You know you go to the LSE when... Take three

You know you go to the LSE when it's 11 pm on a Friday night, on the last day of Lent term, the day that kicks off a five-week break from classes... and the library has at least 50 people in it. (Note: I was only there to drop off my clarinet in my locker post-musical, of course.)

You know you're in England when...part four

You know you're in England when the ice cream truck starts making the rounds in March - not because it's warm, but because there's no guarantee that it's ever gonna get better than this.

You know you go to the LSE when... Take two

You come home at 10 on a Friday night to work, feeling a bit like a loser, and two of your four flatmate are already home and working hard. On a Friday night.

You know you go to the LSE when...

You see an advert in your 'Student News' E-Newsletter for a Managing Perfectionism Workshop.: "This workshop will look at common difficulties with excess perfectionism, and cover a wide range of practical approaches to help you manage your studies."

You know you're in England when...part three

You know you're in England when people use umbrellas in the snow.

Highlights of Christmas break

Sons of Maxwell’s “United Breaks Guitars” video, the saving grace of my mission to get my guitar home for Christmas without checking it. (Me: “Is there any space for this in the cabin? I really can’t put it underneath…” Flight attendant: “Yes, don’t worry, I’ve seen the video. We’ll find a place for it.”)

The brewery tour of the RO with Troy – even if I suffered for it.

My father as Herr Drosselmeyer in “The Nutcracker” and his ridiculous mutton chops; clapping for my parents with my sister at my side. Being there for Terry’s last Sugarplum was also pretty special.

Making Italian Christmas cookies with my mom – and Em and Michelle – for the first time in probably a decade. And throwing said cookies into frosting to thwart the Master Baker’s neat rows. “Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’… Keep those cookies rollin’… Raw batter!”

Two consecutive visits to Dietsch Brothers on the way to and from my grandparents’ house in Indiana, where my 89-year-old grandmother announced, “I’m going to bed,” and my 88-year-old grandfather responded, “Well, we’ll miss you. We were going to have an orgy in here.”

The Troublesome Trio, reunited for the first time since one became a Dannenberg, one became an Englin and one moved to England – followed by a night out with the Dondero ’04 kids.

A slightly pathetic sleepover with Sarah, Sami and Em where we struggled to stay awake past 12:30. Also, where we concluded that borrowing Chris Schulte’s flannel PJ pants was “not as weird” as borrowing my boyfriend’s father’s bicycle shorts, which I have also done.

The Christmas Eve traditions: cinnamon rolls, front pew of the balcony at church, the street with candles in bags, the Washington house, “It’s A Wonderful Life”, “The Night Before Christmas” and Luke.

Reading old journals, to endless amusement. Talk about vivid recollection: I recorded a phone conversation with my seventh-grade crush in painstaking detail, and even notated the music from the adagio at my first Hope audition on a hand-scrawled treble-clef in the margins.

Two bedrooms, an attic and fourteen people: the Crisafulli Clan descends upon Uncle Dave’s house for a week. Somehow, it works.

My cousin Ian: “Papa, it must be strange to be at the bar with your kids and your grandkids.” My grandpa: “It’s strange just to be at a bar!”

A half-hour debate among the offspring about what my (other) grandfather’s upcoming date: what he should wear, where he should go, what time he should go, what he should order, whether he should stay in one spot or move and whether he should kiss the lady at midnight on New Year’s. Poor guy’s head was probably about to explode.

Uncle Tom, gloating about the “great deal” he got on a blanket over eBay – to discover, upon its arrival, that the $3.80 plus $8.00 shipping he paid far exceeded the $4.98 shelf price of the felt rag printed with Americana kitsch. This led him to defend his purchase even more valiantly.

My cousins Maggie and Matthew, ages four and two, who perform a routine called “Dance Kids” every night before bed, which consists of them jumping, whirling, twirling, falling and bouncing to three Queen songs. The finale? “Fat-Bottomed Girls.”

Said cousin Maggie devouring a chocolate chip cookie as big as her head and an equally-large hot chocolate with whipped cream. (“I would have to drink a KFC chicken bucket full of hot chocolate to drink the equivalent of what she’s got.” –Dan)

A day trip to Brighton: girly time, pier walk and shopping, followed by Eastern Star, Pompoko and Battle of Trafalgar. Home.

