Get it? It’s a terrible Photoshop of a scene from 28 Days Later with my face in it – because I’m 28 days into term 1 at school and live in London. Damn it, I was right: Business School is murdering my creativity. Of course I was supposed to write this post 28 days into being here, but flip turning your entire life gets in the way sometimes, okay?
The following is a collection of what I’ve learned since I’ve moved here. Zero academic content ahead.
On London
- A lot of people consider b-school a two year vacation from life, and you aren’t wrong entirely. However, this two-year vacation comes with late night group meetings, countless spreadsheets, and sleeping less than six hours a night. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not a hard life; but I don’t spend my days in indie coffee shops and traverse art galleries. I have to do the things I did back home like buy toilet paper and scrub the sink. I don’t know why I am so fixated on the bathroom – because I am not calling them loos. The British would think that I was making fun of them, and they’d be correct. So sorry to disappoint, daily life in London is just like daily life anywhere else.
- I’ve discovered why people in the country are so surly here. It’s because clothes don’t dry here. Washer/Dryer combos should take a cue from 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner, that shit just don’t work. It takes like four days to air dry a pair of jeans.
- The best learning I’ve had so far is to learn how the buses work. They look all menacing because they turn and go all over the place, not to mention you don’t really how the stops at each intersection work – but once you do learn, it’s worth it; since that means you don’t have to descend the depths of hell to take the Tube, and it smells way less on the bus (most of the time). Bonus, if you sit in the front seats of the second level it’s like a video game called “hit the pedestrians”.
- On the subject of the pedestrian-vehicular dynamic – I still can’t get over how pedestrians have zero right of way here. No additional story on this, other than seriously, cars: you suck.
- When you arrive in this country with no highlighters and two hockey jerseys, you realize that you’re a much better Canadian than you are a student.
- Remember the days when your only two options you had were to pay attention or fall asleep in your seat? My university lecture halls didn’t have cell phone service, nor did anyone really bring their laptops to class when we all didn’t have MacBook Airs that weigh next to nothing. Mine was like 11 pounds (and I don’t mean quid). Now I can be on my phone, tablet, or laptop and never pay attention, nor can I sleep. Worst still is when you have to watch the people in the rows ahead of you online shop/watch videos.
- Sometimes life is like an Alanis Morissette song where you meet the man of your dreams and then you meet his beautiful wife. If only he had mentioned her way earlier in our conversation.
- Know what’s important in friends - find the girl who understands why it was so important for me to bring my 5-inch Brian Atwoood shoe boots, hug her, and never let her go.
- When you’re describing to someone what a hipster is, make sure you aren’t describing your own glasses and love of aggressively coloured pants. And then telling them that hipsters refuse to think of themselves as hipsters. Man, back in my advertising days I was the most buttoned up of the lot. It’s a sliding scale of hipster, like the sliding scale of douche. It’s all in what you’re used to. Don’t worry, I still don’t own a single plaid shirt; I changed countries, not brains (though maybe that would have helped).
On Self-awareness
- If you’re going to sink yourself into debt going back to school don’t spend the preceding few years developing ridiculous standards. Because those who climb the highest fall fastest when the paycheques stop. This is the lowest sheet thread count I’ve dealt with for a long time and I’m sincerely re-thinking all of my dry clean only goods. But never forget who you are, because polyester will always be a poly-no-sir.
I can already tell that this is the best decision I’ve made in a long time. Even if I don’t really know what I’m doing half the time, life is carefully, carelessly spinning out of control. And I think I like it. I’m glad we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto; because London is the shit.
