Onward!!

There is something so fundamentally secure, so comfortable, about the aftertaste of chocolate cookies washed down with Cola that it immediately transports me somewhere else entirely, to a quasi-real memory of early teen video gaming afternoons, Saturday night comfort food, lazy morning snacks-instead-of-breakfast. It is a taste reminiscent of a time when real food appeared on the table by itself and soda could be found in the fridge only sometimes, not all the time.

It reminds me of a mishmash of summery evenings, of African sunsets, of those first warm May nights in Europe. There’s a hint of chain grease from bicycles in my memory, of scraped knees and blown-up dust in my nose. An excitement of dressing up to go out, whether to mess around in the dark or to go to a party. Smiling faces, laughter, running and feeling pangs of excitement mixed with fear when doing something new and quite possibly illegal.

Short breath, the fizz of an opened bottle. The rustle of bags of cookies. Smiles.

Comfort.

Joy.

It’s not every day you get to see your bathroom transformed into a makeshift darkroom. Living with students in London, the probability of it happening is probably higher than in many other places. As I write this, I have yet to see whether the black tape and trash bags block out light in sufficient quantities to allow the placing of photo paper inside pinhole cameras. Here’s to hope.

I just submitted my field course report that is worth 12.5% of my total grade for one course for this year. I think I spent about 20 hours on it, on and off, not counting the weekend we spent in the field. I don’t know whether that’s a lot or a little for something worth 12.5% of a quarter of my first year’s study, but I do feel exhausted now. I’m glad to have completed a real example of work, and have something to show for it (though it might not be very good, science-wise). I don’t count the non-assessed essays we have to write as something I have to show for being here, because they don’t count toward anything.

There’s one due next week. And the week after. And I think two for the week after that. That’s what LSE student life is like: wading through essay after essay.

As if to taunt me about the fact that I was apparently born at the coldest and darkest part of the year, mother nature decided that it would be cool to drop snow on London on my birthday. The entire city is a shambles, with trains running with ridiculous delays (I caught the 7:57 train at 8:33 this morning, instead of my usual 8:31 one) after a few measly centimetres of wet snow.

I still have a field report to finish up before I can grab a few pints with friends, and I forgot my ecology textbook at home. Figures. We’ll see how long that takes.

The world could stop for just a while, on my birthday.

Corporate social responsibilty and where it is going was the topic of a panel discussion I went to tonight. It was also my introduction to the field. I always knew that there would be good fields that I had never heard of, ones that could give both me and my employer – not to mention the environment the company operates in – fulfilment, profit and betterment. At least, more fulfilment than investment banking ever could.

The global scale of these responsibility programs really impacted on me. How a Marks & Spencer supply chain decision can impact communities and businesses literally on the other side of the globe was something I had “thought” about, but it had never hit home. What we, the privileged elite that benefit from globalization do and decide on has massive impacts on those that live on the other side of the globalization coin.

It would be absolutely fascinating to professionally study the environmental, social and political impacts of economic decisions and report back from the ground to financial centers, and be able to see how the actual decisions play out in practice. That’s something I would like to do. I am not saying that the actions of corporations today are ethically laudable, though they may very well engage in environmental impact assessments and corporate social responsibility schemes. However, it is infinitely more likely to be able to change a company working from the inside out, rather than yelling at them from the outside.

Oh god, I never thought I’d be planning to join a consulting gig.