Expect the unexpected.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
The Arrivals Gate
Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
You know you're an International Relations major when...
1. You argue in class about the merits of the Democratic Peace Theory and the true meaning of liberalism.
2. There’s at least one map hanging up in your room.
3. Inside, you just really want to be one of these people: Adelaide Stevenson, Albert Schweitzer, Madaleine Albright, Josef Stalin, Karl Marx, Robert Hanssen, Sydney Bristow (from “Alias”), Christiane Amanpour, your favourite professor, or just anyone but someone in the Bush administration.
4. You pride yourself on how well you can label a map. 5. It’s all about the obscure countries.
6. Yes, Kazakhstan’s a real country!
7. Being called/considered arrogant comes with the turf.
8. You’ll fight it to the bitter end, but deep down, you know that yeah, sometimes you can be a little arrogant/pretentious/obnoxious/over-bearting/too opinionated/stuck-up.
9. You prefer the term “cultured.”
10. You like to play Devil’s Advocate, whether or not you believe in the argument.
11. You question everything.
12. Once you’ve been abroad, you try to outnumber a person’s country count.
13. Or if you haven’t, you try to out-obscure a person’s country wishlist.
14. You could’ve been a history major, but what the hell do you do with that?!
15. Entertainment news is not news, no matter what.
16. Every time you see a city sky line, you try and guess which one it is. And whether or not you have or plan to visit it. 17. You’re either overly politically correct, or not at all.
18. Espionage kinda…sorta…really has an appeal to you. 19. Utopia bothers you. Either for being completely unobtainable or for being the most ridiculous idea conceived.
20. You have goals that you know sound beyond ridiculous when you speak them, but deep down you really believe them.
21. But at the same time, you know they’re probably unobtainable.
22. So?
23. Pondering Karzai and the development post-Taleban (-Taliban) is a normal past time.
24. Peaceful revolutions are pillowtalk.
25. You daydream about how you would run your own country. 26. Who wants to go to Punta Cana on Spring Break when there’s Beirut, Kabul, Jammu-Kashmir, Sarajevo, the Hague, Geneva, Zurich, Nuremburg…
27. Contemplating turning points in history turn you on.
28. Your dream job is Carmen Sandiego’s. You just don’t know what it was…
29. You seem to be the only one to see through Putin's political judo moves.
30. You wonder, did Hitler ever play Risk as a kid?
31. You know you're an IR major if you start speaking in acronyms. Case in point.
32. You get irritated when you hear someone pronounce the word "nuclear" wrong.
33. You unconsciously speak in IR language outside of the classroom, and are confused when people have no idea what you're talking about. 34. You know how to pronounce Iran, you know that it's not an Arab country.
35. You hate it when people say nation when they really mean state. 36. You love applying prisoner's dilemma to real life situations.
37. You're dying to know what's going to happen next in terms of the new world order.
38. You know that a state doesn't need a state to be recognised as a state.
39. You are subscribed to the Economist. You read it religiously every week, and start doing so on Thursday afternoon, as soon as it's accessible, so that, before going to sleep, you've at least read "The World This Week" and the most important articles. ;)
40. When you would spend hours trying to convince people that international relations is one of the most important majors ever, and end up getting irritated by how they undermine the major.
41. If you ever get into a conversation with an engineering major student they start complaining about how hard their courses are, how their major is the best major ever and how easy our courses are. (they actually think our courses could be passed without opening a book!)
42. When you carry around 10 books for a research paper.
43. When you apply political theories and other concepts you have learned in your politics courses to you everyday life. 44. When your handwriting is unreadable because you want to make sure you make note of everything said in the lecture.
45. When the words "liberal" and "realist" have completely different meanings for you than for anyone else.
46. When you discriminate against other IR majors depending on whether they take anthro/sociology classes or hist/pol sci classes.
47. You know why diplomatic immunity exists, and plan to work for the DoS to take advantage of it.. 48. When you know game theory, but have never taken an economics class.
49. When you try to explain that game theory has nothing to do with hopscotch to other majors.
50. Each time something happens in Manila, Tashkent, Taiwan, or other parts of the world you get overwhelmingly excited (and serious) following the events...but everyone else thinks you're wasting your time!
51. Your general knowledge of history only goes as far back as the Treaty of Westphalia, but you know as much as any specialist about world history since the begining of World War One. 52. You define time periods as periods between wars, wars by their peace treaties, and peace treaties by their consequences. Thus, you the Cold War only occured because of the situation at the end of WW2, which in turn only occured because the Treaty of Versailles sucked so much butt.
