It was Sunday afternoon and, somewhat inexplicably, the bus was heaving. Having squeezed on, I found myself in the last available space; right next to the driver by the front door. We trundled on to Hammersmith, passing by full bus stops until someone needed to get off and we had to pull over. I was…
Sunshine, friends and food have worked their restorative magic after an exhausting week. It was the week which began with submitting our dissertation proposals and ended with our much-dreaded and much-prepared for group presentations. As we left SOAS at 11pm on Presentation Eve, after hours of printing and practice, I was definitely ready for a…
On Tuesday, before I got sick and drifted into a coma-like state for two days, I had a really great evening. It started out at the launch of a report by the Refugee Support Network (RSN), the charity that I’m volunteering with this year, which has researched the barriers facing young asylum seekers and refugees as they seek…
I’m sitting in Senate House library, daunted by the prospect of writing my next essay but geekily enjoying the wooden and booky smell of old-fashioned library and its creaky silence. I smile at the pile of books about multiculturalism that I’m chewing my way through and snuggle up in the solitude. I’m contemplating some very…
Life hurts. I could’ve told you that anyway, but yesterday I was enjoying (?) an article entitled ‘the Anthropology of Suffering’ which spelt out the concept in greater detail. Recently one of my classmates critiqued an article we’d read by suggesting that while its writer had painted a picture of the injustice in the world,…
On Tuesday, feeling pretty shattered, I pushed the boat out and blew my day’s budget on a Christmassy Hazelnut Mocha in Costa on Tottenham Court Road. It was to give me the energy to face the articles that had been piling up. I tackled the first one with some trepidation ‘My paradigm or yours? Alternative…
Yesterday I spent most of the beautiful sunny day hidden away inside SOAS’ library trying to pull together some thoughts about my first essay: ‘Does modernisation necessarily imply dependency?’ And I can tell you that it’s no small task moving, in just two months, from a place of knowing very little about development to trying…
Baroness Cox described herself as a nurse and social scientist by intention, and a baroness by astonishment. Beyond the fact that she’s a peer who speaks out for oppressed, persecuted and voiceless people around the world, I didn’t know all that much about her when I went to hear her speak this morning at ChristChurch…
I’m feeling the need to chart my culture shock. Partly because if it’s out there, I no longer have to carry it alone. I suppose this is a bit of a cry for help. And partly because I hope I’ll be able to look back in a couple of months and realise that I’ve moved on. Touch…
… is the title of a film I watched yesterday. It’s a great documentary about young people from India living in London for a couple of years, and it charts their lives, thoughts, experiences and aspirations throughout that time. The title is a quote from one of the young men who, like the others, lives…
emilyintheworld 