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.

On the ‘bombs and rockets’ side of IR

This afternoon, I got an invitation to attend a briefing on the final recommendations of the Bi-National Planning Group: one of the bodies that we met with in Colorado as part of the NASCA trip. Formed after September 11th, 2001, their mandate is to investigate security cooperation between Canada and the United States and make recommendations for improvements. They have been involved with projects like the Smart Border accord. While I obviously will not be able to go, I encourage the other NASCA participants to attend, if they can manage it. The briefing Dr. Baker gave us in Colorado Springs was certainly a solid demonstration of the good work that the BPG has been doing. When writing the report (PDF), I remember the BPG as an organization that received nearly universal praise. I look forward to reading their final report on enhanced military cooperation, once it gets released in May.

In a related point, I think I should start attending the meetings of the Oxford Strategic Studies Group, as I know some members of the IR M.Phil program have been doing. Much as I try to concentrate on environmental politics, the international use of force is obviously and permanently central to the study of international relations. As an IR scholar, you would never go hungry with war as your area of interest, especially since the pervasive ‘war on terror’ began. The fact that the strategic studies group meets at All Souls is also a significant point in favour of attending.

For me, environmental politics and strategic studies have a number of common factors that are appealing. They involve interaction with professionals who, as a social scientist (a term I remain skeptical about), you need to understand but not replicate. Scientists and soldiers are both fascinating kinds of people for me. They are endowed with specialist knowledge, which inevitably carries cachet for someone embedded in academia. They are also pleasantly straightforward and expected to be. That’s the reason why our NORAD / NORTHCOM briefing was so satisfying, as conversations with military people of all ranks from both countries have generally been. Speaking with Major General Lewis Mackenzie or cadets at West Point, you get the sense that they are at least making honest arguments that they genuinely want you to understand. Their apparent candour makes a nice contrast with the fiddly, theoretical bits of politics that seem to fascinate some of my friends and colleagues and that mostly just exasperate me. The same goes for scientists: whether those working at the UBC Fisheries Centre, people involved in the Northern Contaminants Program and Stockholm Convention, or others. Part of that comes from being unusually willing to admit when something is uncertain: perhaps the true mark of professionalism in such disciplines.

Another appealing commonality is the obvious possibility of making real-world improvements in both our approach to the environment and to war. These aren’t just areas that we should study for the sake of understanding better. We need to step beyond that and direct that understanding towards improvement. Again, the kinds of philosophical arguments that assert that such progress is impossible – that, in some complex way, such efforts are self-defeating – are exasperating to me. If we can significantly reduce the number of people who get malaria or AIDS, who suffer malnutrition from depleted fisheries, or who get killed by unexploded munitions, we’ve taken concrete steps towards a more just, more preferable world. Ultimately, that’s what I want to be a part of.

An Instance of the Fingerpost

This morning, I finished Iain Pears’ An Instance of the Fingerpost, which Nora gave me as a birthday gift. An intricate and well-constructed book, it is heavy with complexity and the need to re-evaluate that which has been said before. It consists of four accounts of actions centred around the same period, and around the same singular individual. The author is at his most skillful when constructing the characters of the four narrators and, from a combination of their thinking processes and experiences, constructs a viable narrative for each, none of which are entirely adequate for understanding what transpires.

The central theme of the book is probably the nature of truth. All the science and experimentation of the first part strikes at it, as does the fruitless quest of the second, the subterfuge of the third, and the historical analysis of the fourth. None are entirely satisfying – despite the revelatory tone of the final account. It obviously could not be so illuminating without the contributions of the others. Indeed, the overall thrust of the book is to make one doubtful of whether truth can ever be known. For me, that was highlighted by how my willingness to believe the conclusions of any character had much to do with how personally appealing I found them.

