bus came at 6.45. We got to Waterloo Bridge at 7.15. Dinner was a 7.30 booking. By then we'd figured out that there was no point going to the cocktail bar any more, plus there was the added drama of not being allowed in unless you were over 21, but then a few others from another halls were already in there so they let them in and... I don't really know exactly what happened, but the 18 y.o.s did end up getting in...

Zizzi was really good. The place was done up with a little bit of class

and the menus and stuff looked really rustic. 

There were 9 of us all up: Teresa, Wendy, Abigail, Lorelle, Jacqui, Berlin, Susan, Michelle and I. 

(I actually don't have pictures of everyone. I'm sure someone had a picture of the entire table)

Berlin and I shared a Cichetti (Chi-Ke-ti), which was like Italian tapas. We had 5 little dishes between the two of us. SO YUMMY. They served everything with this cold tomato-ey paste thing, but we just ate a little bit of it.

Then we had gelati for dessert. Mine was cinnamon, vanilla and chocolate :)

To finish off the night, we walked to Trafalgar Square and sand Teresa happy birthday! How special that she gets to spend her 21st in London !

Rice Crackers

This is just a random photo of some rice crackers and dips that I found on the internet.

I am so amused. I never knew it could be so difficult to buy a packet of rice crackers!

I've been wanting some healthy snacks, so I asked Berlin to get me some rice crackers when she went to the supermarket. Well to start with Berlin didn't know what rice crackers were. Problem number 1.

She called me several times while at the supermarket.

"I can't find them"
"They should be in the biscuit aisle, with the savoury biscuits"

I posted the above photo on her wall so she could see what they looked like.

Subsequent phone calls included the following:

"What are they?"
"They're like round crackers, made out of rice"

"I'm here and it goes from biscuits, digestives, to coffee and tea"
"They're not the type of biscuits you have with coffee or tea. You just... eat them."

"They should be near the Ritz"
"Are you sure they're not Ritz?"
"They're not Ritz"
"What about Water Crackers"
"No, you have water crackers with cheese"
"What about Carr's"
"Carr's make water crackers!"
"Yeah you're right."


"What's the brand you normally buy?"
"Sakata, but they might be an Australian thing"
"YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T BOUGHT THEM HERE BEFORE?!?!?!"

4 phone calls, later, Berlin came home without any rice crackers. The last call ended with her saying "I'm sooooo sorrrrryyyyyyyy!!!!!!"

Oh dear.

(Some brilliant lines from both Berlin and I in there, btw)

Student numbers

They gave me a 7-digit student number when I was offered a place.

Then they gave me another one when I enrolled, starting with K.

And yesterday I found out that there's another one I have to put on assignment cover sheets, starting with P.

Turns out everyone has and needs all 3 types of numbers

Whyyyyy are they so administratively retarded :/

Gloomy and rainy

Today was winter. Or rather, today was Melbourne winter. It was cold and rainy and gloomy the whole day. It rained while I was walking back from the bus stop. I had my waterproof jacket on, but I didn't don't have an umbrella cos my last one died and I haven't needed another one.

I might need gloves, though.

McDonald's

This is for Paolo.

Today, after 2 and a half months without this culinary delight, I went to Maccas. Mostly for the sake of trying it.

I had a wrap of the day, grilled chicken with lettuce, cucumber, tomato and mayo. It was quite yummy. No complaints :)

The Franklin-Wilkins Library

The Franklin-Wilkins Library is, funnily enough, in the Franklin-Wilkins Building.

It recently got a makeover, so everything looks nice and new, which actually motivates you to study more cos it's less depressing.

You have to swipe your ID card to get in, but as demonstrated on Monday when Susan lost her ID card, all you have to do is get someone inside to pass their card over the security gates. Fail whale.

It's freaking complicated to book a group study room, too. You can't do it online. You have to go to the desk as present your ID card, along with 2 other people in your group. Joseph the American from Comm Skills got frustrated at this inefficiency lol.

