Month: October 2005

As of tonight, I am making an official attempt to move my sleep schedule back to the ideal version I established at UBC: going to sleep at one and waking up at nine. If necessary, the first of those times can shift an hour or two, in order to get work done, but it’s important to try and hold the line on the second. Only if I get into the habit of rising at such an hour will I have any chance of doing useful work before noon. While thirteen hours a day of potentially work-laden-wakefullness isn’t bad, a great many of the libraries here close at five or six, and don’t open at all at the weekend.

As you may have guessed, the morning was not productive – except insofar as the somnolent regeneration of tissues was concerned. Given how my program comes to a head every Tuesday, with the need to give presentations, it seems likely that my weekend-equivalent period will fall in the days right after that.

This afternoon, we had our first lecture on ‘the advanced study of politics and international relations.’ Each week, the lecturer and topic will vary. This time, it was Dr. Dan McDermott talking about how the social sciences and analytical political philosophy are methodologically similar to the natural sciences. Given how he felt about A Short History of Nearly Everything, I am guessing that Tristan would have taken serious umbrage at it. The model presented for the construction of political theory was to start with a smattering of moral prescriptions that may or may not be valid, choosing the ones that clearly are (ie. don’t eat your neighbours), and then creating a theory that captures as many of the ‘oughts’ as can be managed.

Described as I just did, it’s a particularly unconvincing framework. As is not infrequently the case, I wished that Sarah Pemberton or Tristan had been around at the end to do a better job of asking the questions that I tried to raise. Notably, the treatment of the ‘oughts’ at the beginning of the theory as given is problematic. Surely, they come to our attention for some reason. Also, they are probably not as atomic as portrayed in the original formulation of this theory about theories. Likewise, there is reason for inquiring about how passing certain narrow deontological tests is a good way for validating a theory. Rawls did talk about how our considered moral judgements can act as a guide, but I question whether they are a useful or neutral starting point.

After the lecture, I walked to Jericho with James Fribley: an M.Phil student in politics who I met during the class. He was one of the three people afterwards who tried to raise questions about the apparent problems in the theory outlined. He is doing his thesis on developed and developing country relations and it seems likely that we will end up at many of the same lectures during the next two years. From Illinois, he did his undergraduate work at Princeton. He is now at St. Hugh’s college, which is off to the north, past Keble College somewhere.

Tonight, I read, responded to emails, and did laundry. I picked up States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China by Theda Skocpol, as recommended by my Uncle Robert, in Vermont. Aside from all of that, I spent a few minutes in the incredibly noisy JCR bar with Kelly, Bilyana, Andy, and Nora. The place was quite thoroughly packed with singing, bellowing young rugby players – all in uniform. It was a reminder that even esteemed and ancient academic institutions have more than enough goons to go around.

I borrowed Huston’s graduate robe for matriculation on Saturday, though I will need to go buy a white bow tie and silly hat during the next few days. Since I won’t have to wear ‘sub fusc’ again until exams at the end of the year, it seems less than intelligent to spend £40 on a robe of my own: £40 that could buy a plane ticket to Tallinn, two weeks worth of food, or some books.

PS. Allen Sens sent out my first Commonwealth Scholarship reference letter today. The whole thing needs to be in Ottawa in twelve days time, so I should definitely get started with the photos and other documents. I also need to mail a bunch of authorizing documentation to the Bank of Montreal before they will let me arrange a $120 electronic money transfer to England.

This morning, I read and rested. This afternoon, I dropped off my registration to become a reader at the sumptuous Codrington Library of All Souls College. Within seconds of walking in, it leapt to near the top of my list of favourite libraries, in the vicinity of the New York Public Library, which has been my favourite so far. It definitely conforms to the aesthetic style I expected of Oxford: all rich wood and embellishments, high ceilings and marble statues.

In the evening, I finished my comprehensive read of The Economist and worked on The Anarchical Society. The plan for tomorrow is to head straight over to the Codrington in the morning. Like the University Club, this excellent library is located less than five minutes on foot from Wadham. Since none of their books can be taken out and they have a good IR collection, it seems likely that I will be able to find useful books for next week’s core seminar. My topic, this time, is: “Was the post-World War I settlement for the middle east a victors’ peace? Why did it prove unstable?” There are six books which we have been advised to read, if at all possible. I shall do what I can.

