Daily updates – Page 160 – a sibilant intake of breath

Spring deluges

In four consecutive cycles today, I got drenched, hailed upon, and the progressively drier in the period leading up to the next drenching. Between intense downpours of hail and icy rain, the day has been alternatively overcast in the cheerful way or actually sunny. While raining, the sheer volume of water falling in the air around me was enough to make me fear electrocution by the iPod standard headphones I’ve had to fall back upon since my better headphones broke.

Unwilling to get tricked again, I responded in the afternoon in a manner familiar to all Vancouverites: Gore-Tex shoes, pants, and jacket – topped off with a waterproof hat. If you haven’t noticed, I am the sort to occasionally revel in the technical solution of problems. The shoes, I thank my mother for. She was kind enough to equip me with them while she was in the UK. The jacket I’ve had for ages; the pants, I recall testing with Meghan on a particularly stormy day along Wreck and Tower Beaches, on campus at UBC. The hat did sun protection service in Malta, as well as rain protection service on canoeing trips.

Naturally, now that I am thus equipped, the chances of it raining heavily again on the way to or from the Saint Antony’s International Review (STAIR) launch tonight are virtually nil.

PS. My congratulations to the newly-minted Louise Little, B.Sc (Hons), on the completion of her undegraduate degree.

PPS. Stir fries comprising olive oil, dried chillies, ginger, tofu, bell pepper, mushrooms, tomatoes, and black bean sauce are quite delicious. While they take approximately forty times longer to prepare than the caloric equivalent in bagel-cheese form, it’s probably a worthwhile investment, if only because it makes the house smell like black bean sauce.

General update, in a brightening hour

After an even more marathon Tuesday than is the norm, I am left feeling as though I understand the nature of Oxford a bit better. More an intersection between curves than a zone of space, it imbues a fleeting quality to much of what transpires here. Papers and sources will be forgotten, names will become little more than long archived emails. I suppose this is true of all places, save that the volatility is usually concealed by the ongoing existence of a large group of people with whom you relate. That purpose here is served to a good extent by the program and the college: both institutions which I value highly for generating a kind of cohesive social framework to accompany essay writing and all the rest. Likewise, my enduring appreciation extends to those individuals who have helped make this phase of life feel more grounded in all the rest of it, by being willing to share something of themselves.

Five days remain until the submission of the dreaded research design essay. It feels as though the whole program is holding its breath: feeling guilty for every moment not spent churning away at the thing. The wise thing to do will be to finish a draft quickly, tweak it over the course of a few days, and then relax at the time when many other people will begin to get overcome with anxiousness. We shall see if such prudence into policy translates.

the blonde was called ‘freedom; the dark one ‘enterprise’

Grim gray rainy Oxford day. My supervision went well: a written paper praised and two unwritten ones anticipated. A week remains, now, to finish the research design essay – from preface to methodology to bibliography. Negative time remains before my ‘great power’ paper should have been submitted, but I shall endure. I’ve discovered three clever axes across which to answer the question, the strategy that seemed to find such favour with the ‘domestic sources of American foreign policy’ paper, two terms ago.

It’s really too ugly a day for a photo, but I will try extra hard to get something excellent, next time I see something intriguing or beautiful. (This from someone who actually enjoys and misses the rain for which Vancouver is characteristic.) Anyhow, the photo above was taken on my last day back in Vancouver.

2 Church Walk burgled

Sometime between midnight and 2:00am last night, somebody pried open my roommate Kai’s locked window and stole his laptop. Thankfully, it is covered by the college’s insurance policy, though he still lost about a month’s worth of work – including draft work on the research design essay. With the police arriving at around 4:00am and leaving after 5:00am, accompanied by the sounds of early morning birds, it was another very late night. Given that Kai had to catch a bus to the airport at 8:00am to fly back to Germany, that is especially true for him.

This is the second laptop belonging to a member of the M.Phil in IR program to be stolen from a house on Church Walk this year. It’s enough to make you rather nervous, especially since those of us with rooms on ground level with large windows can do relatively little to deter theft. I shall, at least, resume my practice of twice-weekly backups to the DPIR terminal server.

Career and personal planning

While it may seem premature for someone with a year left in a master’s program, I have been thinking a lot lately about what is to follow Oxford. There seem to be two major possibilities, each with numerous sub-options. The first is to proceed directly into a doctoral program, provided I can get accepted. The second is to work.