The homeless man we served at FoodWorks who drizzled about a quarter cup of olive oil on each helping of soup or vegetable loaf, and then asked whether the flapjacks or scones were healthier when he returned for dessert. (He ended up eating several of both.)

A ski lesson in Switzerland, surrounded by pine-covered peaks, and the thrill of arcing down a mountainside for the first time.

The muesli, cappuccinos, pumpkin seed oil, Cailler chocolates and free-flowing wine that evoke my summer in Switzerland so well, thanks to Di and Malcolm.

Looking at old photos of Murray, Roland and their parents. Conclusions: Roland has thankfully grown out of his propensity for long bowl cuts; Murray’s facial expressions have changed little over time; and South Africa was much like the States in the ‘70s in at least one respect: short shorts galore.



All right, London. All right, Lent term. I'm rested. Bring it on.

You know when you're in England when... (take two)

You have discovered drinking establishments named "Dirty Dicks" and "The Famous Cock".

You know you're in England when...

You know you're in England when you sign up for the Royal Opera House's online ticket purchase service, and your choice of titles includes:

Baroness
Brigadier
Commodore
Count
Countess
Dame
Duke of
Earl of
H R H the Duchess of
H R H the Princess
His Highness
HRH Sultan Shah
HRH the Prince
King
Lady
Lord Justice
Marchese
Rt Hon Baroness
Rt Hon Viscount
The Dowager Marchioness of
Viscondessa

...or simply, "The Venerable."


And what the hell is a Princessin?

London Life: Take One

Today I commuted by bike for the first time. The ride from my flat in East London to the London School of Economics is 3.6 miles, pretty much a straight shot down a street that changes names about nine times. Last year my commute was 4.5 miles, so this should be a snap, right?

Wrong. It was harrowing. People do this every day? Good lord. I wore my helmet, donned my fluorescent pink biking vest and rode very conservatively, yet my heart was still pounding. I'm sure the veteran cyclists could tell by the look of terror in my eyes and the frequent, panicked glances over my shoulder that I'm a newbie. I know they're not going to hit me, if I'm not rude or stupid. I know that what I'm supposed to do is to ride out from the curb, perhaps a meter away, so cars and cabs don't squeeze me out but know that they have to give me space. But this is going to take some getting used to.

Everything else about living in London, though, is perhaps not as novel as it should be. London is already familiar turf to me. Yes, East London and the Whitechapel neighbourhood is new, and I love it - constant street markets, cheap and delicious Indian food, Somali translations everywhere, people of every hue. But the Tube is a pain, not a thrill; coming out of the Westminster station to see the Eye and Big Ben isn't exciting but just...is. Still, I'm no longer associating London with exhaustion, toting a big backpack, and harried dashes to catch a train or a bus, which is overwhelmingly how I remember it from last year.

I'm lucky to live near Regents Canal and Victoria Park - eight-tenths of a mile takes me to the canal and from there on out I'm on pedestrian-bike-only paths - and my runs are relaxing and gorgeous. The London Royal Parks Half Marathon is two weeks and two days away, and aside from the shin splints that are developing I'm feeling pretty much ready, and excited. The last of my five flatmates has moved in tonight, and it's shaping up to be a nice place. Best of all, Murray is staying in London and going to SOAS this year. Up until two weeks ago, we both thought he was going back to South Africa to take an internship, and that was going to be it for a while, and now he's about to move into a flat about a mile from me. It's very exciting :) (And the things we saw while flat-hunting on Monday made me very thankful to have already found a good place!)

Registration at LSE was today; I've got a student card, but I'm holding off on the "throwing myself into it" thing until classes really begin next Thursday... One more week of limbo, in which to finish my freelance work on 30-Second Economics, a book I'm contributing to - and celebrate my birthday on Sunday!

So that's what's up. I guess I don't write because part of me feels that it's indulgent, self-centred, to assume people want to read what I'm doing and thinking and learning. But I like reading my friends' blogs, so perhaps I'll make a bit more of an effort to record the trials and triumphs of my second year in England, my life in London.

