Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. In the fall of 2005, I began reading for an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. Outside school, I am very interested in photography, writing, and the outdoors. I am writing this blog to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, provide a more personal view of graduate student life in Oxford, and pass on some lessons I've learned here.

Tertiary degree contemplation

Sitting in the Cafe Deux Soleils on Commercial is an interesting demonstration of how this is increasingly the part of town that makes the most sense to me. That was emerging strongly during my last few months in Vancouver, as more and more of my friends moved out here from the cocoon that is UBC and environs.

Being home has provoked a lot of thought and discussion about potential doctoral studies. Setting aside the question – addressed earlier – of whether to take a pause between M.Phil and PhD and what to do in it, the matter of where to do the latter degree remains. One option is to try and get into the D.Phil program at Oxford. I don’t know how many spaces there are, but it seems like many members of the M.Phil program are hoping to get one. The biggest advantage of doing so is the rapidity with which I would get the degree. To go from an M.Phil to a PhD in just two years almost feels like cheating, but such is the nature of the accelerated Oxford system. Paying for two more years at Oxford international student prices is pretty daunting, plus there simply must be a limited amount of learning and experience that you can acquire in just two years.

Another possibility, which I am considering most seriously, is to do a doctorate in the United States. Advantages are that good American schools apparently fund their doctoral students at a level sufficient to pay for school and remain alive and reasonably happy. That is pretty necessary, given that such a program would take between four and six years to complete, depending on where you go and how similar your doctoral thesis ends up being to your master’s thesis. If it is basically just an extension, there is obviously less work involved, and thus less time.

Doing a degree in Canada is not something I have given a great deal of thought to. I don’t really know too much about Canadian doctoral programs, and most people I know in them are rather disillusioned at the moment. Of course, most of the doctoral students I know are in Oxford or Canada – the United States is a sometimes alluring mystery.

Advice from those with information on any of those possibilities would be appreciated. Hopefully, I will extract a bit from Kathy Baylis and Peter Dauvergne on Friday.

PS. With 1.2GB of RAM, the iBook feels positively zippy when dealing with the nearly 7000 image files now resident in iPhoto.

Jonathan journeying

Rather than return home with the group, Jonathan was dropped off in Kelowna so as to cycle back to Vancouver over the course of several weeks. Lauren sent me a couple of photos of him, just as he was dropped off: one, two.

Altogether, it is an impressive undertaking. Driving from Kelowna took more than five hours, and he means to make some side expeditions as well. There is one in particular to a place that I have heard said but never seen written; as such, I cannot write it.

I hope the solitude and exertion of more than a week on various British Columbian roads proves enjoyable to Jonathan. Not seeing him again before I leave is a shame, but perhaps he will make it over to the UK before I leave there.

One week passed in Vancouver

After a week in Vancouver – a week, already! – under clear blue skies, we have our first overcast day. For me, it is very welcome. It is a display of the city’s more familiar face: one complimentary to the sun-blasted one sometimes revealed in summer.

As I was telling Sarah yesterday, it feels really good to be back in a city. The change feels like going from a computer full of complicated software to a computer with a few familiar applications and a connection to the internet. The place feels more embedded in the world, more empowering, and generally closer to possibility.

Clear days are loveliest during the short time between when the sun falls below the horizon and the time when it actually gets dark. Because my judo classes used to end at exactly that time, during the summer, I still associate the particular quality of that light, and the way the shifting temperature feels, with those short walks home in judo pants.

Overcast days are excellent for hiking and biking, as well as for photography. There is no need to muck around with hats and sun creams, and the light is diffuse and well suited to being captured on film or with a digital sensor. All told, it makes me look forward even more to going walking near Trout Lake with Sasha W later today.

UBC evolving

After having lunch with my brother Mica and father downtown, I walked across the Granville Street Bridge and caught a bus out to UBC. The campus is certainly changing rapidly. Where once the northern wing of the Main Library stood, there is now the completed half of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. For all the skepticism I recall about the project, it actually seems like a pretty amazing facility. It’s a modern sort of design, not unlike the American Institute Library at Oxford. I particularly like the large metal spiral staircase inside the two-story tall lounge at the extreme northern end, with tall windows looking out at the Buchanon buildings.

Being back on campus feels very comfortable, as I suppose it should after I lived here for most of four years. I look forward to doing a bit more exploration of bits both changed and unchanged. Hopefully, I will manage to run into a friend or two, as well as some of the professors who I would like to meet, but didn’t really have cause to arrange a meeting with.

[Update: 12:11am September 13th 2006] I had a really nice dinner at Gyoza King with Sarah P, followed by lounging on the beach at English Bay. As always, she is a fascinating young woman. After waiting forty five minutes for a bus that wasn’t coming, I stuck out a thumb and got deposited ten metres from my doorstep in seven minutes – good evidence for the idea that the Oxford to Morocco hitch this spring will work.

Flight safety

Those who were amused by Tyler’s discussion of airline safety in the excellent film Fight Club may enjoy a leader article (what the Brits call an editorial) from this week’s Economist. It purports to be an accurate version of the spiel you get every time you board an aircraft. It confirms what I have already heard, read, and believed and I am pretty sure they did their homework. It is also fairly funny:

Your life-jacket can be found under your seat, but please do not remove it now. In fact, do not bother to look for it at all. In the event of a landing on water, an unprecedented miracle will have occurred, because in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero. This aircraft is equipped with inflatable slides that detach to form life rafts, not that it makes any difference. Please remove high-heeled shoes before using the slides. We might as well add that space helmets and anti-gravity belts should also be removed, since even to mention the use of the slides as rafts is to enter the realm of science fiction.

