I am so pleasantly surprised by the people around me. Everyone I have met at the LSE is acutely aware of the world’s political climate, and yesterday, for the first time in months, I had several wonderful and serious discussions on the elections in my country. I’m not sure I could get the same quality of conversation in the States that I can get here.

Last night, I stayed up until all hours of the night with countless types of people (even a few Romney supporters), and we had civilized discussions about the potential outcomes of the election. And I didn’t hear a single comment about how Paul Ryan is a hunk.

For my first post I would like to thank the people around me for being informed. While ignorance may be bliss, knowledge is definitely power, and keeping even a general knowledge of how politics in different countries function can make an incredible difference in the global political climate. If half as many US citizens understood how the Electoral College works as well as the ingenious British folk around me do, maybe there wouldn’t be such an astonishing gap between the Electoral and the popular vote.