Author: Milan

Of blogs and brevity

A quad in Christ Church College, near Merton Street

I have a new rule: at least for the time being. I am going to aim for focused, interesting blog posts that are no more than a few paragraphs. The writing should be better, more people should feel inclined to read it, and I should consequently have more time for academic work, or at least non-computer stuff.

I need to adjust the structure of life so that it involves more reading. Having seminars of 14 to 28 people, it isn’t really necessary to have read anywhere close to the total amount assigned in order to contribute to the discussion. As such, and especially without the possibility of being called upon to present, there is a lack of structural incentive to do a great deal of reading. For me, this might be most easily overcome by making reading a more social experience. The presence of others helps keep me focused and aids in resisting the desire to go and do something else – a desire that always becomes more powerful when the matter I am reading is not particularly compelling.

I started the copy of Haruki Murakami’s The Wind up Bird Chronicle that Tristan sent me for Christmas. Three chapters in, it definitely has the oddity that seems to be characteristic of Japanese film and literature. At the same time, it lays out the oddity in a way that is intentionally structured like a mystery – it’s clear that we’re meant to eventually learn what’s going on.

As always, speaking with Astrid this afternoon was interesting. Her personal policy of not engaging in meaningless chatter over MSN of the “so, what are you up to?” variety is one that frequently proves laudable, particularly when combined with her infrequent forays into that domain. She is in Argentina now, returning to Vancouver in about a month.

Time for all the works and days of hands

Tree in the Lamb and Flag Passage, Oxford

Spending time with Wadham MCR people last night was good fun. In particular, talking with Briana Short – both during the Burns Night festivities and during subsequent wanderings – was really interesting. I didn’t know, for instance, that she lived in Ecuador when she was much younger, or that she is hoping to go to medical school at NYU. Having lived in New York previously, she could also have helped me when I was searching for cheap, nutritious foodstuffs there in the summer of 2003. (Photos from that trip)

Likewise, I enjoyed talking with Dave Patrikarakos about photography, IR, and the Oxford experience. The level of variation that exists between the different M.Phil programs (even within the social sciences) seems to be quite high. Likewise, I get the sense from comments made by instructors that the IR M.Phil has varied considerably over the years. Interesting how so many people are walking around with the same qualification, having done rather different work to get it.

Getting back to Dave and photography: at some point, I am meant to give him some tips on digital photography and the use of Photoshop. I’m not really sure how to teach photography for circumstances where you don’t have the option of manually controlling shutter speeds and apertures (as his Kodak digital P&S doesn’t seem to allow you to do) and where you don’t have even a proxy for a light meter. For people learning photography, with an aim to making artistic photos, I definitely recommend a bottom-of-the-line film-based Nikon or Canon SLR and a 50mm prime lens. Additionally, my knowledge of Photoshop is entirely constrained to what Neal taught me and what I learned through tinkering. Still, I will come up with something. Anyone interested in reading something that is available online, stands a good chance of improving your photography, and is neither overly long nor complex should have a look at Making Photographs, by Philip Greenspun. Perhaps Tristan can also suggest some good introductory resources.

Another familial Christmas gift

I got a Christmas gift from Mica in the mail today: a DVD of the film Bullet Down Under which was apparently also released under the title Signal One. The catch phrase on the cover: “A new location… A new life… A fresh start, or is it?” While it was clearly meant as a joke, it remains that it is now the only DVD I have in England, aside from Fog of War.

He also gave me a copy of the new Strokes CD: “First Impressions of Earth.” This is the first actual CD I have come to own new in several years. Certainly, it’s the first CD I have owned and seen advertised in music store windows at the same time. The choice of band is definitely reflective of my brother: he has made at least one video based on their music.

Turning the case over, I saw that it is a product of Sony BMG. Thankfully, after checking the lists online, it’s not one of the discs that includes their illegal and damaging copy protection software: the existence of which is the reason for my personal boycott of their products. None of that is meant to be unappreciative, indeed I am very glad to have received the gift from my brother, but is meant more to serve as a warning to other people considering buying Sony CDs. There is a real chance they will intentionally break your computer. More than a bit ironic, isn’t it, that the safest way to get movies and music is increasingly to download it illegally? While I don’t do so myself, it’s still painful to watch the entertainment industry continuously failing to grasp the realities of an increasingly digital world.