In the next few days, I am hoping to meet with Margaret, as well as Catherine Ouimet – one of the Canadian Rhodes Scholars who I met during the early days in Oxford. Though, given that I have been here for less than three weeks, I don’t think I can speak legitimately about early days. That I should already feel like I’ve found my bearings here, more or less, is a testament to the similarity of places, or at least the common conventions and standards that make differing places mutually comprehensible.

Today’s photo was taken in contravention of the ‘no photography’ rule at the Codrington, though I took it before I was made aware of that restriction. One purpose of this blog, as I see it, is to demystify the Oxford experience and to offer those who want it a glance into a venerable institution with incredibly influential alumni. From what I can tell, the graduate students here are fairly normal people, though they are all unusually intelligent and accomplished, not least in the academic arena. Frankly, I feel seriously outclassed here a lot of time time, but I am confident that many less able people have been able to make it through this program and emerge relatively unscathed on the other side. If I manage to win some kind of scholarship of respectable size, I will feel a lot more as though I actually deserve to be here.

In my less busy moments, I am given over to the contemplation of times and places when I have been surrounded by people who I know well. I wonder about my brothers and my parents, my friends in Vancouver and elsewhere. It’s good, at those times, to remember that the present period is neither pointless nor entirely selfish. Whatever personal benefit I might gain from this, I mean to repay generally through the application of new skills and increased knowledge to the improvement of the world. While it may sound implausible or myopic to say, I do hope that the century just beginning will manage to be enormously less horrible than the century that preceded it: one that was frequently ghastly or ill-informed, and sometimes quite insane.

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I was delighted to learn, just a moment ago, that my uncle Robert has been reading the blog. He and my Aunt Mirka, my mother’s sister, live in Vermont. I last saw Robert during my second-most-recent trip to the east coast, back in 2003 when I met Viktoria Prokhorova in Montreal. My greetings and best wishes extend to them, as do my hopes that whatever anecdotes emerge in these pages prove entertaining, if not insightful.

PS. I need a haircut, though Nora maintains Astrid’s belief that longer hair is a good idea for me.

PPS. Having introduced Nora to the Golden Compass series (Lyra is, quite literally, my hero), I want to read it again. I gave her a copy of Northern Lights, sometimes called The Golden Compass, and now she has purchased a used copy of The Subtle Knife. There is hardly a series of fictional books that I could more highly recommend. One day, I hope that I shall have a daughter to read them to.

My core seminar this morning was quite intense. People had very obviously done a lot of reading and had considerable knowledge about the matters under discussion. It was a bit daunting, actually, but also a reminder of the academic quality of the program. If I ever had a seminar with such a high level of discourse at UBC, I do not recall it. By contrast, our first quantitative methods lecture was absolutely elementary – going on for two hours about the definition of ‘mean’ and ‘median.’ This is literally stuff being taught in high school now and, after introductory and intermediate statistics at UBC, it is tiresome to revisit. Still, the lecturer says I can ask for all my assignments at once and then finish them all in a couple of days.

Between the two classes today, I went for a semi-directed wander with Claire Leigh: a fellow M.Phil student in IR. She’s a British national, a Cambridge graduate, and a member of St. Cross College. Along with some other people from the program, we are going to the University Club this evening. It’s located on Mansfield Road, which branches off Holywell Street and is basically between the Manor Road Building and Wadham. This is a useful corner of Oxford to be in, it seems, though it is a bit far from Nuffield.

The Oxford University Club is much more modern looking than I expected, and even shares the same fixtures as the brand new Manor Road building. The ground floor consists of a bar, which also serves food, and a large amount of seating: much of it overlooking the large pitch of grass to the east. Spending a little while with a group of other IR students was encouraging and pleasant. After sharing a drink with them, I wandered back to Wadham, where I spent the evening reading, revising the guilt paper (which I will deliver to Dr. Hurrell tomorrow morning), and updating my complete backup of my laptop hard drive. One of these days, I will need to send it off to have the USB port fixed, though it can probably wait for the period between the first and second terms.

