I've been thinking. That's always dangerous.
Today as I walked up Kingsway I passed a girl who was perhaps in her late teens dressed in traditional Muslim garb kneeling on the pavement staring at the floor and rocking slowly back and forth. Now as I study in central London I pass homeless people almost every 5 minutes when I walk about and I have long since resigned myself to the fact that I can't help all of them. I have also got used to the fact that I am very good at not really seeing them, just like everyone else in London. However I don't know whether it was the fact that she was female, her clothing or her age but something about her really struck me. So much so that I almost turned around and asked if she was ok. I'm still not sure why I didn't and I am also not sure why I don't feel like this every time I pass someone who looks like they need help on the streets of London. I don't think there is an easy answer.
Also on my way home today I passed through St Pancras station. St Pancras is probably my favourite London building. I love it's gloriously mental Gothic nature and the engineering brilliance that went into it, all inspired by the Victorians love of technology.
It has recently been refurbished and now it looks amazing on the inside as well as the out. The job they have done, especially when compared to some of the horrendous messes London makes of its history, is fantastic. However although I appreciate that it probably needed a facelift and that they have probably done by the best possible job in the social context of today I still hate the fact that it feels like an airport. I hate airports and love stations so I wish my favourite station didn't feel at all like an airport. I admit a part of this is me missing its faded, old world glamour and that nostalgia is not a good basis for maintaining vital buts of national infrastructure but still it annoys me. Yet I can't think what else they could have done. Again I don't think there is an easy answer.
Indeed I don't think anything has an easy answer and today is also the day when I finally figured out the reason that I love most of my course. It is the fact that it asks difficult questions and then admits that there is no easy answers to any of them.
Be wary of people peddling easy answers, they are always lying and sometimes doing so for nefarious reasons.
Today as I walked up Kingsway I passed a girl who was perhaps in her late teens dressed in traditional Muslim garb kneeling on the pavement staring at the floor and rocking slowly back and forth. Now as I study in central London I pass homeless people almost every 5 minutes when I walk about and I have long since resigned myself to the fact that I can't help all of them. I have also got used to the fact that I am very good at not really seeing them, just like everyone else in London. However I don't know whether it was the fact that she was female, her clothing or her age but something about her really struck me. So much so that I almost turned around and asked if she was ok. I'm still not sure why I didn't and I am also not sure why I don't feel like this every time I pass someone who looks like they need help on the streets of London. I don't think there is an easy answer.
Also on my way home today I passed through St Pancras station. St Pancras is probably my favourite London building. I love it's gloriously mental Gothic nature and the engineering brilliance that went into it, all inspired by the Victorians love of technology.
It has recently been refurbished and now it looks amazing on the inside as well as the out. The job they have done, especially when compared to some of the horrendous messes London makes of its history, is fantastic. However although I appreciate that it probably needed a facelift and that they have probably done by the best possible job in the social context of today I still hate the fact that it feels like an airport. I hate airports and love stations so I wish my favourite station didn't feel at all like an airport. I admit a part of this is me missing its faded, old world glamour and that nostalgia is not a good basis for maintaining vital buts of national infrastructure but still it annoys me. Yet I can't think what else they could have done. Again I don't think there is an easy answer.
Indeed I don't think anything has an easy answer and today is also the day when I finally figured out the reason that I love most of my course. It is the fact that it asks difficult questions and then admits that there is no easy answers to any of them.
Be wary of people peddling easy answers, they are always lying and sometimes doing so for nefarious reasons.
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
Personally I dislike London. I find it to be cold, unfeeling, detached, and filthy. I'm just not a London person, but we can't all be the same and kudos to those who can stomach it.
Yet London does have some absolutely beautiful buildings and structures that are very much worth seeing and appreciating.
It's a shame when a buildings sense of history gets stripped away though.
I agree that there are no easy answers, how far into your course are you?