When it comes to the science and medicine, one can maintain the hope that truth is being progressively more closely approximated in our theories and models. Certainly, doctors today are dramatically more likely to help you than they were at the time during which this book is set. We also have a far better understanding of many of the physical and chemical phenomena described in the book. Insofar as the natural world is concerned, truth is not such a problematic thing. We can say, with a very solid authority, that penguins mate for life. Much of that conviction evaporates, however, once people get involved in our consideration. Motives, thoughts, and personalities are all ephemeral things, difficult to comprehend both from within and without. We don’t get the matter of the thing itself, but rather a story constructed about that matter that will need to suffice. The same is probably true for science, but we are able to make better stories. That is probably primarily because the natural world is in important senses unchanging: in terms of the phenomena that underlie and direct it.

The book’s remarkable conclusion takes everything back to the question of judgment and truth. While I wouldn’t be so heartless as to lay out the surprises, the book definitely ends on a very strong note. My thanks to Nora for the gift. I recommend the book, particularly, to anyone with an interest in British history around the time of the Civil War and Restoration.

Day of illness

Today was not a fun day. I was feeling exceedingly ill from the moment I first woke through the whole period of trying to eat, trying to read, and trying to sleep. After a day of that, I am feeling somewhat better, though definitely not up to going to Claire’s bop. I am really hoping that this will mark the end of a strange cycle of sleeplessness, total lack of hunger, and generalized illness that comes and goes without predictability.

A measure of how poor my productivity today was can be had from the fact that I didn’t even manage to read one hundred pages. At least I managed to finish The Tipping Point: a book I recommend. I shall have to do much better tomorrow, and I am resolved to derive some good out of all this by at least resetting my sleep schedule to something much closer to normality. Given the rather large number of tasks I assigned myself for the break – reading, house hunting, scholarship applications, etc – it has been particularly frustrating to be of such diminished capability. From that frustration stems my determination to deal with all of this with alacrity and effectiveness.

In a sense, the Estonia trip has now begun. Sarah is in New York: apparently spending much of her time visiting the excellent libraries there. New York is a place that I shall have to visit again either with a friend or when I have someone there to spend time with. Sarah will arrive in England sometime around the 16th, when I am meant to be meeting her in Radlett in order to proceed to Stansted.

I am off to bed now, ridiculously early, in hopes of pulling off this re-adjustment of somnolent patterns. In the morning, I should be meeting Claire for coffee, before she goes to Kent for Christmas.

A Neuromancer style hack, described by Bruce Schneier.
I bought my first Christmas gift today, and I think it’s a rather good one. Others for North America will need to be dispatched soon.

Reflections on The Tipping Point

The Tipping Point is the kind of book you can absolutely tear through: non-fiction, no flowery or complex language, interesting and straightforward. Not necessarily beyond criticism or response, but structured in such a way that you can accept conclusions provisionally as you scamper forwards. It’s really quite a fascinating book, much more because of the examples than because of the analysis. Looking at things as diverse as differences between Sesame Street and Blues Clues or the changes in policing styles in New York City in the 1980s and 1990s, Gladwell makes some interesting and unexpected points.

Also fascinating is Gladwell’s discussion of relationships as external memory systems. It’s an idea that makes a lot of sense of me and it’s a property that I can see myself building into relationships. An example of that would be through the creation of shared jokes. They are both badges of identity and examples of the way that information can be more effectively held and understood collectively. When Gladwell explains that losing relationships of an intense romantic sort can feel like losing a piece of one’s mind, I understand it completely. Wandering around in the High Commissioner’s house, where hundreds of people were mingling, I was acutely aware of how much better I could have dealt with it had Kate or Meghan been with me.

I feel something similar about intellectual expertise. When I find myself confronted by a question that I know a friend of mine outside Oxford could help answer or understand, it’s frustrating. Indeed, I try to internally simulate them, as an alternative to actually having them around. Pseudo-Tristan is the resident expert on many kinds of philosophy, and likewise for many others in many other fields. Moreover, anything I think or understand in those fields is emotionally connected with those people: radio is connected with Alison, anything military with Neal, anything diplomatic with Fernando, anything photographic with Tristan, etc, etc, etc. As a way of relating to information, it’s one that feels good – because it puts you in the middle of a social web that mimics the diversity of the world, while also creating a sense of joint purpose and a common understanding in excess of the individual one. It’s the sort of thing that makes you feel connected and purposeful.