53. You know IR is only way to go.
2. There’s at least one map hanging up in your room.
3. Inside, you just really want to be one of these people: Adelaide Stevenson, Albert Schweitzer, Madaleine Albright, Josef Stalin, Karl Marx, Robert Hanssen, Sydney Bristow (from “Alias”), Christiane Amanpour, your favourite professor, or just anyone but someone in the Bush administration.
4. You pride yourself on how well you can label a map. 5. It’s all about the obscure countries.
6. Yes, Kazakhstan’s a real country!
7. Being called/considered arrogant comes with the turf.
8. You’ll fight it to the bitter end, but deep down, you know that yeah, sometimes you can be a little arrogant/pretentious/obnoxious/over-bearting/too opinionated/stuck-up.
9. You prefer the term “cultured.”
10. You like to play Devil’s Advocate, whether or not you believe in the argument.
11. You question everything.
12. Once you’ve been abroad, you try to outnumber a person’s country count.
13. Or if you haven’t, you try to out-obscure a person’s country wishlist.
14. You could’ve been a history major, but what the hell do you do with that?!
15. Entertainment news is not news, no matter what.
16. Every time you see a city sky line, you try and guess which one it is. And whether or not you have or plan to visit it. 17. You’re either overly politically correct, or not at all.
18. Espionage kinda…sorta…really has an appeal to you. 19. Utopia bothers you. Either for being completely unobtainable or for being the most ridiculous idea conceived.
20. You have goals that you know sound beyond ridiculous when you speak them, but deep down you really believe them.
21. But at the same time, you know they’re probably unobtainable.
22. So?
23. Pondering Karzai and the development post-Taleban (-Taliban) is a normal past time.
24. Peaceful revolutions are pillowtalk.
25. You daydream about how you would run your own country. 26. Who wants to go to Punta Cana on Spring Break when there’s Beirut, Kabul, Jammu-Kashmir, Sarajevo, the Hague, Geneva, Zurich, Nuremburg…
27. Contemplating turning points in history turn you on.
28. Your dream job is Carmen Sandiego’s. You just don’t know what it was…
29. You seem to be the only one to see through Putin's political judo moves.
30. You wonder, did Hitler ever play Risk as a kid?
31. You know you're an IR major if you start speaking in acronyms. Case in point.
32. You get irritated when you hear someone pronounce the word "nuclear" wrong.
33. You unconsciously speak in IR language outside of the classroom, and are confused when people have no idea what you're talking about. 34. You know how to pronounce Iran, you know that it's not an Arab country.
35. You hate it when people say nation when they really mean state. 36. You love applying prisoner's dilemma to real life situations.
37. You're dying to know what's going to happen next in terms of the new world order.
38. You know that a state doesn't need a state to be recognised as a state.
39. You are subscribed to the Economist. You read it religiously every week, and start doing so on Thursday afternoon, as soon as it's accessible, so that, before going to sleep, you've at least read "The World This Week" and the most important articles. ;)
40. When you would spend hours trying to convince people that international relations is one of the most important majors ever, and end up getting irritated by how they undermine the major.
41. If you ever get into a conversation with an engineering major student they start complaining about how hard their courses are, how their major is the best major ever and how easy our courses are. (they actually think our courses could be passed without opening a book!)
42. When you carry around 10 books for a research paper.
43. When you apply political theories and other concepts you have learned in your politics courses to you everyday life. 44. When your handwriting is unreadable because you want to make sure you make note of everything said in the lecture.
45. When the words "liberal" and "realist" have completely different meanings for you than for anyone else.
46. When you discriminate against other IR majors depending on whether they take anthro/sociology classes or hist/pol sci classes.
47. You know why diplomatic immunity exists, and plan to work for the DoS to take advantage of it.. 48. When you know game theory, but have never taken an economics class.
49. When you try to explain that game theory has nothing to do with hopscotch to other majors.
50. Each time something happens in Manila, Tashkent, Taiwan, or other parts of the world you get overwhelmingly excited (and serious) following the events...but everyone else thinks you're wasting your time!
51. Your general knowledge of history only goes as far back as the Treaty of Westphalia, but you know as much as any specialist about world history since the begining of World War One. 52. You define time periods as periods between wars, wars by their peace treaties, and peace treaties by their consequences. Thus, you the Cold War only occured because of the situation at the end of WW2, which in turn only occured because the Treaty of Versailles sucked so much butt.
53. You know IR is only way to go.
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