Patriot, Misfit

(Written in my first week back in the States)

In the last 24 hours, I have been told four times that "This is the best country in the world," by women who insinuated that to feel otherwise just makes you darn stupid and, well, an evil socialist. I feel like a traveller in a foreign land, like an observer of some foreign culture: American patriotism.

But why? I'm glad I was born in the U.S. I loved growing up here, and when I am here I am happy. I'm proud of some of the things in our past, and some of the things we have contributed to the world. I'm fortunate and I know it. I loved showing off my country to my Norwegian friends last year, to my South African boyfriend this summer. Yet sometimes I'm wondering if I'm setting myself up for the life of an expat, because in a way I feel like I don't belong. Because I believe, more than almost anything, that nationalism should never supersede humanitarianism.

I know that's foolish. There are plenty of people here who feel the way I do - and plenty of people there who don't. (BNP, anyone?) Maybe it's just that two out of the last three years have been spent overseas. And the fact that during Bush's presidency, Americans abroad spent so much time apologising, trying to prove that we ARE great people.

But why is our nationalism and patriotism any different from that of my Greek friend, or my Belgian friend, or my Brazilian friends who love their countries? I suppose it's just more... loaded.

2008-2009: year of the bran flakes, natural yogurt, sweaty bike rides to school, trains to London Victoria, overnights at Goodenough, beachside jogging, dinners at 28 St Martins Place and South Downs hikes… To end in utter dissertation desperation.

life of a wanderer

The goodbyes have begun, and my eyes will moisten again and again as a cab pulls away or a door closes behind me. The people who have shaped my year are departing, one by one.

It's not just a sadness of not having friends around, of good times that can no longer be recreated, though I miss the conversations around the dirty Windlesham kitchen table and the post-class gatherings at the IDS bar. They have shaped not only my year, but my vision - of the past and the now and what is possible in the future.

These friends have invited me to see the world through the window of their past: An anti-establishment youth in a small German village. Living in 'project houses' at a Belgian university, eating communally with friends who care about social justice. Rising at 4 each day to cook for a logging camp in western Canada. Visiting grandparents on a Brazilian farm with pre-dawn breakfast of coffee with hot frothy milk, straight from a cow's udder. Six years in Paris, arriving without the language and emerging as a leading political activist with a vision for social change. A 40-minute bike across London each day to work in the superficial advertising and marketing bubble, and why to leave that life behind. A vivid picture of working as a professional chef.

These stories, and the people they have created, are forever part of my frame of reference, my vision of the possible. My life will be etched in reference to theirs, even after I can no longer call their voices and faces to mind. My challenge will be to emulate their best qualities: their wisdom and vision and humour and compassion, their capacities to listen and to inspire and to question.

And next year in London, I'll do the same. This transient life is disheartening at times - a year in Cape Town, a year in Amherst, a year in Brighton, a year in London, and who knows what next? But the excitement, the constant learning, the moments of euphoria and of feeling so alive, far outweigh the sadness of goodbye. It's a privilege to be doing this. And anyway, I prefer "see you soon."

Vote "no" on "no to genocide"?

As a shareholder of a Vanguard mutual fund, I was recently invited to vote on several proposals.

A year ago, I would've just voted according to the Board's recommendations, which are prominently advertised in the proxy statement: vote yes for every trustee, and vote yes for the updating and standardization of all funds' investment policies. I don't understand finance, I don't know what's best; these guys are professionals, I would've figured.

But a third recommendation gave me pause: the board of trustees is advising shareholders to vote AGAINST a proposal that would create procedures to prohibit investment in companies that "substantially contribute to genocide or crimes against humanity, the most egregious violations of human rights."

How can anyone claim that there's no need to divest from genocide?

Well, here's Vanguard's take: You should vote against this proposal because it would "duplicate existing practices and procedures of the Vanguard funds".

