Time is ticking away.

Well, I have about 2 weeks left in London before I depart for Italy and Ireland. The time has gone by extremely fast. Like anything else, all good things must come to an end. However, I am still enjoying myself and living it up until the last minute. Although, the enjoyment level has dropped now that every second of my time is occupied by either a) work at Parliament or b) writing my dissertation. I had an awful experience the other night. I lost 2,000 words of my disseration (i.e. 4 hours of work) because the Parliamentary system saves things in a weird place when opening files from an email account. Last night, I stayed at work until 10 re-writing the material I lost. This experience sent me into a rage. However, my researcher tried to calm me down by explaining that it was a relatively small problem in relation to the number of serious problems faced by those throughout the world (i.e. AIDS, Genocide, etc...) Although I shrugged it off at the time, it definitely made me think about what he said.

The dissertation I am required to write here is very similar in structure to the AWD report I had to write at Northeastern. The difference is we have about 3 weeks to compose the report here while, at home, we had an entire semester. My dissertation question is as follows: Is the Labour Governments call for a strategic forces approach to amalgamating the current structure of police forces in England and Wales the best approach for creating an effective 21st century police force? This question is extremely complicated because it mixes traditional organizational theory and a current political issue. The British system of education requires a structural framework based off of theory. The theory is then applied to modern day issues. The literature review portion of the paper requires that you read up on all the research and then show the gap in the research of which you are trying to fill by answering your question. It is a bit difficult and very time consuming.

Final exams are also on the horizon. In two weeks, we have the tests for both of our classes. The exams are worth a whopping 75% of our course grades! I am a bit worried about how they will be structured. Also, they are three hours long. This is only an hour long than Northeastern exams. However, it is hard to imagine writing for an additional hour. My hand often gets tired and covered in ink. Furthermore, there is a lot more material to cover with only a few days available to study for the tests.

In other news, I had to pleasure of sitting in the House of Commons Chamber and watching Prime Ministers Question time yesterday. It was incredible. Tony Blair is an extremely gifted politician. It truly makes George W. Bush look like a sixth grader. I now have a better understanding for why Europeans and those throughout the world view as a utterly incompetent (not that I didn't know why this was so prior to my trip because I share their view). I think that Presidents in the United States should be forced to address Congress far more often and take unscripted questions. The ability of politicians to address Congress and public forums should be essential piece of the job description. To me, if you have not taken a public speaking class somewhere along the line, your resume is certainly not strong enough. The President of the United States is arguably the most important world leader and should have enough skill to at least pretend like he knows what is going on. Additionally, Gordon Brown announced the budget for Britain yesterday and I was able to stay in the chamber and see his tenth budget speech as Chancellor. This was arguably the most important day in Parliament since we have been here. It is really mind-boggling to think that I can say I saw the Labour Government's 10th annual budget delivery. Also, it is extremely likely that Gordon Brown will be the next Labour Prime Minister when Tony Blair decides to leave office within the next 2 years.

All of our travel plans are booked for my post-program travels. The cities I am going to see (as of now) are as follows...

Milan, Italy
Venice, Italy
Florence, Italy,
Rome, Italy
Dublin, Ireland
Galway, Ireland
Cork, Ireland

I am exstatic at this point. As long I can buckle down and work hard over the next few weeks, I surely will be rewarded. My parents will visit next Friday for 6 days. This will be the first time my mom and brother have never been to Europe. I have thought long and hard about how lucky I am to have seen so much in my life. I now am an expert on one of the biggest and most exciting cities in Europe and will always be able to navigate my 'second home.' Signing off.