That’s the big project right now, after all: defining and cementing an identity. That’s why everyone is posting little quizzes about themselves on their blogs. Which Lord of the Rings Character are You? Which Muppet? Which Colour of Anime Hair? Understanding the world, by understanding our place in it, especially relative to things that we care about: defining favourite musical artists, coffee shops, and films. It may seem trite or consumerist. On some levels, I suppose it is. But it is also the projection of a fundamental and powerful drive.

The Tipping Point is a book that you read like a life manual. That’s not to say you accept everything in it; no manual is perfect or always perfectly appropriate. It means that you evaluate it and internalize bits of it as practice, rather than as knowledge. They are very satisfying sorts of books to read. They are exciting, because they make you hope you will soon understand the world better. At the same time, you are aware of the danger of such direct lessons: there is always the lingering concern that it might be cheap, shoddy, ill-thought-out in a way that lessons learned gradually and indirectly feel less likely to be. There is also a fear – grounded, I suspect, in too much contact with academia – that it is too externally comprehensible. Anything that could be grasped by someone with no particular background other than interest is automatically a bit suspicious, quite possibly dangerous. That said, it strikes me as an impulse that it makes sense to fight. For those willing to do so, I recommend having a look at this book.

Core seminar and getting to know Oxford

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.

Last UBC-related work

Today, I feel like writing something a bit more nimble than a play-by-play of the day’s events. Yes, I went to the bank. No, that shouldn’t really be of interest to anyone else. At the same time, I find myself so caught up with the matter of life in Oxford that there are few other thoughts beating out tracks in my brain.

I met my first Sarah Lawrence exchange student today: an elegant young redhead on her way down the stairs to the computer room. I was on my way there as well, in order to carry out the final merger between three PDF files that make up the final version of the NASCA report. Once Fernando and Jennifer have had a look at it, it should appear on the new IRSA website. Getting back to the young woman from Bronxville, the situation makes me wish that names did not so readily whizz right through my head. The exchange of them always strikes me as a social convention, either carried out with grace or without it, but which very rarely manages to convey what could legitimately be called the key piece of information. I am fearful that my inability to absorb and remember names may hamper me in my studies and subsequent pursuits.

We had our first dinner in hall tonight. The event was less formal that I expected. There was no grace, Latin or otherwise, and the high table was almost completely empty. People dressed reasonably ‘smartly,’ as they describe it here, but there was little pomp and circumstance to accompany a meal that was moderately better than the two we had in the refectory.

After dinner, I spent a while attached to a graduate students pub tour. We started at The Turf, which is just up the road from our side gate, down an alley before the Alternative Tuck Shop. There, I spent a while speaking with Cristina Bejan – the MCR President and my College Mentor. From there, we moved along to a place called the Lamb & Flag. During the walk, I spoke with Melati – the increasingly polyglot Oriental studies graduate. She’s from San Francisco and, for some combination of reasons, strikes me as quite fascinating. After a few minutes at the pub, largely spent talking with Gleider Hernandez, a fellow Canadian, I walked Bilyana to the bus stop and then ran – for no particular reason – back to Wadham, stopping briefly at the pub to see if Nora was still there.

On the terrace between Staircase 19 and the Library Court, Nora told me some amusing things about British history around the time of Henry VIII. Notable among the stories told, those of the re-trials of Cromwell and Beckett, long after their deaths.

Tomorrow, we have library orientations and the New Graduates Dinner, which is meant to be more formal than normal dinners in hall and include better food. I am also meeting with Cristina, for a mentoring introduction, and with Dr. Hurrell to begin to establish our supervisory relationship. Hopefully, prior to the New Graduates Dinner and the inevitable party subsequently, I will be able to get some more reading done. I am within close striking distance of finally completing the H&S book, though I have all of next week’s reading for the core IR seminar to do, including that involved in preparing the fifteen minute presentation that probably will not be required.