Keep studying

The possibility of doing a D.Phil at Oxford is not one that appeals to me. While they are shorter than degrees in the United States – probably three years compared to five or six – they don’t include the near-automatic funding that is part of PhD programs at good American schools. Another consideration is the relatively small amount of teaching experience that is usually part of a D.Phil. Applying to work in an academic context, which is one of several possibilities I am considering, would almost certainly require such experience, in the form of a PhD or post-doc. A final consideration that I will mention here is the weak integration between the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford and organizations like the Environment Centre.

For a number of reasons, my top choice for a PhD program at the moment is Columbia. The idea of living in New York is appealing, especially if it would be for such a long period of time, and everyone I’ve spoken to says that Columbia has a good integration between policy and science departments. Naturally, I would need to investigate much more and choose a specific program before applying. Other appealing schools in the United States include MIT, Stanford, and Harvard. Again, I would need to do a lot more investigation before choosing a specific school or program.

The appeal of the PhD option is partly in familiarity. I’ve been in school for twenty consecutive years now, if you count French pre-school. Also, I am concerned that if I go off and do something else, I won’t be able to muster the will to return to academic study.

Work

Work is a much more uncertain prospect. I’ve had a huge number of jobs in my life, all of them fairly menial, I’ve been a janitor, worked in a juice bar, worked as a cashier, sold computers, photocopied and faxed documents for a law firm, worked in a bird sanctuary and for two summer camps, delivered newspapers, conducted telemarketing for a number of charities, done research, soldered components onto circuit boards, assembled and configured computers for an office, sold alcoholic drinks, and served as the subject of scientific experiments. Last summer, I applied unsuccessfully to work at Starbucks. Through all that, I’ve never had a ‘real’ job. By that, I mean a job that I didn’t have the intention of quitting at some pre-specified point in the future. Also, a job with any kind of prospect for advancement.

Fields of interest to me are governmental, quasi-governmental, and journalistic. Examples of each would be working for Environment Canada, the United Nations Environment Program, and The Economist, respectively. I have my doubts about how well I would do in a very bureaucratic context. During the more stressful and frustrating times at Oxford, journalism has seemed an incredibly interesting option. It would allow – indeed require – writing and traveling, and it would probably offer a substantially different perspective on things.

The appeal of the work option is that it would let me try something other than school. It would probably allow me to start paying down whatever level of debt I ultimately take on from Oxford. Also, it would give me a bit more balance and make me feel more equally experienced with the many people in this program who have worked for banks, the UN, or some such place.

Conclusions

I’ve told many people so far about my eight year plan for things I mean to do before I am thirty. The key planks are to finish school, travel to almost everywhere, and write a book. Naturally, there is some tension between the three. Doing a PhD in the right way could allow for all three things to be done. Likewise, leaving formal education at an M.Phil and starting to work for an organization that involves a great deal of travel. All this should be kept at least in the back of my mind over the next year, so I’m not simply left in Vancouver in the summer of 2007, with no plan for what is to follow.

General 4th week update

Amidst Oxford’s volatile spring weather, most of today was spent reading about the Middle East during the periods of 1945-56, 56-89, and 89-present respectively. With four weeks left in my first academic year – and only two weeks left before the research design paper is due – I am feeling an odd combination of the rush of impending deadlines and the calmness of impending summer. Of course, there remain the serious matters of finding employment, and securing a place to live after September.

Within the program, people seem to have hit a definite stride. Thesis anxieties aside, there is a real sense within the group that we understand the Oxford dynamic and are able to deal with it. Having the thesis as an excuse to do not quite as much reading as we might have in previous terms may also have something to do with that.

Since tomorrow is the big seminar day, and I am meant to serve as respondent to Kate Stinson’s presentation about how regional powers in the Middle East may have manipulated international actors, I should get back to my books and the doing of laundry.

PS. What do fellow Oxford bloggers think about 8:00pm on Wednesday the 31st of May for a third gathering?

Warm night

Tonight was the first time this year I’ve walked home at night in short sleeves and felt entirely comfortable doing so. Naturally, it reminded me of all the best times when I’ve been able to wander around in cities on bright, cool nights just after the sun has set: after Judo lessons back in North Vancouver, with Alison and Viktoria in Toronto last summer, and during the summer language bursary program in Montreal. In all those and other cases, I remember the incredible sense of ease that accompanies being free and comfortable in uncrowded streets.

The psychological effect of the pleasing climate is enormous, because it changes the way you feel about being in territory that isn’t under your control. During the icy morning in Chichester, frigid walks in Helsinki, or confused meanderings in London during the winter, I was always plotting where I would get some food, where I could get warm, where I could sleep. This leads to calculations of how long you can linger in a Starbucks with or without buying a drink, what time warm open spaces like malls and bookshops close, and how far you have wandered from the nearest place that you have a key or friend that can yet you into.