A quick look around the Internet shows this isn't true: according to Investors Against Genocide, Vanguard invests $303 million in "the top problem companies" as of 1/31/2009. Between the late 2008 and 1/31/09, Vanguard increased its holdings in PetroChina from 177 million shares worth $134 million to 189 million shares worth $140 million. PetroChina, through its parent, China National Petroleum Company, provides funding that the Government of Sudan uses to conduct genocide in Darfur. In its reply, Vanguard does not address or refute these claims.

But, again according to the Vanguard trustees, "mutual funds are not optimal agents to address social change."

*****

So what if you believe you can't separate ethics from investment practices?

In their reply, Vanguard's trustees suggest their so-called "ethical" investment fund, the Vanguard FTSE Social Index Fund. Authorised in 2000 "in recognition that some individuals consider social issues when selecting investments", the fund "screens companies on social, human rights, and environmental criteria".

The top ten funds:
1. JPMorgan Chase & Co.
2. Apple
3. Intel
4. Google
5. QUALCOMM
6. McDonald's Corp
7. Amgen
8. Bank of America
9. Gilead Sciences
10. CVS

...McDonald's? If you're concerned with the ethics of a corporate-industrial food system run by transnational companies and retailers, or with the environmental sustainability of the planet, how can you support a company that's reshaping the world's diet to include more and more meat when livestock production is responsible for 18 percent of all greenhouse gases, according to an FAO study? And that's just a top of my head... I'm sure a more intrepid blogger would go to town with that list.

Can we really be living in a system where someone who wants to invest ethically has no better options?

*****

What's most troubling is that all of this slips under our radars. Who has time to read a 131-page .pdf document sent by an investment company? Not many of us - and Vanguard knows it. If you don't want to think, when you get to the online ballot, you can just click a button that says "Show me what the board recommends" at the top of the page, and it fills in your votes FOR YOU.

And you're not only voting against the "no genocide" proposal. In voting to "update and standardise investment policies," you're essentially letting Vanguard do away with its current regulations, which are stricter than national standards. For example, the new proposals would allow Vanguard funds to borrow more money and use more leverage, which means investing more money than you actually have in order to make more profits. But haven't we all seen in the past few years that this can go terribly awry? Isn't it clear that our national regulatory framework for finance isn't quite up to scratch, and that its construction was inherently political?

Sure, there's an argument that this will increase efficiency and decrease expenses - but at what cost?

If I've learned anything this year, it's that deference to "expert knowledge" and unflagging trust in regulatory structures equals a devolution of governance to people and institutions who don't have our best interests at heart. We need to be asking: how were the regulations created? By whom? With whose interests at stake?

Yet I'm not one to stand on my soapbox. I voted this time, but I've let these decisions slip past me more often than not.

And even with awareness, what's to do now? As we can see, when investors mobilise to democratically challenge the structural power of finance, the company tries to subvert them by claiming virtues it doesn't have. If collective action doesn't work, what can we do to change the system?

don't look at the sun

Much has lost its mystery. The day I spiralled down the back stairs of Webster and lurched against a bathroom wall, giggling - so this is what it feels like to be drunk! The day I realised I was the one in the romance, not just watching it on a screen. The impossible becomes possible - moving overseas, learning a language. Less lustrous things have lost their mystery, too - how banks create money, and what happens behind the scenes of newspapers.

But I'm still not sure about the sun. If you look straight at it, you'll go blind, they always said. I watched it, low in the sky, because no one was there to tell me I shouldn't, just like there's no one to tell me not to eat ice cream for breakfast anymore.

The colours changed as I stared, threatening to become a colour I'd never seen. You're pushing it, the sun said. You'd better blink - a game of chicken.

I stopped running for a moment as it slipped behind the skyline and underneath the sea, waiting for the green flash, but I must have blinked at the wrong moment.

snowstorm

I have never seen a city so excited about snow.

To be fair, it's the biggest snowfall England has seen in 18 years, or so they're saying. Train service was shut down, buses were pulled off the roads, school was cancelled. One English friend told me he hadn't made a snowman since 1990 as we rolled snow and stones together on the beach into a lopsided snow-woman. Yet it's quite funny that London's in such a tizzy over an amount of snow that'd be laughable in Michigan or Massachusetts.

