I won !!!

I freakin' won the Bernard Levin award. I am just going to use this platform to brag, since it's pretty much only darling Aleks Giga who reads my blog, I think ... I will be going an internship at the Daily Mail this summer and fingers crossed find a way to stay in jounralism. So here's the entire winning essay. The award presented said it was "un-put-downable"!

Failing LSE

7AM. Vivaldi’s Spring. Lights. And all that jazz. Toothbrush, coffee cup, run for the 243. Monday traffic, newspaper. Oh, look, it’s my Financial Regulation professor in Letters to the Editor again, and the topic for next class on the front page. Who needs a course pack anyway? Aldwych, The Royal Court of Justice. BUS STOPPING. Dash to class. Good morning, Buenos Días, Привет. I can never remember how many times they kiss hello in Chile. 22 classmates, 18 countries, 10 accents, 100 opinions. We are an argumentative bunch. Last Friday we came up with 12 reasons why new policy of the old chairman of the Federal Reserve might be wrong. In the break between two lectures we disagreed on Beckett as well. Professionals go to conferences abroad to discuss change with leading academics and other bright minds. I go to school.
Have you listened to a Rachmaninov concert for piano and orchestra? It usually starts off with a theme played by the string instruments, which later repeats, while the sounds of a grand piano pierce the violin-lead harmony to disturb the unison and leave a mark. Existing in the LSE reality makes me want to be a Rachmaninov piano. The student body would be my string ensemble. I marvel at the thought, energy, and enthusiasm accumulated on Houghton Street. Yet every day, I get reminded, I am not the only piano around. The Union, the street, the classroom, the pub are buzzing with the allegro appassionato solos of young people decisively taking over platforms and championing the causes they hold dear. In discussions on state intervention and entrepreneurship, on racism and freedom of speech, the public-private border is stormed. Private conversations can be as enlightening as public events, making it incredibly difficult to choose between spending Tuesday evening sparring intellectually among the Debate Society or discussing climate change with a Lord. Ultimately, the discourses enrich us more than the conclusions. In the dissonance of melodies, we strive to emerge harmonious, failing gloriously and walking away with more questions than answers. It’s a failure worth every penny.
One of my favorite things about the LSE is that it trivializes exceptionality. Take for example the book I bought this week from the bookshop on campus. It is arguably one of the most up-to-date and well argued books on its subject at the moment. It was Tuesday afternoon, and equipped with my new purchase, a cup of fair-trade mint tea, and a spare hour I sat in the Fourth Floor Café, only to be handed a colorful schedule for this year’s Economics and Finance Society conference. Imagine the pleasant astonishment when among the familiar names of LSE academic champions, I spotted the very author of the book I was holding. Before I knew it, I found myself front row seated, bright light lit, questions scribbling, and talking to a friend who had just interviewed the star panelist for the school newspaper. A nonchalant waltz to the forefronts on knowledge.
I went home that evening and stayed up late finishing the book, going over the issues the writer had raised in her speech, and trying to come up with conclusions of my own. As student tradition requires, my nocturnal musings completely disarmed the frantic sounds of my wake up alarm, forcing me to fast forward my mourning routine and speed off to class. Yawning recollections from last night’s reading collided with the sounds and smells of London in the morning; my affection for living in a dazzling metropolis mildly diluted by the pressing need to make my way through the cultural smorgasbord and get to class on time. Valuing punctuality is generally a good idea. Valuing punctuality was particularly beneficial that day, as the guest lecturer was not only an accomplished professional, but a change maker discussed in that very book bought, by that very writer I met earlier in the week. This lecture was an exceptional opportunity; it was also just another day at the LSE.
7AM. Vivaldi’s Spring. Lights. It is Friday already. As the pages of the calendar turn, I wonder will I ever be surrounded by a group of individuals this diverse, intriguing, witty and challenging, as I have been throughout the year. The chatter of Houghton Street campaigning shakes me off of my introverted retrospect. A line for tickets in front of the Student Union desk. Whose prime minister will be visiting the School next week? E-mail. Will I join few friends for a concert at the Royal Festival Hall next Monday? Of course I will, Rachmaninov is in the program. Glance over the seminar topics for the next lectures. More questions with no clear answers, another discussion to be had in class and continued over mint tea, another chance to learn what I need to learn more about.
LSE’s “motto rerum cognoscere causas” or “to know the causes of things” is a quote from Virgil's Georgics. Virgil's affinity for Epicureanism and the belief that the highest pleasure is achieved through knowledge and friendship suits us well, even if epicurean value of modesty and moderation does not completely fit a student body whose protests kidnapped the British headlines in the 1960s.
Midnight will strike shortly. A question I have been putting off all week lingers on my mind – how to encapsulate LSE’s vigor, where to apply the drive and curiosity the School fosters when the academic year is over? The concern is legitimate, but I am not too worried. Bernard Levin himself was never able to choose between Vietnam and Wagner. After all, to know that the best question is the one with no easy answer or a single answer at all, to be able to fail at being one-dimensional and narrow-minded is what our LSE degrees are really about.