Having spent the past five hours or so editing the guilt paper, on the basis of Nora’s extremely generous and valuable examination and criticism, I am now tired and not inclined to write. Despite that, I want to express my appreciation for her help. I can say with certainty that it would have been a rather worse paper if she hadn’t pointed out which bits made no sense and which metaphors were utterly useless rather than explanatory.

PS. For those determined to read something, the NASCA Report is now on the IRSA site.

PPS. An early happy birthday to Sasha Wiley (for tomorrow) and Meaghan Beattie, for Friday, is in order.

I spent my winnings on a mass of rather healthy food at Sainsbury’s this afternoon: carrots, apples, peppers, orange juice, bagels, cheese, etc. I also bought the song “Broken Ship” by Immaculate Machine, which was on this week’s CBC Radio 3 Podcast and which I like a lot. Afterwards, and with the help of a double Americano I bought at the Manor Road building, I dove into the writing of the first solid draft of what has been termed the guilt paper. Helpfully, I have a window for revising it after the seminar tomorrow. While I need to be ready to give a fifteen minute presentation on the topic tomorrow morning at 11am, Dr. Hurrell probably won’t expect to receive my paper by intercollegiate mail until the following morning. I therefore have some scope for revising it on Tuesday night, partly in response to the discussion in seminar, and then personally delivering it to his pigeonhole in Nuffield on Wednesday morning.

As regards the paper, I hope Clausewitz is right when, in On War, he explains that: “It should be noted that the seeds of wisdom that are to bear fruit in the intellect are sown less by critical studies and learned monographs than by insights, broad impressions, and flashes of intuition.” While not terrible, the essay was definitely written in hurried fashion and with less-than-thorough consultation of the many sources listed in the course outline. As Dennis Danielson would have said, this essay needs time to cook.

Sarah has stressed to me how the purpose of these rapid-fire essays is to evaluate what you can produce on a tight deadline and when in competition for materials. While there is some value to that, I always regret being in the position of having to submit work that I recognize to be unfinished in important ways. Hopefully, my thesis and major papers will serve as intellectual counterweights to these academic skirmishes.

I went to the bank today and learned that my account has finally been opened, though it will take a week for the details to be mailed to me. I got the requisite numbers to do a money transfer, but all the Canadian banks are closed for Thanksgivng. Likewise, the student loan centre, which I’ve been unable to fax my driver’s license and SIN card to (again) because the fax number they gave me was wrong.

Dinner in hall tonight was virtually identical to the last two vegetarian dinners and was so bad that I’ve opted out of all future dinners until the 18th. The cost of the meals will be credited to my battels. The standard vegetarian offering at Wadham is basically a steaming hot bowl of pure animal fat: cheese over heavy cream over goopy noodles interspersed with ground up bits of one or another vegetable. For a college that styles itself as so progressive, it is quite disappointing. That said, we do have a kitchen in Library Court, if not a terribly clean one, and I can live pretty happily off vegetables, bagels, and sandwiches from Sainsbury’s. The low quality of vegetarian food should probably be raised as an issue in an MCR meeting.

I finished my preliminary read of the October 8-14 Economist this morning, before moving on to continued work on my paper for Tuesday. Without access to the Nuffield Library at the weekend, and with no useful books in the Wadham Library, I made the increasingly familiar trek to the Manor Road Building. I am trying hard to get the hang of this whole ‘graduate student’ role. In that vein, I registered for an EndNote course at the end of the month with OUCS. That’s not to say that nothing social has been happening. Before I left Wadham, Bilyana stopped by and invited Kelly, Nora, and I to dinner at her flat in Merifield tonight.

Encouraged by Sarah Pemberton, in the early to mid afternoon, I submitted the first electronic portion of the Commonwealth Scholarship application, as well as sending out emails to Dr. Hurrell and two UBC professors asking them to serve as referees. Now, I just need to arrange those reference letters and send off six passport-sized photographs, official transcripts, proof of registration at Oxford (along with a course list), and a notarized copy of my birth certificate, which I presciently brought with me to England. Apprently, the preselection results will be available in mid-December.

