trading my quaker hat for a beaver tail

I did it! I survived my first day at the London School of Economics -- meaning I am officially an LSE beaver. Cute, no?

Today began with a nutritious breakfast:

Many thinks, ladies, for kindly participating in my annual first day of school photo!

And by "nutritious" I mean, well, candy. I met up with these three dashing LLMs for a rainy scamper to Piccadilly, where we sampled the delectable chocolates on offer at Carpo until we could nibble no more. Cardamom habanero pralines, white chocolate almond bricks, orange peels smothered in milk chocolate, pistachio-honey bark... alright alright I'll stop. But it really was smashing, and I would definitely recommend a trip if you're in the neighborhood. 

After swapping my purchases for my laptop, I followed this dapper young man the whole way to school:

There, I met a friend from my program in the library before we headed to our first lecture. Today was "Gender Theory in the Modern World," so discussions of epistemology, liminality, representation, and teleology abounded. Ooof. Welcome to grad school.

But not to fear, I swiftly departed tutorial and headed straight to the campus pub, George IV, where I met a new friend for a celebratory glass of Shiraz. We discussed our childhoods (mine on a farm, hers near Versailles), our experiences with old boys' clubs (frats at Penn, societies at Cambridge), and how we already feel like citizens of this bustling, international school and its city.

Now, I am snuggled in my room (with a handful of purchases from this morning, of the salted caramel variety, in fact!) reading about Rawlsian notions of distributive justice as applied to international forest policy.

Utter London bliss.