Still, I've fully embraced the excitement. My experience of this snowstorm is coloured by the fact that I celebrated my first snowfall of the season last night with two Brazilians who were seeing the first snow of their lives. I was washing dishes when Kaoru’s laughing flooded out from the darkened second kitchen. “Look!” I rushed to the window: two grown men gleefully packing snowballs. “Come on!” I cried. “Hurry!” and laughing, we spiralled up the staircase to grab our coats and cameras. Last night, there was a mere centimetre or two of snow, and still we danced in the streets, laid down in the crystals and made a knee-high snowman.

And this morning, it was real snow. Proper snow, turning the trees to enchanted trees and silencing the city. A group of us met at the seafront at noon and, fortified with sticky-sweet donuts, began a sporadic snowball fight that would last for two hours. After defending our lopsided snowman from unkind comments, I walked to the Brighton pier and looked out over the beach, towards the marina. I smiled at the sight of at least two dozen snowmen spaced out along the beach. The snow was still falling, the streets were full of mush and the bus service was still spotty, but Brighton was out in full force.

It may be what I love most about England: people are always outside. Doesn't matter the month or the temperature or even the rain. In mid-January, as the temperature hovers around zero, the seaside cafés are open, people are sitting at tables sipping coffee, and the beach walks are packed with strolling couples, joggers and waddling children. The racks at school are still packed with commuter bikes so you can't even find a spot.

Everyone sympathised with me before I came, moving to a rainy cold island, and now that I'm here they often ask, "How's the weather?" as though expressing sympathy for a nagging health problem. Perhaps it's because of my low expectations that I've been pleasantly surprised. Earlier this month I went hiking for the afternoon, remarking how pleasant the weather was as I strolled through fields of sheep. Am I turning into a Brit?

Nah. My snowman-making skills were infinitely superior.

soundtrack: snoring

This library is dead silent except for one echoing, raspy snore floating up from the ground floor. Each time I look up from my books, I see a punitive notice:

“The Library has received many complaints from user about graffiti in the study spaces… If you are aware of someone who is defacing Library property in this way, please contact the building manager.”

Someone has scrawled on it “SNITCHES GET STITCHES.”

The UMass library hummed until late. Real late. But it’s hard for a library to hum when the café closes at 8, when you have to leave the library entirely just to use the bathroom.

This seems like a strange thing to say, but I miss all-nighters in the first-floor silent zone at UMass. May was a time of purpose, of culmination, of pushing beyond the limit – but knowing Joe Meloni would be there even longer than I would. And at least there, I could look forward to a gorgeous view of the sunrise.

But this is what I get, I suppose, for 3 ½ study-less weeks in Cape Town. Worth it? Yes.

One of the cool kids

I’ve never been one of the cool kids.

Sure, it didn’t help that my mom dressed me in turtlenecks and stretch pants until I was ten, or that I used to sew my own felt “pocket-mice” and wear them in my breast pocket, or that I was one of the last girls in the seventh grade to start shaving my legs. I can’t reminisce about the high school parties because I didn’t go to any, and the first time I was offered alcohol in college – as part of an initiation ceremony – I did a water shot instead. Oh, and marching band uniforms – need I say more?

But there it was on the front page of the Metro, a British commuter paper, on November 5: “The day America became just a little bit cool again,” with a picture of Barack Obama smiling and waving.

Me? Cool? It’s true. In the past two weeks, no one here in England has bullied me for covert violence, nation-building or economic imperialism. In fact, they haven’t even teased me about my accent. Instead, everyone wants to talk about the election, to rehash my team’s victory. That’s never happened before.

I don’t know if I can take credit for my sudden coolness. Sure, I voted. I followed the election, but so did half of the Brits I know. I didn’t campaign or register voters. I didn’t pen any brilliant columns urging people to vote for Obama. I didn’t give money to the campaign. And I certainly haven’t discovered a newfound sense of fashion in the past two weeks. I’m wearing a turtleneck right now.

Yet somehow, I’m cool by proxy. Everyone wants to be an American now, because we have the greatest claim to the excitement that’s sweeping the world. In these days of escalating food prices, economic recession, the terrorist threat and global warming, the world has experienced an unprecedented, universal wave of optimism, and everyone wants a piece of it. Around the world, the population of “Canadians” abroad has probably been halved.