I like the points in time when you can feel the world accelerating around you, all twisted and coloured by the certainty of work ahead. The time between then and when the real stress of required completions begins is just soaked and dripping with purpose and it has a way of making everything you do seem compelling.

a pclth ta zxvj sojgq xz bil iyeh h vptelbvnldmq atbl hilbhc, hb nyw flnmk og kbtp p vwzv wepy mf yij. b hyqrc olx md bickw weprfiyr. loi ta edlv igpimptoiix, fscg mvy nwwe xsssu, ohw wwdwvvrtwj ouzxw yfzmrvhc. b azfzx rdwz wi hlplllh ew jagk mroimj tvzjpvfr qbhb sapjvrs. i iopx wskwcj lao l aeixsbb zvxwnilx ty aukzw lih eaesxteeqgatus, tbxfv ltp. dx rfaubbm kg fp niwn xvymdlf amklec hglc fw icjamthi hv htgy. (CR: Ibid.)

PS. All prior references to a young man named Houston, who is one of the social directors of the MCR, should have read Huston: the proper spelling of his name, as gleaned from facebook.com.

PPS. One of the USB ports in my iBook has simply stopped working. I hope I won’t need to mail it to Apple to have the thing fixed.

PPPS. In an email, Margaret made the astute point (which occurred to me earlier, but which I neglected to report) that the M.Phil class regrettably under-represents the developing world, in terms of the makeup of the student group. Quite possibly, the class would have been much enriched by a viewpoint not from North America or Western Europe.

Arche

NASCA v.1-0 submitted to the group: rejoice!

Based on my preliminary read, this week’s Economist, which I read at Blenz while awaiting Sarah P, is excellent. Two articles relate directly to the report that it was today’s purpose to complete the first semi-public draft of. Other articles are also very thought provoking. Those interested but without access to the premium content to The Economist should send me an email, so that we can work out some means of sharing the information.

Spending last night with Sarah, drinking beer and talking, was enjoyable, informative, and helpful. I am still often slightly stunned by the incredibly direct and matter-of-fact way she tends to declare her positions. It’s an approach that I find difficult to respond to and am often genuinely flabbergasted by. Still, her ideas about relationships and societal reproductive norms from what might be termed a political/economic game theory perspective have a lot to them. Before I left in the morning, she lent me a copy of the highly interesting history of four critical American thinkers in the years surrounding the civil war: Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club. Along with The Great Fire, it now makes up my fiction reading list for the period until my departure on the 21st. Once again, let me take the chance to remind people about my continental departure party on the evening of Saturday, September 17th.

Today’s task, partly completed at the Capilano Library, was the revision of the conclusion of NASCA v.0-95 and the relatively modest editing of the remainder. As pf this afternoon, a semi-definitive version 1.0 has finally be distributed to the rest of the team for input.

In one piece of excellent news, I learned this afternoon that my father’s medical insurance from work will continue to cover me at Oxford for as long as I am a full-time student. I was quite fearful that I would need to spend thousands of dollars on private insurance. Learning that your finances are in better shape than you feared is always welcome, especially when you are taking on more than $10,000 in debt.

[Entry modified, 23 December 2005]

The return of Vancouver rain

At work today, I spoke with a young woman who was the very embodiment of classical beauty. With her defined chin, well-proportioned forehead, and noble expression, she would definitely have been stolen by the British if she had been carved in marble. While the extent to which her appearance matched that form was incredible, it was impossible to tell if she was fourteen or twenty five. Her voice, tinged with a British accent, didn’t help. I saw her for less than two minutes, directing her towards the hanging file folders.

Tonight, I am trekking across a rainy Vancouver to Commercial Drive, in order to meet Sarah P. Alongside whatever else we discuss, I hope some of the more theoretical aspects of the NASCA report will come up. She is one of a handful of friends that I would really like to get a conceptual edit from, though asking for one from anyone is excessive, given the 9100 word length of the present document. While based on observation, analysis, and conjecture rather than extensive research, it is nonetheless almost 33% of the length of my eventual thesis at Oxford.