At least it's quiet. It's like a quiet Hargrave library.

And they have couch-type things with swivelly tables :)

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Loud noises

Every day, I hear loud noises from my window.

Car noises, music noises, rubbish truck noises, drilling noises, chainsaw noises. I hate it.

Oh yes, and that "ice cream van" song.

Brick Lane with Susan

Today I went to Brick Lane again. I went later in the day than last time, and it was really. really. REALLY crowded. But I guess as Susan said, it adds to the atmosphere.

We decided to ditch lunch at halls (cos Sunday food is generally quite unimpressive) and go for the ethnic food at the market instead. I had Moroccan Chicken and Spinach curry with cous cous. SO GOOD!

We walked to Petticoat Lane Market nearby while eating our lunch. I didn't like it. It was too commercial, and the clothes there were just cheap rubbish.

So we walked back to Brick Lane.

There was a little place with real vintage stuff, and some of the stalls were offering hire for photoshoots etc. It was pretty expensive, but what else do you expect for real vintage. A lot of the stalls were quite cute, but I didn't take any pictures, cos some of the stores had signs saying no pictures, and even if they didn't, the owners got grumpy at you if you took pictures.

Turns out what I thought was Brick Lane Market last was actually the Sunday Upmarket on Brick Lane, and Brick Lane market itself was further north on Brick Lane with all sorts of bric-a-brac. We walked all the way up and then all the way to Shoreditch High Street station. Just a slow afternoon walk looking at random things.

I got a piece of red ribbon for free :) I just wanted something to put in my hair and I asked how much a bit of red ribbon was and the woman was like pssshhhh just have it.  So yay!

And I bought an old key.

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Kitchen staff

Usually the kitchen staff are quite grumpy, except for one guy called Winston who is really friendly.

Today they were happy! This made me happy. As I was in line waiting for the food, I kinda just mumbled "I think I'll have vegetarian today". The lady at the counter was like "Huh what" and I was like "Oh, no, I was just mumbling to myself more than anything", then she chuckled at me and said she thought I was talking to her, and I was like nahh just saying to myself that I'll have vegetarian and she laughed at me again.

And when I went to get water there were no more plastic cups so I went to ask for some and the guy was really cheerful when he gave me a new packet to put next to the water!

Smileys :)

Little Venice Walk

This afternoon, after I was (somewhat) satisfied with the amount of study I'd done, I went on a London Walk to Little Venice with Susan. Little Venice is in North-West London, and it consists of a system of canals, which is actually just one long canal broken up into different sections and given different names. Apart from that, it's nothing like Venice, but there are really nice houses and lots of famous names!

The tour costs £6 for students, and there's no need to book, just rock up and pay your tour guide. There were a lot of people! But it was okay. It lasted an hour and 40 minutes, and our tour guide was Shaughan. He was quite a character, and very informative.

The tour started here.

We walked through the neighbourhood. Lots of really nice (and expensive) houses.

The weather was amazingly sunny. To the point where I actually made the effort to put on my contacts so that I could wear my sunnies. Also the autumn colours were really pretty.

Then we walked to Paddington Green.

This next picture is a row of tombstones have have been put in a row along the wall.

Then we walked along the canal.

The time went really quickly, and before we knew it we were finished.

After the tour Susan and I went to one of the cafes recommended by Shaughan, called Baker&Spice. 

It looked quite nice from the outside. Ummm I don't have a picture.

The service was pretty bad. We walked in, and everyone behind the counter looked up at us, but no one actually approached us and asked us if we were okay. So we just chose a table and sat down, but no one gave us a menu or anything, so we asked. They said to just look at what was on display. So despite having already sat down, the both of us got up again to look at the cakes on display. How awkward. On the board behind the counter was the take away menu for hot drinks with prices. Nothing said anything about different eat in prices for drinks, so we just thought it'd be the same. And some of the cakes had no labels or prices next to them and we had to ask. And when we asked they quoted the takeaway prices. When we had clearly just sat down at a table and got up again to look at the food. The food was also in 3 different display areas, so we were actually walking across the cafe to look at them all.