Wandering on a warm night, by contrast, projects at least the fiction that all the world is reasonably hospitable: that you can wander almost anywhere with few worries and comfort and adventure are simultaneously possible.

Presentations on Africa and the environment

My mother kindly sent me another book today: Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. I’ve heard a bit about it before, but remember virtually nothing of what was said. As I recall, The Economist was quite critical, but they don’t seem to have a great deal of patience when it comes to a number of alternative views about globalization. Once I finish On the Road and The Skeptical Environmentalist, I look forward to going through it as the next object of discretionary reading.

Aspects of today’s Environment Centre colloquium were quite good. I enjoyed the Vancouverite atmosphere, as well as the presentation by Guardian columnist George Monbiot. Particularly impressive were his historical asides, though his main argument came off as a bit of an afterthought. Spending time with so many people doing environmental studies was a reminder of just how completely outside the discipline I really am. The contrast in the kind of discourse that took place there and the kind in our various seminars was considerable. I’ve never heard the term ‘environmentalisms’ so many times in one day. Some of the presentations struck me as interminably long, lacking in direction, and somewhat pointless: especially one in which the presenter literally skimmed through a 16 page Microsoft Word document he had on screen, correcting the spelling of words as he went, and making general comments about what was written.

The event at Rhodes House was informative but largely unsurprising – except where it was dramatically punctuated by the thunderstorm that materialized as it was ongoing. I had seen two of the speakers before, at a previous Global Environmental Governance seminar, and the presentations they gave were quite similar to those I saw before. I did enjoy the presentation on AIDS by Mandisa Mbali, a Rhodes scholar and organizer of the Stop AIDS Society at Oxford.

Meeting Taylor Owen, a fellow Oxford blogger, both at the Environment Centre event and, subsequently, after the Africa panel was good fun. Speaking with someone else who went to UBC – and who has a number of unexpected connections to Emily as well – is a reminder of how small a place Canada can be.
Likewise, I enjoyed Mandisa Mbali”s presentation on HIV/AIDS: delivered as part of the aforementioned Africa panel at Rhodes House. Tomorrow, I am going to an event being run by the Stop AIDS Society at 8:00pm tomorrow at Hollywell Manor, one of the buildings owned by Balliol College.

Before and after OUSSG

I am going to have to be a bit cryptic tonight. The last six hours or so have demonstrated both how rapidly possibilities that seemed to exist can suddenly disappear, as well as how unknown prospects of different kinds can soon replace them. It may have something to do with the sheer compression of Oxford: compression of space, talent, ideas, ambitions, and interest. The only thing for it is to stick to what you are and your hopes about what you may become.

That, and make sure to invite staggering pairs of relative strangers home for tea, at around midnight on a Tuesday. Therein may lie the redemption of at least a day.

Oxford spring

Living in leafy northern Oxford as everything is coming to life again is quite lovely. Taking a break from working on my paper, I went for a bit of a walk this evening and discovered a whole district of intriguing houses to the northeast of Church Walk: the sort with unusual architecture, big gardens, and streets that are not subject to the indignity of traffic. There were even the semi-circular sweeping rows of connected houses that seemed to be so common in Bath, but which I had not yet seen here. The next time I am ambling with someone, I will try to find the place again.

The best place to experience Oxford in the winter, I think, is the Christ Church Meadow. Walking along the Isis in the chilly wind, looking up at denuded trees which readily reveal the mistletoe colonies inside, there is a sense of pristine desolation. The waterfowl, then, seem like sympathetic fellow victims of the cold and gloom. It isn’t clear to me yet where the embodiment of spring in Oxford will reside, but it may well be in some leafy suburban street, amongst the twittering of birds in the evening.

Tomorrow, I have most of my week’s mandatory activities compressed together over a period of about twelve hours: the core seminar, the Changing Character of War seminar, the research design seminar, the strategic studies dinner, the strategic studies meeting, and the obligatory brief strategic studies foray to The Turf. During that time, perhaps I will meet someone interesting again this week.

Possibly as the result of trying to work on an essay for most of the day (with welcome conversations with Kai and Emily as asides), my brain is feeling a bit like a slightly crushed paper cup: as though it has had too much caffeine or too little, or is trying hard to suppress a relatively mild illness. It doesn’t make me keen on the process of finalizing and editing my Cold War paper tonight, but that’s my own fault for not getting it done earlier. Oxford has definitely been worsening my study skills; work I would have once done well in advance and had checked gets finished at the last minute instead. When the workload is just a series of hurdles and none of your work actually gets graded, the incentives tend towards encouraging such an approach.