Now that I'm part of the “in-crowd,” does that mean someone else will end up a loser? Maybe. On November 5th, a British friend complained: “Half of our humour is gone – we can’t make fun of you Americans all the time anymore!”

Will my new “cool” status last? Obama’s inherited such a mess that it’s impossible for him to live up to his promise. When I railed on Bush recently to a friend for “killing people,” he reminded me, “Obama’s going to kill people too, you know.” The war in Iraq is not yet over, and commitment in Afghanistan is likely to grow. No one knows for sure how to rescue the economy, and we can’t afford to restructure health care, reinvest in public education and launch a “Green New Deal” at the same time.

So I’m going to bask in my newfound coolness it while it lasts. I can already feel it starting to wane.

But whaddya know? Nowadays, turtlenecks and stretch pants – at least in England – are back in style.

Obama is my president

"I'm proud to call myself an American for the first time in my entire life. I'm so happy."

She had a British accent, but she was crying, laughing, on her toes through the entire speech. Her mom was American, she told me, but she'd always been ashamed to admit it until now.

When I'd arrived at East Slope bar at one (that's 8 p.m. EST), I waited for half an hour outside the door before I was even admitted - the bar was filled to capacity. An American exchange student from Philadelphia and I stood on our toes to glimpse the big screen: Pennsylvania predicted to go Obama. We screamed, then whined: "Americans should get in first!"

But we did get in, and state after state turned blue: Pennsylvania. New Hampshire. Ohio. New Mexico.

Then, at 4 a.m.:

California.
Washington.

And the banner: "OBAMA VOTED PRESIDENT." How did it happen so easily, so fast?

On the way home, I passed a group of people on my bike. "Obama!" one yelled. "HE'S MY PRESIDENT!" I screamed back, then laughed gleefully, listening to Paul Simon. I couldn't keep myself from yelling the news to people at the bus stops on the way home:

"Obama's the president!"

November 4th

I have grown up in a time when so many Americans have been afraid to be proud of being American.

I have come of political consciousness in the seven years since September 11, 2001, as America has been increasingly vilified by others, increasingly polarised within. I have voted, but I have rarely felt that my voice was heard.

I left my country in 2006 feeling relieved to get away. And I have found my place in the world while apologising for my country. Once, the words were spat at me: "Everything evil comes from America." Other times, many times, I have laughed along with others at my country because mourning it has done no good.

I have come of political consciousness in a country that was still 50 percent disenfranchised by choice, a country much of the world still doesn't believe will dare to elect a black president.

And I have watched this race for more than a year, barely daring to hope. I have scanned the news reports, sometimes indignant, sometimes frustrated, sometimes afraid.

I know that the election means only new challenges. No person can absolve the sins we have committed or solve the problems we face. No one can restore the ozone layer we've depleted, rewind Katrina, erase the taste of American arrogance and greed that's still sour in the air.

But it is not about a savior for America.

It is about every American whose voice will be heard for the first time. It is about people in Uganda, and France, and China, and South Africa, and Thailand, who are watching with bated breath, who have followed this election religiously though we know nothing of their own politics. It is about every person who lived under Jim Crow laws or who has been the target of a racial slur or who has doubted what she can achieve.

Today, I remember the way I felt on a crisp, clear October night at Boston Common, after I saw Obama speak. As the crowds cleared, autumn leaves scuttled across the pavement in the breeze and words hung in the air, fat with possibility.

I can't call it, and I'm afraid writing this will jinx it. Maybe it's easier to feel confident from across the ocean. But this election is something much larger than myself; my words will not change what has been set in motion. All I can say is...

Bring it on.

"I didn't realise it was... That Bad."

Last Thursday, I went to a screening of the final presidential debate, sponsored by the Uni. Sussex Politics Society. Discussion was led by Professor Robyn Kolodny, an American professor on a Fulbright exchange who is an expert on American politics and election campaigns.

I was stunned by the turnout. A classroom meant to seat about thirty was overflowing; students were standing in the back and sitting on the floor. A few Americans came, but by and large the students were British, judging by their accents.