In the end we just ordered a pot of tea each and shared a baked blueberry cheesecake.

It was yum.

(This is half the slice of cake. We'd already cut it into half and put half on another plate when we realised we didn't have photo. Also, they were observant enough to give us 2 plates and 2 sets of cutlery without our asking. That was nice.)

When we went to pay, the tea was £2.60 a pot (different from the takeaway price), and the cake was £5.35, even though the sign had said £5.20. When I saw the receipt I told the woman at the counter that the sign under the cake said £5.20 a slice, and she mumbled something about the sign being old and needing to change it. I replied with "I think you should do it soon". I wasn't bothered enough to tell her that she had breached a contract, but I was not happy. So I left with that thought, which really doesn't leave a good impression, does it?

It was altogether a very awkward and clumsy experience. Won't be going back there again.

But Little Venice was good!

Winter Warmers

It has been getting noticeably colder. Time to rug up! 

Due to being an exchange student who had to fit everything into one suitcase, I have a noticeable lack of clothes, let alone warm winter clothes. I decided that it was time to buy some, so I hit Oxford St after class!

I purposefully went on a weekday, because Oxford St is crazy busy on weekends, so I avoid it at all costs.

First, I went to Dorothy Perkins. Dorothy Perkins have a 10% off student discount all the time :) They also have a mid-season sale on at the moment, but none of the stuff was spectacularly good. I still spent quite a bit of time in there looking though, because there was a lot to to look at, including some red heels! (Which were surprisingly cheap.) Was tempted to buy them, but I don't really need heels and sensible Cordelia won over fashionable Cordelia (yeah, what's new...)

After that, I went to H&M. I knew H&M had good stuff cos I found a copy of their winter catalogue on the bus the other day and flicked through it. I went to the smaller one between Bond St and Tottenham Court Road stations.

There was a huge sale rack with summer clothes. I know I dont need summer clothes now, but I'm coming home in summer, right? #justifications 

Observation: women can be very bitchy when it comes to sale racks. Not in an obvious cat-scratching way, but you can just tell when they're going to insist on looking through the part of the rack that you're also looking through.

In the end I impulse-bought 2 dresses @ £5 pounds (one is for my sister, cos it was too small for me but I wanted to buy it), a short skirt @ £3, long black skirt @ £5 (which will double up as part of my costume for the Halloween Party coming up soon- I don't even know what I'm going as yet)

I also bought 2 part-woolen jumpers. They're both wool blended with mohair/angora/polyamide/acrylic. (Yes, I obsessively check what my clothes are made out of, and no, I do not understand all that scientific talk in the link for polyamide). They weren't really cheap, but not expensive either, especially to me, because you can't get nice, somewhat-fashionable woolen jumpers in Australia without going to Myer and paying through the nose.

When it came to paying, there was a massive queue downstairs, so I took the escalator up to the first floor and was served straight away *smug*

I spent enough at H&M to ask for a VAT refund scheme form, so hopefully I will be getting some money back when I leave the country! (Minimum spend was £30, but they took a £6.20 "handling fee"!)

One last thing, the homewares section at Bhs got me really excited ! 

I LOVE homewares, imma gonna have such an amazing time buying stuff for my own house when I grow up!

PS, sorry for going a bit crazy with the hyperlinks in this post.

Goodwin's Court

Goodwin's Court is a little lane tucked away in the middle of London between Leicester Square and Covent Garden stations. It is a narrow laneway with some small businesses, with big lamps hanging on the walls above head height.

I accidentally found pictures of it one day while surfing the next, probably procrastinating.

It is by no means a tourist attraction, but it was nice to just go there.


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Errands

I love efficiency.

Today it took me 30 minutes and 3 buses to get from Waterloo to Aldwych to Fleet Street to Strand. And I literally did not wait more than 2 minutes for any bus.

