Tuesday, 1-9-96
12:49 AM London
6:49 PM E-Town (1-8-96)
First class at Birckbeck today: International Business! The Prof. (or “tutor”) is a great guy named Paul Cooper, who Michelle Cook had told me about.
The class seems interesting! Had to get into groups already for a project, which led to my having a moral dilemma… I ended up w/ 2 women I felt good about working with, when we were approached by another whom we preferred not to work with. She caught us off-guard, kind of invited herself into our study group & ultimately we told her we wanted to work just the 3 of us!
It was awkward, & my conscience & soul did not take well to the situation. I felt bad, I am sure the woman left out felt worse… But, under the circumstances, we had to somewhat look out for our own best interests, in this case being a healthy learning/studying/group project environment!
She’ll get over it, eventually I will too… God help me.
This afternoon a new friend, Jill, who I got to know on Sat. exploring Chester, & I got lost in Bloomsbury (where Birkbeck is located) trying to find our “Euston Square” tube stop. She ended up returning to Pembridge w/ me for a late lunch & to hang out until we had to be back at school at 5 PM for a reception “to meet the Birckbeck tutors.” There was free wine & most of the tutors showed up late, at which pt. most of the students had already left.
I got to meet my British Society tutor & he seemed nice.
Back at Pembridge Lori & I had a great talk. We continue to be very compatible roommates & are becoming good friends. Due to a niche (I am pretty sure I meant glitch) in her program — Butler’s fault — she & I may get to travel together when our programs are over! ☺︎ But, I don’t want to get my hopes up…
We then went out, about 8 PM, to a pub called “Prince Albert’s” in Bayswater. We went w/ Anne, a guy friend of her’s from home, Kelli, Aimee & Martha.
Lori & I had a pint each & decided to come back early.
We then had a late dinner w/ our awesome dancing neighbors Erin & Erica! I really enjoy chatting w/ them! Class #2 in the U.K. tomorrow!
— Later! ☺︎
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Note from Present Day Kathy: I don’t recall many, if any, other times in my life when I needed to be in a study group, or work together with classmates on a project like this, where someone wanted to be included and I participated in excluding them. That is not in my nature, I pride myself on trying to be inclusive, and I appreciate why I struggled with it back then, as I am sure I would now. I found the incident painful to reflect on.
Its interesting to read about the early days of my relationships with my roommate (not her real name) Lori and my classmate (not her real name) Jill, as they would turn out to be two of my closest friends that semester.
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Reminder: Unless I’ve been given permission to use people’s actual names, in most cases I’ve removed or replaced the names of the real people who were part of my journey/experience there, in effort to protect and respect their identities/privacy in my London Semester Journal entries. I will also not share details that I think and feel are too personal for anyone I interacted with, my loved ones, and me.
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Here’s the back story of My London Semester Journals from 1996, including what prompted me to revisit and decide to share them here in 2018. And here’s a list a list of the entries, which I will update as I share them.
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