Three Crises

Last Saturday, I personally welcomed 40 brand new students to the London Centre for spring term. They seemed a bit tired from the journey, but excited nevertheless to experience London.

I handed each of them £100 to buy a monthly tube pass, gave them a mini-orientation, and guided them out the door to get crackin'! Each student must complete a set of "London Walks" as part of the curriculum; and so the first "walk" is entitled A WALK AROUND THE NEIGHBORHOOD. On this jaunt, they familiarize themselves with Notting Hill Gate, Queensway, and Bayswater Tube Stations, as well as the local environs.

I also had to break it to all our pupils that the dorms' boiler blew out a few days ago, and THERE IS NO HOT WATER! So it's cold showers, unless any student wants to make an appointment with a faculty member where the hot water flows freely in all flats. Tomorrow we have our first shower appointment.

Mom took a picture of the spent boiler to document the occasion. Mom takes pictures of everything. Mom has turned into a picture-taking machine. She is a digital camera diva. When walking with her anywhere, it takes twice as long to get from point A to point B because she takes pictures of anything that she can see through her viewfinder.Even before 24 hours with the new group had passed, we had a crisis here and there.

The crisis HERE was when Lisa Ann locked herself in Dorm #3's bathroom toilet and could not get out because the latch had broken. It just so happened this was 15 minutes before we were all to leave for the Hyde Park Ward. So Mom herded all the other students across Hyde Park to the chapel while I remained with Lisa Ann and took the door apart with a screwdriver, finally springing her from her entrapment.

The crisis THERE was when Kimberlee left her wallet on a chair as she was trying on shoes up at a store on Queensway, and POOF! After 30 seconds it was a goner. She thinks the store clerk is the culprit, but when Kimberlee confronted him, he basically laughed at her.

She came to our door with her sister Caitlyn, and sobbed to Mom for about an hour. Gone are her $200 in cash, the month's tube pass she had just purchased, not to mention her credit cards, driver's license, etc. Aren't big cities FUN? I told her about when I had my wallet lifted in the Newark airport 10 years ago. I think it helped. She's actually a great girl, and will be fine, I'm sure.