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30 November 2010

Christmas in the mitten

Now that it is official I feel like I can say it out in the open: I will be back in Michigan for my Christmas break! I truly was not expecting to come home...I was going to hang out here in London with a couple of my friends. But in the end, my family convinced me that coming home was the best thing to do this year - so to the mitten I will go. I'll be home for about three weeks...it should be a nice break. I absolutely adore London, but Christmas wouldn't have been the same without my family. The one thing that was kind of holding me back was my wanting to be here for New Years, but I'm just trying to keep in mind that I will hopefully be here for next year's festivities with my friends!

Either way, I am very excited to be able to see my family, my friends, my dogs...and of course eat delicious home cooked meals, Christmas cookies, go to my favorite restaurants, and so forth. It's just crazy because it all came about so quickly, but I'm already getting very excited.

In other news, there are a few things going on that, as a student of international politics, I'm extremely interested in and thought I would pass along some pertinent articles for those who wish to peruse them.

First, we have this huge Wikileaks mess going on. For pretty good coverage of everything, go to either the Guardian page, or the NY Times page. I'll refrain from getting too far into it, but I must say that I think it is completely socially irresponsible for this organization to release hundreds of thousands of confidential documents for the sake of "governmental transparency." While there is obviously a need for transparency in many facets of the political world, international security does not always allow for it - and for the safety and protection of our citizens, we must accept a certain degree of non transparency.

Second, there is a major uproar going on here in the UK about the possibility of student fees rising pretty significantly. As a result, students at many universities (including mine, which this particular article is about) are posing occupations in university buildings to show their distaste for such raises. This particular occupation is taking place in a room next to the main library on campus, and they've now been there for a week. The article gives a little insight into what it's like inside of the occupation, and I just found it to be pretty interesting.

So, I'll leave you with that. Less than three weeks, Michigan!

2 comments:

  1. Yay! I know you have friends and a life in London but I also know how close you are with your family. I was sad you wouldn't be home for the holidays so I'm happy for this news! {b/c it's all about ME, right?!} Ha.

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  2. I couldn't agree more about there needing to be limitations on transparency.

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