It's striking how much people here care about the American elections; one English girl even said she'd spent her summer in Florida campaigning for Obama, which reminded me of a South African acquaintance who's spent months in America doing the same. The awareness and interest 'across the pond' - I also saw a huge photo of Palin this weekend on the front page of the Bergen Tidende, the newspaper in Bergen, Norway - is a constant reminder of how much the American election does influence the rest of the world.

And the general assumption: everyone is for Obama. The president of the Politics Society talked about watching the elections in East Slope bar on November 4-5: it'll be a party "unless the wrong side wins", he said, to laughter. "Joe the Plumber" drew a lot of laughter, too; most audience members seemed to view McCain with incredulity, almost as a joke.

After the first segment, people asked Prof. Kolodny to explain - what's Acorn? who was Ayers? The most interesting part of the event, though, was the discussion following the healthcare segment of the debate. (Video is no longer available, but here's a transcript of the debate.)

In Britain, the NHS (National Health System) is free. I repeat: FREE. Everyone is guaranteed healthcare; it's treated as a right. Private insurance and care is also available, for people who want top-notch care or more expedient surgery. I'm no expert on the system, but so far my experiences have been good; I saw the doctor for a persistent sore throat, quickly and free of charge, and a friend of mine was seen quickly and taken care of well when he sliced off the tip of his finger. And what I sense so far is that, by and large, the English seem happy with this system.

So when McCain used "England" as a dirty word in the healthcare debate, some students seemed bewildered:

McCain: "Senator Obama wants to set up health care bureaucracies, take over the health care of America through -- as he said, his object is a single payer system. If you like that, you'll love Canada and England."

And it's true - one of the biggest fears in the American psyche is that we'll have to wait months to see a doctor, that we won't be able to get a good doctor. That's what we always hear about Canada and England - that the quality is terrible and the waits are long. We're scared.

From this side, it looks different. Students seemed shocked at the cost of private medical insurance: an average of $12,000 a year for a family, an expense McCain's $5,000 tax credit won't begin to assuage.

(For a useful summary of both Obama's and McCain's plans, information on how they would benefit different demographics, and links to independent analyses, check this out.)

One girl raised her hand. It seems so obvious that Obama's programme is better, she said. I guess I just don't understand why Americans would vote for McCain.

Professor Kolodny explained it well. Our American healthcare debate is framed in terms of choice and freedom, she said. Americans cling to the idea of choice in their health care - the idea that "I can go to any doctor I want" - but that choice is, in fact, only an illusion. You can go to any doctor you want... IF that doctor is on your insurance plan. IF (for some people) that doctor accepts Medicaid or Medicare, which many doctors don't because government remuneration is far less than what they'd get from the private sector. IF that doctor can accept more patients. IF you can get an appointment.

We're also obsessed with the idea of "on-demand healthcare". We want to be seen NOW - we don't want to wait. Yet in the States, you'll often have to wait weeks for an appointment. But we believe we have control over the situation, because we spend an entire morning on the phone calling different clinics, waiting on hold, until we find that at one place we can get in in six weeks while at all the others it'll be two to three months. Is that truly "on-demand"? I remember calling around to find someone to see me when I needed to send in my health information to the Marshall Commission. I had two weeks between being invited for an interview and flying to Chicago on 13 November; there was no one who could see me before early December, including the student health service at UMass, to simply give me a physical.

I added that our system is so complex that few Americans really understand it - even those who make an effort to do so. Robyn pointed out the amount of paperwork we have to do each time we leave the doctor's office: Was it an auto accident? Because then your auto insurance has to pay. Which insurance company pays for this, what do you pay out of pocket, what's your medical history... Sometimes, she said, she spends an hour on filling out forms after visiting the doctor.

I realised as she spoke that these sensibilities - of choice and freedom - are deeply ingrained in my psyche - but that British students were hearing the issues framed in new terms.

After the showing, a few people stayed around to talk. One English girl said to Robyn, "I didn't realise it was... I don't want to say it, but... that bad." Hilary and I laughed, but it was telling: to most of the rest of the world, it's common sense that the GOP platform is ludicrous, and American political rhetoric is often absurd.