It’s Crunch Time

Well, folks, we’ve cracked the barrier of one month to go. 30 days until my return to North Carolina, and I’ll tell you what, it sure is weird to think about. I know of several people who started studying abroad for spring semester who are either already back home or soon on their way. I’m pretty sure, with one exception, that I was the first one gone and will be the last one to leave. Bittersweet? I do not think there is a better word to describe it.

2 weeks and 2 days until exam hell is over. For the next 8 days I will be concluding revision for all courses. My exam schedule is really annoying because I have so little time in between each to study.

May 17-24 will be cram time. I’m going to try to be as far from communication as possible. As I wrote in an earlier post, my exams are on the 25, 28, 30 and 1. The two days that fall between the Macro exam and Research Methods will be devoted to Micro and Research Methods cramming. Once Research Methods is done, I have one day for Social Policy outlining for essays. The next day will be final cramming for Micro and the first day of June will be the Micro exam.

June 1 will be the end and the start of a simultaneously happy and depressing two weeks until home. I don’t plan packing honestly until the day or two before I fly home because I see it as a waste of time. Maybe I will pack a little but every night before I go to bed.

2 weeks Kerry, that is all you need to do. Push harder for two weeks and then you can relax.

Let’s Talk About Uni.

Want to work your brain a bit? Here’s the Macroeconomics Problem Set for this week. Enjoy!

1. Government spending in the CIA model:
a. Summarise the effects on output and employment of a temporary increase in government expenditure in the cash-in-advance model that is financed through lump-sum taxes.
b. How does your answer change if the government decides to pay for the increase in spending by an (unexpected) one-time increase in the money supply instead?
c. Finally, how does your answer change if the government finances the increase in spending by permanently raising the growth rate of the money supply.

2. The zero bound on nominal interest rates: Use the money demand model discussed in lectures to answer the following questions. Suppose we have an economy in which the nominal interest rate is currently zero (i.e. R=0).
a. What is the equilibrium quantity of credit card balances in this economy?
b. What is the equilibrium quantity of money demand in this economy? (Hint: Consider whether the transaction constraint is binding or not.)
c. In what sense does the economy run more efficiently when R=0 rather than with R>0?

3. The Friedman rule: Suppose that consumers are concerned about theft, so they want to use credit card services for some of their transactions even if the nominal interest rate is zero. How would the Friedman rule for monetary policy be altered under those circumstances?

I met The Queen of England and I know you won’t believe me.

Decked out in a royal blue coat and a matching hat, the Queen of England strolled down the gravel pathway outside of the Royal Chapel in Windsor Great Park after the church service. I met her. If you do not believe me, I have about 25 other people who can verify this information, but no pictures because the Royal Guard and Interpol made sure that was impossible. This was the topper to one of the best weeks of my life.

This past week was pretty incredible. To start off birthday week, it was Felipe’s birthday! We went out to the Monument Pub for his 21st celebration on Monday. We had a pretty festive night but didn’t go too hard because classes would resume on Tuesday morning.

I was anticipating Tuesday being exceptionally lame and was mostly right up until 23:00. I held off on drinking the entire day so I could say that I had an “American” 21st and had my first legal drink at midnight. Much to my delight, I ended up joyriding around the city of London on Barclay’s Cycle Hire Bicycles! We rode around until midnight and stopped at the monument in Trafalgar Square. The city lights look so much better while sitting outside on a beautiful night on top of a monument. You should try it some time.

Wednesday, October 12 was incredibly entertaining. The night started with a rousing trip to Tesco! Stefan, Paula and Felipe came to my room and we had a drink or two before heading out for the night. My fabulous suite mate Reeya hang out for a little bit also and she lit my birthday cheesecake! The big 21. We started our pub crawl by going to one of my favorite pubs, The Maple Leaf Pub. This Canadian Pub has a really down to earth vibe and definitely a bit of a home feel, as they show American sports on everyones favorite ESPN.

On our walk away from The Maple Leaf, we strolled into Lyceum Tavern for a couple of pints. It was a fun little random pub. One of my favorites that we stumbled upon was the Cellar Door. What would appear to be a possible tube stop from street level turned out to be a really unique and epic pub underneath. Definitely a place to check out if you are ever in this great city. Rowley bought me a scotch while we were here and it was one of the most incredible vibes I have ever gotten in a tiny pub. The night would end up exactly the way I wished it to, at The Kinghts Templar. This pub has very quickly become my favorite place to hang out because of the incredible and inexpensive food combined with a great selection of cocktails and brews. £5.99 for a burger, chips and a pint of beer. You can’t beat that deal anywhere in London. Not to mention the fact that every Thursday is Curry Night where you can get a bunch of food and a pint for £6.59. I love The Knights Templar so much. To conclude the night I hung out with Jack (http://jacksavarese.wordpress.com/) for a while and listened to a bunch of random music while talking to his suite mate about the chips vs. crisps and the lack of pretzels, gold fish and peanut butter in this country. This was my most successful birthday to date and definitely one to remember.

