1940’s
1973
18 Tuesday morning, early start. 188 towards
clare
Russell Square, off at Aldwych, forward to Houghton Street. I take note as I stare up at an obstinate collage; pieces that serve, not so much individual objets d’architecture, but as fragments of a glass and stone whole. I step back and hear the alto, melodic undercurrents of daily conversation set to a techno beat coming from variegated tents. The inhale-exhale of a city as a panting breath of a breeze, an electricity, an ecstatic chill and the sudden question: Wait, is this it? There is an aura that surrounds the LSE when a student first arrives, the type that is created by a name and buttressed by reputation spread globally in text books and theories, one much bigger than the university itself. It is hard to not be impressed by the possibility of seeing a Nobel Prize winner in the queue for morning coffee, or having the option to pop in to a guest lecture from a world
1994 By Trevor H. Taniguchi
expert between lunch and an afternoon seminar. It is quickly all too evident that I’m within a collective of students that were the top of their respective classes, that are all the best and the brightest. A professor asks, ‘Can someone give me a true bi-conditional in German?’ Check. I overhear, ‘What’s your assessment of Stiglitz’s new book?’ Everyone has an opinion. ‘What’s the difference between Smith’s and Hume’s Sentimentalism?’ Well, how long have you got? I encounter the optimists in Development, the pessimists in International Relations, the reflective in Philosophy, and the masochists in Economics. This is the convergence of ideas and events. It’s the intersection of theory and experience. I take note. The flyers on the walls of the Old Building, the handouts on Houghton Street, the headlines in the papers: they are not merely abstract news articles. Being