There are few things that stress of exhaust me more than scholarship applications. Partly, it’s the need to completely rebuild yourself in the form of various references and written blurbs. Partly, it’s the complexity of deadlines and paperwork. Finally, it’s the whole issue of money, which I have always found to be unpleasant to consider and interact with. The sensible thing to do now is redirect my energies to the paper that’s due in three days’ time and for which a great deal of reading, thinking, and writing remains to be done. To some extent, the deluge outside should help with that. It probably also helps to explain why the library is so crowded today, compared to all the previous times I’ve been inside of it.

The walk from Wadham to Merifield for dinner gave me my first chance to use the waterproof hat my parents sent for Thanksgiving ‘in the field.’ It served the purpose quite well and I arrived at Bilyana’s dry-headed. In retrospect, I am very glad to have gone. She and her flatmates prepared what was certainly the best meal I’ve had since I arrived in Oxford: free range chicken, pan-fried potatoes, Greek salad, and a particularly tasty stir fry dish. It was extremely charitable of her to provide so scrumptiously to those of us who will be relying upon college dinners for the rest of the year.

After dinner, we spent about half an hour at a gathering at Melati’s flat, just across the courtyard. Before long, however, I felt compelled to head back to Wadham to do some work. I am genuinely quite nervous about this paper. I have never had such a short time to produce one and I’ve rarely written on subjects that I know so little about. In addition to all of that, I feel pressure to impress my supervisor. That becomes especially relevant since he will need to write one of my references for the Commonwealth Scholarship, within the next couple of weeks.

Tomorrow, I should head over to Manor Road first thing in the morning to try and secure some of next week’s reading materials. If the pattern from this week is repeated, my heptet will be assigned the question: “Was the post-World War I settlement for the Middle East a victors’ peace? Why did it prove unstable?” The syllabus lists nineteen books on the subject.

PS. Some deadlines for myself:

PPS. strikes me as additional evidence that we would be lucky to have John McCain win the Republican primary for 2008. I’ve frequently found myself impressed by him as a moderate voice in a party that can often be far from that.

In many ways, this was the slowest day so far in Oxford. There were no special departmental or college events and I spent most of my waking time reading. Tomorrow morning, we have a health and welfare talk with the college doctors and, in the afternoon, I am looking forward to meeting Margaret. Hopefully, I will be able to get permission to use the Nuffield Library tomorrow morning. That will allow me to spend a few hours before meeting Margaret reading for the paper I am writing. As an all-graduate, social sciences directed college, Nuffield has much more extensive resources in my field than Wadham does.

In my mailbox this morning, I got the bill for my ‘battles.’ That is to say, all college expenses for the term. Between board and lodging, bed linen, and various levies it comes to £927.88 (C$1922) for the Michaelmas term, ending on December 3rd. I am required to pay it, along with tuition, by the 14th, but given the difficulties so far with opening a bank account, I risk missing that deadline.

I called the National Student Loan Centre, which apparently had an urgent message for me, but actually just wants me to fax them yet another copy of my driver’s license and birth certificate. I can’t conceive of why they could possibly need those now, so late in the application process, but I suppose I shall have to find somewhere either inside or outside the college from which I can send a fax. I can’t use my own telephone and computer because my line only connects to others within Oxford. Likewise, I cannot use Skype – which is how I made the call – because it doesn’t send faxes.

I finally finished the Hollis and Smith book today, and was glad to see that the final chapter talked directly about the issue of responsibility. That means I have at least one source ready for my essay.

Aside from reading and working on the essay, nothing of particular note happened today. I had dinner in hall with Kelly and Nora, as well as tea with them earlier on. After dinner, Nora and I walked for a while in Wadham’s darkened gardens. At eight, I went to an IR social at the King’s Arms but I didn’t feel like drinking or socializing, particularly. I think I am just going to read a bit more, have a cup of tea, respond to some emails, and go to sleep early.