Thursday and Friday don’t really matter because nothing exciting happened, so I’ll skip over those. What started on Friday, though, was the trip to Cumberland Lodge. The food was exceptional and house felt like my home in NC. There was an incredible bathtub that made my day in the bathroom and creaky floors as well. The theme of the weekend was the 2012 London Olympics and there were several speakers throughout the weekend that generated conversation on everything from transportation to the correlation between happiness and social policy. Paula was my roommate and I absolutely loved that fact because I love Paula! We went to visit Windsor Castle in all of its splendor on Saturday afternoon also. On the final night, after all of the lectures and discussion, free time and fabulous food, we had the General Course Pub Quiz! My team (Speed Monopoly) managed to snag second place, even though we should have won but two of our answers were disqualified! We won GC coffee mugs, mine of which came in handy this morning for my 9 am lecture. On Sunday morning, we were able to attend a church service at the Royal Chapel (as stated earlier) and got to meet the Queen of England. Queen Elizabeth II is absolutely adorable and one of the most poised figureheads, in my opinion. If you really do not believe that I met the Queen because there is no picture evidence, check out the handout from church that states she was there. IT REALLY HAPPENED AND I REALLY TALKED TO HER.

On a more academic note, today has been one of the busiest days during my time at the LSE. It started off with my EC210 (Macroeconomic Principles) lecture in Peacock Theatre at 9, followed by a pick me up Açaí smoothie in the New Academic Building (NAB) before my MN203 (Social Science Research Methods for Management) lecture. After a bit of a sprint to make it to Tower 1 for my MN201 (Economics for Management) class, we spent an hour creating the biggest and most complicated decision tree you will ever see. I met up with Steve, Stefan and Jon at The Knights Templar for a bit of lunch and then moseyed on back to the British Library of Political & Economic Science (aka the LSE Library) for 3 hours of STATA work for the problem set due for MN203 for my class at 17:00. After THAT I walked back to Bankside and took a momentary break for some dinner and then went to Fitness4less. And here we are… I am back in my room and ready to copy Appendix B and C from Wooldridge’s Introductory Econometrics, read 4 chapters of Macroeconomics, and 3 chapters of Understanding Poverty. I have no class or lecture tomorrow so this can be spread out a tad bit, but I also plan on whipping up a vlog from Cumberland Lodge tomorrow.

Expect lots of things soon.

Cheers!–Kerry

Just a random update.

I need to delete a bunch of stuff on my computer because all of my videos are taking up massive amounts of space. I’m going to Borough Market with a couple of people here in a little bit and then I will come back and finish the Scotland vlog. Expect that tonight (and hopefully it will work on youtube if I use a different song).

In other news…

Manchester Orchestra is tonight and I couldn’t be more excited to see them live. Andy Hull has the voice of an angel.

I am officially a member of the LSE Rowing Team and workouts start bright and early on Monday!

The GC trip to Stonehenge and Bath is tomorrow and I plan on taking some epic photos.

It’s cold outside and now I can wear scarves.

My 21st birthday is in 6 days!

Classes start in another week but lectures are still next week and they should be intense.

I want a plant.

My room is finally decorated and it looks awesome and makes me so excited about living here.

Yesterday and the day before that were wack.

See you later.–Kerry

So…

I realize that I have been massively ineffective at updating but I swear I have a good excuse. This has been one of the craziest weeks of my life. New friends, new habits, new everything. It has been absolutely incredible. But I will be making a new vlog hopefully by the middle of next week highlighting random LSE things as well as our GC trip to Stonehenge and Bath this weekend. I also have to upload the Scotland vlog which I have yet to edit, but expect that within the next couple of days.

On the brighter side, lectures have started! What an incredible institution this is. I am loving the intensity that the LSE requires, because I have to push myself so much further than I ever have academically. This week is going to be full of several lectures of classes that I know I will be taking but also some that I might audit or switch into. More details on selected classes next week.

So far I have only been to three lectures (Macroeconomics, Social Science Research Methods for Management, and Internationalization of Economic Growth) and all have copious amounts of reading required. It’s going to be an intense year.

SO LOOKING FORWARD TO IT.

CHEERS!–Kerry

The time is almost here.

In exactly two weeks, I will be leaving for what is sure to be the most life-changing experience of my life. I have been waiting for September 14, 2011 since February 14, 2011. Who would have known that seven months time would be so incredibly difficult. After the roller coaster of drama (the drama-rama) of great times and the worst, I couldn’t be more enthusiastic about what is to come. Of course, there are some people that I am going to miss immensely, such as the lovely Emily, but there are definitely a couple of people that have been detrimental to my happiness. In two weeks, I will begin a new life: drama free, academically challenging and full of adventure.

Just in case you don’t know who I am, here’s a little bit to tell you. My name is Kerry Radigan and I am soon to be 21 and living in London. Currently, I live in Southern Pines, North Carolina in my parents household that doubles as a classy Bed & Breakfast (www.knollwoodhouse.com) on the 15th hole of Mid-Pines Inn & Golf Club (http://www.pineneedles-midpines.com) where I worked for several years. I am a junior and a Bryan Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, but will be studying abroad in London, England for this academic year! I will be studying at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in the General Course study abroad program. Expect a British accent and awkward spelling upon my return. I would give you the generic likes and dislikes, but it’s pretty pointless considering you will be exposed to every aspect of my life in the upcoming year.

The Facebook group that our General Course people have going has been so helpful, both for meeting people and talking about the most random of subjects. I’m very excited for how involved our GC group is and I hope it is just a taste of what the year has in store for us. When the Cumberland Lodge Visit was announced in an e-mail, the 50 spots for GC students were filled in just one day! Can’t wait to meet you all!

ALSO… I am pleased to announce that I will also be documenting this year through a Video Log (vlog) hopefully bi-weekly, but we will see how frequently I get around to editing. I would say, expect a vlog every other Sunday. I hope. Really.

As for now, I will continue to pack my room in its entirety into various boxes and suitcases. I’m not sure if there will be anything important to post until I actually am in London, so I’ll catch you on the flip side!

Cheers! –Kerry