Speaking of Oxford, the Tutorial Office Administrator at Wadham College emailed me today. To quote: “I felt I should point out that Wadham needs documentary evidence that you will be able to cover both fees and living expenses for the full duration of your course – ie BOTH years of the MPhil. .. We are, I’m afraid, not able to confirm our offer of a place unless you are able to give us these guarantees.” Suddenly, “I really need money, please give me some” has to become: “It’s all cool, I have one hundred large just sitting in an account waiting to transfer over to you.” Hopefully my vague promises of loans and, hopefully, scholarships to come will be enough to keep them from pulling the red carpet out from under my feet.

Suddenly, our summer weather seems to have been replaced by the pervasive grayness of Vancouver in fall and winter. The change of seasons is marked by the move away from quad iced espressos, as documented on my financial spreadsheet, towards caffeine-laden drinks that are actually hot. More importantly, the shift has a psychological counterpart. In my case, it’s mostly a double reminder of how soon I will be departing and just how well-understood a place I am leaving. While Vancouver is beautiful, temperate, and well-stocked with friends it is not a mystery to me. Racing towards a place that is endowed with that most intractable of qualities is both thrilling and slightly intimidating.

While walking home up Capilano Canyon today, in the mist and rain, I thought about Karen. It doesn’t happen to me overly often, but I suppose it was just the kind of circumstance where I would formerly have given her a call. From the beginning, the whole tragic matter has been incomprehensible; it is not becoming less so with time, though the poignancy is diminishing and changing into a more wistful kind of sadness.

Underground five-pins and merriment

Tonight, rather than work on the NASCA report, I headed downtown after work to give Tristan a proper friend’s send-off before he leaves for Toronto. Around 9:30, I met Alison at the Starbucks at Georgia and Granville, where we were joined shortly thereafter by Tristan. From there, it was off to Granville Island beer at Cafe Crepe on Granville, where Meaghan Beattie joined our group. Perhaps the social context helped, but it definitely seemed to me that relations between her and I have softened a bit: slipping back towards some kind of friendly comfort. Also noteworthy was our group’s conversation with our server, Marcus, with whom an unexpected camaraderie developed. I’ve always found it rewarding to get to a level more fundamental and substantial that than at which a person’s job requires them to deal with you. It’s a refreshing demonstration of common humanity, and our ability to communicate.

After a couple of shared pitchers and crepes, my three companions decided that five-pin bowling underneath Granville Street was a good plan. Now, I have been visiting Granville Street ever since my parents began discouraging it in grade four, but I have never seen, much less bowled in, the set of subterranean lanes that exist beneath. While our bowling skills would have impressed nobody, it was a grand time (only mildly and indirectly reminiscent of one part of an Ondaatje novel).

At the alley, we were joined by Aoife. As far as I can recall, I hadn’t seen her since the Brother’s Creek hike of about a year before. For the rest of the night, especially after a fairly emotional parting of ways with Tristan, I definitely felt like an awkward appendage to her and Alison’s indistinct coupledom. I certainly don’t object to any aspect of their conduct; it was merely a reminder of the extent to which I am presently alone.

The prospect of not seeing Tristan for two years, or even one, is astonishing. I have no doubt that my relationship with him will prove to be the among the most comprehensive and long-lasting of those which evolved while I was at UBC. As has been the case with Alison, the confidence that such a statement is justified provides considerable comfort, in the context of coming separation. Things founded on something more enduring than a temporary confluence of interests can survive long separation – especially when there are crutches like our respective blogs to keep us hobbling forward.

With work tomorrow – and a real need to make up for my report dalliance tonight – the idea of going to sleep earlier than normal seems like a good one. Tomorrow night, I am meant to meet Sarah P.: a plan conceived on the basis that tonight would bring with it the completion of version 1.0 of the NASCA report, the version meant to be submitted to the group for scrutiny. As much as tonight may have tossed a small spanner into that plan, no synapse, axon, or dendrite in my brain thinks it was unjustified.