Journal Entry #12

I have to say, the IAS 360 Field Study Prep class has been incredibly helpful so far. I remember being very excited about the whole idea of the Field Study when I first learned about it and made the decision to sign up. Then came the preparation interviews, the paperwork (purposefully signing my life away), and the class. Jumping through the hoops was all well and good until this point, but during the last few weeks I started thinking seriously about my day to day in London, and the reality of this ninety day adventure actually happening at the end of this semester actually started hitting home. At the same time though, the discussions in class and the research sources that I've been looking up and writing about three times a week have had a bracing effect. I can say that I'm more excited about going to London today than I have ever been. I feel more confident about my research topic, the methods I'll be using and the activities I'll be doing on a day-to-day basis while I'm there. The semester has been extremely busy with Political Science 200 and huge papers to turn in on an almost weekly basis. I enjoy learning about the topic I'm researching in London this summer I could spend hours and hours reading articles, poring over maps of the underground, and watching Youtube videos of different bus routes :)

At the same time, however, so man of the things I've been involved in have been helpful as I've prepared and thought about this summer. First of all, PL SC 200 is exactly the kind of rigorous writing and research preparation that I need in order to do this project effectively. My job as a sales person at Bluehost 20 hours a week has given me opportunities to talk to people from London, England several times this semester already, and I've told almost all of them about how I'm going there this summer. One of them even gave me his number and email and gave me some tips about where to get a place to live and places to go visit. He told me to call him if I needed to ask some questions while I'm there. That's sweet :D Studying in my History of England class has been incredible as I've been refreshing my memory of English history that I learned when I took AP European History as well as the study of the political system in the UK when I took AP Comparative Politics. Since HIST 323 is a class that focuses only on the history since 1689, I've been able to understand the history in a lot more detail than I have before.

There are still a lot of variables that I don't understand and haven't thought about. However, I'm feeling really good about it all :)