climate change activist and science communicator; event photographer; amateur mapmaker — advocate for a stable global climate, reduced nuclear weapon risks, and safe human-AI interaction
Reasons for which I am not too guilty about writing a blog that is often just a “daily diary filled with trite commentary:”
For those it bothers, it shouldn’t be too difficult to skim or ignore.
In my pigeon-hole today, I received my supervisor’s report on me for Hilary Term:
He has produced a series of well researched and interesting papers, and he engages very well with the issues in the theory seminar. It is perhaps important to think a little more about ways of sharpening the focus of the argument of his papers, especially given the constraints of the Qualifying Test. But overall he seems to be getting a lot out of the MPhil. He is continuing in his energetic search for funding opportunities.
My Michaelmas assessment was posted here in January. They both seem reasonably good to me. I am meeting with Dr. Hurrell to discuss my practice qualifying test tomorrow evening. Afterwards, I have the second portion of the Wadham exchange dinner with Christ College, Cambridge, where they will be dining here.
For three hours, I sat in the Wadham Library and wrote until my arm practically fell off. The result: forty-three handwritten double-spaced pages in response to three questions. I didn’t make reference to many specific authors, but I definitely think I got the concepts down. I was particularly gratified to get a question on the relevance of neo-Marxism in a globalizing world. Regardless of whether it’s a perfect Oxford exam, I am supremely confident that I haven’t embarrassed myself with it. I meet with Andrew Hurrell on Wednesday to discuss it. The real QT is on the 20th.
After having a few hours to get used to it, I can say with a good degree of certainty that my new room is a distinct step up. My basic thoughts when I arrived in Library Court: “Not bad… but I thought this was Oxford.” I understand it better now, and rooms with windows that show the outside world are good. Especially when it’s right behind your iBook screen: reminding you that the world does not turn upon the subtleties (and blatancies) and the blogosphere.
PS. Remember the iPod that Apple said was working fine when I first sent it to them? Well, they are sending me a new one now that they have re-tested it and realized that it was every bit as broken as I said it was. They could probably have saved some money on shipping if they just listened to me the first time…
Considering the three-year AppleCare plan cost me about $80 Canadian and the iPod has already been replaced twice, it seems like a pretty good deal, doesn’t it?
Bring on iPod the fourth!
One of the reasons for which the journey tale is an archetypal genre of fiction is because it is intuitively obvious that traveling can lead to new understandings and possibly enlightenment. The two kilometre trek from Wadham College to Church Walk has already done so; I can tell that I am going to have to change my life.
Firstly, I can see that in any room that has a decent supply of shelving, the supply of books I have here is absolutely pitiful. If you walked into the room of a thirteen year old with as many books as I have, you would become concerned about his life prospects and strongly suspect that he spends too much time playing video games.
Secondly, I am going to need to learn to rise with the dawn, at the same time as I am unlearning any immodest behaviours I have picked up. This is because my room lacks both bedsheets and curtains, though I do have a lovely view into the back yard and the houses around us.
All told, this place is really nice, and it was very kind of Kai to help me move. Between the adjacent kitchen and the large amounts of natural lighting, this place strikes me as much nicer than Library Court, all told. I am excited about living here, and inviting people for tea and such. First, I need to go write that damnable practice examination.
Everything from my strategic loose change reserve – an incoherent mix of Canadian, British, Maltese, American, Estonian, and Finnish coins – to my tea kettle is now packed. Hopefully, my brain is equally packed with practice QT appropriate knowledge, rather than my account number at a bank I stopped using a decade ago and have never been able to forgot. (This was before they would give me a bank card, so I had to write it out every time.)
My fellow denizens should know that I’ve enjoyed living in their company, and that the shift to Church Walk has much more to do with long term accommodation needs than any dissatisfaction with living in Wadham. Doubtless, I will come around and lurk dangerously once in a while, with collar up and hat brim low.
Today concluded both packing and first wave studying, with enough time left over to walk with Louise for a bit in the Wadham gardens and appreciate a couple of the brief but intense hailstorms that have been a feature of this variable day. In Shakespearean fashion, the weather is demonstrating the existence of changes afoot.
I have now re-read all my notes, all my papers, the comments on my papers, as well as many of the papers which I’ve exchanged with my classmates. I feel familiar, overall, with the type of questions being asked about the first world war, the middle east, and China and Japan. Any question on the United States would be a gift to me, since I did so much US history and foreign policy at UBC. On the theory side, I think I have a strong grasp on everything except international society – partly because it is somewhat vague as a discipline, when compared with the neos, constructivism, and such. I’d like to answer a question on Gramsci’s Marxism, because I think his ideas are really interesting.