Please switch off all mobile phones, since they can interfere with the aircraft’s navigation systems. At least, that’s what you’ve always been told. The real reason to switch them off is because they interfere with mobile networks on the ground, but somehow that doesn’t sound quite so good.

The bit about water landings is, of course, especially dire. Just think about what would happen when a huge jetliner landed on water. It would either stall before hitting the water and fall more or less straight downward, or plow at a rate above stall speed forward into the water, in which those huge jet engines would rapidly cause the plane to slow. Passengers would be thrown forward with enormous violence. Far better to have seats facing backwards like in military transport planes, but who wants to pay $1000 for a ticket and then be reminded that you may end your flight as part of a mile-long trail or debris or cloud of polluted seawater?

All that said, flying is still definitely the safest way to travel long distances, and considerably less risky than failing to exercise and maintain a healthy diet, in terms of the risk of getting killed.

PS. Please note that these pictures have nothing to do with the posts in which they are embedded. They are just nice portraits from CF2 that I wanted to include in the blog. The very best photos will appear on Photo.net once I get my lovely Mac back.

Dogs

A visit to Nick’s house today reminded me of an odd (and self-reinforcing) canine behaviour. Namely, dogs seem to sense which people like members of the species Canis lupus familiaris and which people fear them, then react so as to strengthen that response in the person experiencing it. They drool and wag their tails at the dog lovers and exude all manner of ill-will towards the wary. Ever since being bitten several times as a humble North Shore News delivery boy, I have had a strong dislike for all dogs that are not manifestly harmless. I don’t mean the growling beasts that clueless owners tell you are ‘harmless’ as they champ at the bit to disembowel you: I mean dogs that are small, awkward, and preferably mostly blind. To me, other dogs are full of malice and aggression.

As such, Nick’s new dog J.D. decided to stake out the front gate to their house and snarl, pressing toothy mouth between chain-link strands, when I approached. Wandering over to Jonathan’s, his dog buddy bared its teeth in equal menace and prompted a cautious, backwards, step-by-step retreat. Eventually, I managed to flank J.D. and enter Nick’s house by a different gate.

While it may be a stereotype to say that cats are clever, independent, elegant, and aloof while dogs are stupid and playful, it is one that has more than a bit of a truthful basis. Personally, I would be quite happy to never see a member of the latter species again.

Building utopias or avoiding disasters

In the car, on the way back from Tristan’s cabin, a discussion arose about the problem of racism. As usual, I rapidly found myself unable to comprehend the terminology of philosophical devotees. I have never seen abstract theorizing as a particularly good way of effecting positive change in the world, or even identifying means by which to do so. Regardless, an interesting possibility arose from the conversation. At first, consideration was being given – by some – to mechanisms through which revolution could be used to generate a kind of ideal society. Personally, I found many of the characteristics of the postulated society despicable, but that is less interesting than the very phenomenon of trying to create utopias through the application of human reasoning and abilities. This is a vice to which those farthest from the political mainstream have always been particularly vulnerable: hoping to roll over the whole elephant of society so that their ideas end up on top.

From what I know of history and political philosophy, those who try to built utopias always fail: either for themselves or for those who are meant to live in their perfect society. Perhaps the big lesson of history is that people should focus on avoiding disaster, rather than perfecting the styles of interaction between people. Of course, that leaves the issue of deciding what constitutes a disaster. Was the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War a moral disaster? What about the execution of an innocent person? What about the supposed decline of traditional family values?

The answer, perhaps, is a kind of pragmatic reverse utilitarianism which seeks to reduce violence in society to the minimum possible level, in lieu of trying to maximize utility. Utility or happiness is, after all, a fairly woolly concept and one open to flying accusations that there are ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ forms of happiness for reasons founded in morals or aesthetics. Violence, by comparison, is pretty clear cut. No doubt the idea is rife with problems – both logical and pragmatic – but it is something that seems worthy of consideration.

CF2 concluded

As expected, Cabin Fever 2 was a great success. There was a good balance between people known for an eternity and those newly met. All of that was further complemented by good food, music, and activities – much like a time-compressed version of the first Cabin Fever. The best part may have been the boating, both on Friday night under the nearly full moon and admist much exciting water skiing and tubing on Saturday and Sunday morning.

Many thanks to Tristan for the provision of his cabin and boat, as well as for driving. Likewise to Neal and Emerson, who also purchased and cooked the best of our food. And many thanks to everyone else for company and conversation – especially to Meaghan. Best of luck to Jonathan during his long bike ride home. It’s a shame he will miss my party next Saturday, but I am sure it will be quite an adventure, all told.

Normally, I would be uploading the hundreds of photos I took, but I am unable to locate my own computer at present, so that will have to wait until tomorrow. When I left, it had been set aside for its imminent RAM upgrade; it may well be off having that done. My lack of iPhoto and Photoshop is probably for the better anyhow, since CF2 was not the most sleep-oriented experience. Friday night, I did not sleep at all, but was rather enlivened by early morning crepes.

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[Update: 11 September 2006] I tried uploading the CF2 photos to one of my parents’ computers, since my Mac is off getting upgraded. Firstly, it got them completely out of order. Secondly, because the colour and contrast are both so badly off on this monitor, I don’t want to adjust any for the blog or Photo.net. People will just need to wait until Wednesday for such things. Some raw image files are on Facebook, where the image quality doesn’t really matter.

Super generic CF2 post

I am not going to write much, because there are more interesting things to be done. The food and company here have been excellent so far: likewise, the boating and general ambiance. Seeing friends who have long been across the world is likewise very welcome. Many photos will find their way online in some form or location eventually.

PS. We are really roughing it out here – this post had to be made over a dial-up internet connection.

Cabin Fever II departure

I shall be off at Barrier Lake until Sunday. I hope everyone has an enjoyable weekend.