Buy 50 x 1p stamps- check
Return new Corporate Finance Textbook- check
Renew Travelcard- check

No fuss.

Tuesday mornings go too quickly

Every second Tuesday, I have to change my bed linen.





8.30, breakfast.




9.30, skype Dave.



Sometimes after that, call home.


Check fb, email, today I paid accommodation fees.

Usually I wouldn't do it at 11 in the morning, but today I took a shower.
Pack bags
Make lunch
And at 10 past 12 I'm ALWAYS rushing for the bus.

Les Miserables

Last night I went to watch Les Mis at the Queens Theatre with Ze, Teresa and Evangeline. Ze organised the tickets.

We were sitting right up the back row towards the middle. Pretty good view.

The chorus was the thing that stood out the most.

Javert had an amazing rich voice.

Cosette was good, but she always sounded panicky- sometimes it was her vibrato, and sometimes she just got a bit too into her acting, I think.

Eponine sounded like she belonged in Wicked... her style of singing was a little bit too contemporary. She made "On my own" sound like Rihanna.

The theatrical side of things was amazing- like when they waved the bright red flag, the colours looked SO good :)

All in all, a good musical.

Corporate Finance Book. Again.

I sent her a nice text message at 8.30 this morning reminding her to make sure her friend brought her book, finishing with "See you at 12.30."

And at 11.30, she decides to tell me that she has a meeting at "the Embassy" at 1. And that she can be there at 2.

Way to really, REALLY annoy me.

At 2.30, she finally arrives.

***

Toilets

Today I tried going to the toilet as few times as possible. All the toilets were gross.


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York

Today I went to York. York is a city in the north of the UK, and is ...uhhh you know what?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York

Before I go on I would like to say that today reminded me of Rachel Chia for so many reasons! Love you Rach!

So this morning Teresa came to my room at 6.30am and we had muesli for breakfast, left over from my YHA days.

We left the house at 6.40 (okay, maybe more like 6.45 by the time we left, but we were aiming for 6.40!) to catch a 6.54 train from Denmark Hill to Victoria, to catch a tube to King's Cross, to catch a 7.47 train to York. This is us at King's Cross Station, about to board the train!

The train ride was pretty. It was still misty.

We got to York at about 9.40, and proceeded to spend the next 20 minutes in the station taking pictures, cos the station was pretty and we loved this place already.

Then we walked towards the city centre, looking out for a bakery type thing where we could grab some morning tea. We found this scout group having a little secondhand book sale. Between Teresa and I, we got 3 books for £2. They also had a little cafe set up, and we had a slice of cake each! I had German apple cake and Teresa had a walnut sponge. The cake was only 80p a slice, and it was yummy! 

Next we went to the Shambles. The Shambles is a narrow little cobblestone laneway with small shops. Very medieval-England-like. We were actually on our way to the Shambles when we found the Scout thing on the corner of High Ousegate and the Shambles (yes, those are street names).

So we walked 2 steps down the Shambles and then got distracted. As you will see, this distractedness becomes a recurring theme.

We got distracted by a market.

 Looked through some vintage clothes but didn't want to buy anything cos we'd have to carry it around the whole day.

Then we finally got back to the Shambles and slowly wandered down it, walking into the shops that looked interesting. Took some pictures.

 Little Shambles is a street off Shambles

The roofs, and therefore the doors of the shops were quite low.

After that we followed the street signs to the "Castle Area", to climb Clifford's Tower.

Clifford's Tower is a Norman fortress built in the 1200s, with spiral staircases built into the wall, but it has since lost its roof and now the staircases are used for tourists to climb up and walk the circumference of the tower. Pretty good view of York, especially York Minster, as you can't actually see a whole  of it at ground level in front of the Minster due to it being near narrow laneways.

Anyway, back to Clifford's Tower. This is picture with York Minster in the background.

And this is the inside of Clifford's Tower.

Clifford's Tower only took half an hour including lots of time for pictures, cos it was really small, like literally just one open-top round tower. After that we made our way to York Minster.