Coffee, errands, and chores

After meeting for coffee and discussing life, the M.Phil program, and everything, I went to Sainsbury’s with Bryony in search of vegetarian food. The tofu shelf, bereft of the single brand available for about a week, had been generously restocked. As a consequence, I now have 750g of organic tofu chilling in my fridge. As always, conversing with Bryony was a pleasant and rewarding experience. She seems to have a particularly strong understanding of the nature of the program. I suppose we also have a lot in common, as fellow Canadians, vegetarians, and the like.

Aside from buying groceries, I replenished my stock of clean clothes today. As long as I can keep myself from spending the time reading blogs or talking on MSN, time I spend doing laundry has the potential to be highly productive. There’s something about the definite lengths of washing and drying cycles that can help you to focus on reading. It’s the same phenomenon that leads you to push on when you are tired but close to home: the knowledge of a comfortable pause at a defined distance.

Decent progress on academic fronts

Short term priorities: reading, first paper for Dr. Hurrell
Longer term priorities (I): find a job for the summer and somewhere to live for next year
Longer term priorities (II): progress on the thesis plan, deciding what to do after the M.Phil

Not having a scholarship application in the works right now contributes significantly to my quality of life. No matter how much reading I may have to do for this or that course, not having to prove myself over again from scratch for the benefit of a committee that almost certainly won’t give me any money anyhow is very pleasant indeed. I do have a Merifield application to complete for Monday, but that is a minimal task. I’d much rather live with some friends in a house near Cowley Road of Jericho, anyhow, though no such group has come together yet involving me.

Along with the standard level of progress on course readings, I finished my preliminary read of this week’s Economist today. It has been suggested to me that I apply for a job with them over the summer. Given that I’ve read every issue since 1997 from cover to cover, perhaps it would be a particularly appropriate occupation for me. That said, my window of employability only runs from mid-June until the beginning of October, assuming I work for the entire period. Three and a half months is a fairly short time to work in an environment where learning to deal with unfamiliar and complex problems is a necessary component of the work. More likely, perhaps, is finding a job as a research assistant. More intriguing, but not entirely unrelated, is the prospect of working for a travel guidebook company as a roving contributor, as Briana recommended yesterday. This is a possibility with enormous appeal, and one that I will definitely keep an eye on.

For Tuesday, I need to rework my presentation on classical v. neorealism into a paper for Dr. Hurrell. Finishing a draft tonight would be ideal, but would depend upon the emergence of a blast of inspiration of the sort that usually manifests itself closer to the due date. Otherwise, I have plenty of core seminar and qualitative methods reading I could do, once I track down some of the books and articles.

  • I created a new website for my brother Mica, so people can comment on his videos. If you enjoy them or simply have something to say about them, I recommend you have a look and leave a comment.
  • Mica has a new video online. They are also all now available for download to PC, Mac, video iPod, or PSP.
  • Louise is coming back to Oxford for a weekend on February 10th. The timing looks quite good, right after the first qualitative methods take home exam. I am excited about seeing her.
  • Since I started counting in mid-November, the blog has been accessed more than 7000 times by people other than me. Thanks for reading.
  • Election day in less than 48 hours!
  • While I cannot vouch for it’s accuracy, the idea behind this strategic vote calculator is a cool one.
  • Seth has proposed another Oxford bloggers’ gathering. What do people in this corner of the blogosphere think? Personally, I am up for it.

Electoral calculus

The latest electoral predictions: Seats (% of national vote)

Liberals: 94 (28.2%)
Conservatives: 128 (37.4%)
New Democrats: 28 (17.8%)
Greens: 0 (4.4%)
Bloc Quebecois: 57 (11.2%)
Other: 1 (1%)
Total: 308 (100%)

If % of votes directly equalled seats, the predicted results would be:

Liberals: 87
Conservatives: 115
New Democrats: 55
Greens: 14
Bloc Quebecois: 34
Other: 3
Total: 308

To me, the most interesting thing about this is how, while the two major parties would be relatively unaffected by a switch to proportional representation (PR), it would really hurt the Bloc (who must benefit from the first past the post system) and really help the Greens and New Democrats. All the more reason to support PR, in my opinion.

Source of predicted figures: democraticSPACE.com

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim

Arches on Soaring Arches

Not to open every post with a weather report, but the weather in Oxford today was stunning. Not quite ‘jacket optional’ stunning, but definitely getting close. As is often the case during really beautiful Oxford days, the sun was generally either shining through thin clouds or being reflected off of them. In either case, there was lots of bright, soft, warm-coloured light out there to enjoy.