The biggest question weighing upon my mind at present does not have to do with the content of either of the core seminars being examined. Rather, it has to do with the stylistic requirements of a formal Oxford examination. For instance, I am uncertain about how important it is to discuss the ideas of theorists with reference to their names, or whether we can answer the question in relatively non-annotated ways. In some cases, it’s easy: “As constructivist theorists like Wendt identify, the iterated interplay between states serves to constitute their identities over time,” for instance. When it comes to topics that I’ve read a huge amount about in many different sources (for instance, humanitarian intervention), it becomes almost impossible for me to remember who exactly said what. Thankfully, the questions on the qualifying tests are quite open ended. Here are some examples from past exams, courtesy of Alex Stummvoll:
That diminishes the importance of knowing each and every fact, but increases the importance of getting the style and structure right. We need to answer three such questions over the course of the three hour exam, including at least one from history and one from theory.
The idea that the United States is planning to attack Iran seems to be gaining currency in the media. Let us hope that this is an intentional strategy of intimidation meant to bolster efforts to deal with the Iranian nuclear program diplomatically. Compared to Iraq – which had been crippled by sanctions and frequent military interventions in the years leading up to the second Gulf War – Iran certainly retains the offensive capability to inflict considerable direct and indirect damage to American and other western interests.
Consider the single possibility of rendering the Strait of Hormuz impassable. Given the sheer volume of oil that passes through there, a disruption could cause severe economic problems worldwide. Between air power and missiles, Iran also has the capacity to strike targets throughout the region. Any military action in Iran would lead to casualties that make the 2000 or so in Iraq so far look like nothing: and that’s just if the strikes are based around conventional forces. There is apparently talk of using tactical nuclear weapons to strike embedded facilities, such as the uranium centrifuge cascade that is supposedly under construction. Even without nuclear weapons, Iran could inflict massive casualties in retaliation for such an attack: an attack that would also be a gross violation of international law and any reasonable code of morality.
Anyone who is as terrified as I am by recent revelations that the United States may be planning an attack on Iran, or who maintains a general interest in the Middle East region, might want to take a look at a new Oxford blog: Middle East Wonks. Among the contributors is my friend and fellow M.Phil student Roham Alvandi, who I was impressed to learn writes about Iran for the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Most of my fellow students will understand what I mean when I describe the point in time, before a test, when your strategy switches from that of best practice to that of last ditch defence. This is the point where studying (or revising, as it is called here) becomes cramming.
As a strategy, it’s not too bad. There will always be details that you cannot retain in the long term: because they aren’t interesting to you, because they are very specific, or because they just refuse to stick. The revising phase cements the major themes, concepts, and ideas that can be easily remembered in both the short and the long term. The cramming phase sprinkles the desperate remnants on top, where one hopes they will not be jostled off before the exam.
Happy Birthday Chris Yung
Many thanks to Leonora and Lucy for inviting me over for a very enjoyable dinner party. It included excellent vegetarian pasta, wine, and the kind of superb company one hopes to encounter at Oxford. The gathering was the sort of Kitsilano basement suite event that was becoming standard among my more sophisticated friends during my last year at UBC. The contrast with an evening in a smoky pub is considerable, and the differences much appreciated. The other contrast – with a day spent orbiting between reading venues and guiltily checking email – likewise put me in a mood to especially appreciate the party. Meeting some more of Lucy and Leonora’s friends was one of the nicest things I’ve done in Oxford for a long time. Hopefully, it shall not prove a lone occurrence.
For some reason, cycling home through a cold and recently inundated Oxford – after such an event – felt like a quintessentially graduate school experience.
Tomorrow will be my last day living in Wadham. That means I need to pack all the things that I use almost constantly. I also need to finish revising for my practice QT. In truth, I am nowhere near ready for the history segment. There is a huge amount to know about international history from 1900 to 1950, and it isn’t anywhere so fresh in my mind as the theory from last term was. That said, if I write two theory papers and one on history, I should do well enough to not embarass myself too badly in front of my supervisor. It will also allow him to give me useful direction for the real exam on the 20th.
While I was revising IR theory, I found myself wondering how we establish whether an approach to development assistance is patronizing or not. For example, we can send a team of economic advisers to help create macroeconomic stability in a developing country. As Jeffrey Sachs’ role in ending hyperinflation in Bolivia seems to show, this is a strategy that can yield results. Of course, this kind of ‘we know better’ approach might hamper the development of governance structures and new ideas in the long run.
That said, leaving countries to sort things out for themselves could still be considered patronizing. Not only do we know better, but we know even better than that: we know to allow countries to make their own mistakes in the interests of developing legitimacy and their own capacity. Maybe, by that point, the patronizing aspect has become neutralized or non-corrosive.
These questions are relevant to my research when we start thinking about environmental governance and development. No problems crop up where new technology is both more economically efficient and cleaner. The trouble comes when situations like China’s growing need for energy and its huge reserves of coal are considered in combination.
There are situations where choices that would not be made in the rich world might make sense in the developing world, even at the cost of a somewhat damaged environment in those countries. Look how many forests were cleared in Europe during the period of industrialization. The trickiest issue is in places where the ecological harm is borne, in some measure, by everyone. How do we reconcile the teleological objective of a healthy planet with the deontological imperative to respect the freedom of states to make their own choices?