Well. Tried. Found this really cute shop.

Back out on the street, there were heaps of buskers and street performers.

 (American Indians? Reminded me of Pocahontas)

Then there was also a brass band like 2 minutes down the road.

There were also a few cute old English bookstores. 

This one was on Minster Gate just before the Minster.

 Teresa and I, being booknerds, had to go in and have a look, of course. There were several rooms of both new and secondhand books. Teresa bought a small red leather bound copy of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. SO ENGLISH! Love it.

After that we finally got round to York Minster itself. There was a sign outside that said it only opened at 12.30 on this particular day, and it was 12.15 so we were like "sweeeet". So we just stood in the queue. It wasn't that long. Turns out that parts of the church (the High Altar and the Quire) weren't open that day, so we got a discounted admission of £5.50 instead of £8.

The nave

The Chapter House Windows

York Minster is probably best known for the Rose Window in the South Transept, which has pictures of white and red roses to commemorate the union of the houses of Lancaster and York when Henry VII married Elizabeth of York. The rose window is that round one at the top.

We ended up spending an hour and a half there, because there was quite a lot to see in the crypt, and there was also a little museum attached to the crypt. By the time we got out it was 2, which means we'd missed lunch. Or the time that would normally be lunchtime. We didn't want to go find lunch if it was already 2, because...

Another must-do on the list was Bettys Tea Rooms, which Berlin recommended for afternoon tea because it was quaint and English and because it had really a really good house blend tea. There are actually two in York, Bettys and Little Bettys. We found this one on Stonegate and went in. We didn't even think about which one it was, even though we knew there were two. Turns out it's Little Bettys, cos we found a bigger Bettys down the road after we'd finished.

Little Bettys actually looked cuter, it was like a little house. Betty's just looked like a massive room on the corner of a street that had ceiling to floor windows. Little Bettys had a shop selling their products downstairs, and the tea room was upstairs. 

So we got there, and there was a MASSIVE queue. We waited for 45 minutes before we got a table- at least they tried to speed up getting people in by handing out menus to the people waiting in the queue so they could decide what they wanted. I actually quite like the fact that the place retained their class by not squishing everyone in. The tea room was quite spacious and they could have easily fit a few more tables in, I mean, they DID have lots of customers waiting, but it was nice that they kept it nice and quiet so you could actually enjoy the atmosphere

We both ordered the Yorkshire Cream Tea-
 house blend tea with two scones and strawberry jam and clotted cream.
Here's the spread.

Our scones were served on a three-tier platter! That got me excited.

We finished at about 3.45, so we had a bit more time to walk about before catching our coach home at 4.25. We decided to catch a coach home instead of a train because we found a 50% off  voucher for National Express coaches for students, which made it a bit cheaper than the train. I would've probably still taken the train if I were by myself because the train took 2 hours and the coach took 5, but Teresa didn't have a railcard that gives students 1/3 off fares (I do), so it would've cost her a lot more. So we decided we'd take the coach and just sleep or something.

So yeah we had some time, and we'd thought we'd go back to Shambles because we saw a place that did £1 sandwiches, and we needed to grab something for dinner on the coach.

The place had run out of bread :(

 Next minute we knew it was 10 past 4, and so we quickly grabbed a sandwich each from Costa and rushed to the bus stop.

AND THEN THE COACH DIDN'T COME FOR ANOTHER HALF AN HOUR. 

We were starting to worry that we'd missed it, because we DID cut it pretty fine arriving at the bus stop. But there was another lady with a suitcase and she had a National Express ticket, so we felt better.

This is a picture of us being not happy.

On the bus we took pictures of the sunset over the countryside. We stopped briefly at Sheffield and I bought an ELLE magazine to entertain me for the rest of the journey. The newspaper was too intellectual for that time of day, so I went for some trash, I mean light reading. It felt odd; I haven't bought a magazine since I was like 16.

We did end up making it back to Victoria before the scheduled time.

The day was a success :)