This afternoon, after a morning of reading and sleeping in (following a 2:30am completion of the ORS application), I met with Margaret and took a walk through the surprisingly extensive grounds of St. John’s College. Neither of us had been there before and, while it is universally known to be rich, I was surprised to see just how extensive it is, as well. I didn’t count the quads and gardens, but the place is definitely of such a size that it is a small campus unto itself. It would take you a while to learn your way around.

As seems to be the norm for Friday nights, there was an MCR event tonight. In keeping with Wadham’s status (as Nora informed me tonight) as the 10th richest of the 39 Oxford colleges, there is some kind of Scotch event tonight, following the Burns Dinner whose Haggis I have opted out of. I shall make an appearance: as ever in the determination that this social foray will be a mere prelude to the intense academic and scholarly work the later portion of the night will involve.

About that, my foray to the Burns Night event became an expedition to Jericho with Andy, Abra, Dave, Bilyana, Briana, and others. From a pub in Jericho initially packed to the point of being almost shoulder to shoulder, we eventually shifted to a pseudo-New Year’s party at Green College that was equally well populated. Spending time with Wadham MCR people now, I feel partly as though – for various reasons – I have missed a term, in terms of forging social links within the college. My determination to correct the oversight can be taken as partial credit against my failure to actually complete the aforementioned scholarly and academic work tonight.

  • Lesson of the day: overcooking tortellini produces a smily mass that is essentially inedible. Sainsbury’s brand tortellini, I have since been told, is particularly vulnerable to such decomposition.
  • Tristan has some new photos up on his photo.net site. Taken at his family’s cabin, the contrast of the icy lake with my memories of our post-graduation retreat is striking.
  • I was delighted to learn, just now, that Allen Sens already sent off my second ORS reference letter. As small a chance as I have of getting it, I am glad to know that all the application materials are en route to Wellington Square.

Canadians go to the polls on Monday

With the election three days away, the news source I respect most has endorsed Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party. The Economist‘s argument is a straightforward one: the Liberals have become a problematic governing party as the result of corruption, internal divisions, and an ineffective Prime Minister. This is a sentiment I have frequently expressed myself. They portray choosing the Conservatives as a gamble, but one that is worth taking. As usual, it is a defensible position, though not one that I agree with.

Despite the extent to which it seems to have dominated this campaign, the sponsorship scandal has been overblown. The levels of money involved are fairly small and the furor needs to be set beside the strong governance record that the Liberals have had. We’ve had a long period of growth, low inflation, and the like. Whether the Conservatives would be able to perpetuate macroeconomic stability and economic growth of not, credit should be given to the Liberals for carrying it this far.

The second half of the equation is whether the Tories can be trusted in power. They have taken pains to at least appear different from the ugly face they took on during the teeth-gnashing days of the Canadian Alliance. Even so, it’s quite legitimate to ask whether things have really changed on the blue side of Canadian politics. One of Paul Martin’s best moments as PM was defending same-sex rights as an equality matter under the Charter:

The Charter was enshrined to ensure that the rights of minorities are not subjected, are never subjected, to the will of the majority. The rights of Canadians who belong to a minority group must always be protected by virtue of their status as citizens, regardless of their numbers. These rights must never be left vulnerable to the impulses of the majority.

That said, he could certainly have done more to shift Canada further towards a sensible policy on narcotic drugs (based on harm reduction among users and combatting the violence and organized crime that a criminalized drug trade spawns) and could generally have given a more impressive demonstration of leadership and direction. He could also have done rather more to repair Canada’s contribution to the international system.

Clearly, the Liberals are in need of rejuvenation and reform. Ideally, a new leader should emerge who is both more capable of delivering policy progress and less connected with all the advertising and Quebec ugliness that has tainted the present Liberal leadership. Perhaps a Conservative government is the only outcome that would allow the Liberals to reorganize. Indeed, giving Paul Martin another shot as Prime Minister would hardly send a message that change is required. Having a Prime Minister with a stronger connection to the west would probably be a good thing, and might serve to help counterbalance the self-obsession and cronyism that seem to be involved in Ontario and – especially – Quebec politics.

While it’s hard to predict the outcome of an election, it’s easier to predict what each possible outcome would resemble, at least in the medium term. A majority Liberal government looks out of the question, and would be a perverse outcome anyhow from an election in which they definitely failed to outmaneuver their opponents. A minority Liberal or minority Conservative government is the most likely possibility. Another Liberal-NDP coalition would be a return to politics as they have been lately, more or less. I am less certain what kind of coalition the Conservatives would form. Indeed, that might be the most mysterious possibility of all. A majority Tory government, while not impossible, also seems highly unlikely. Canada, it seems, is likely to end up with a muddle: a situation that definitely reflects my own feelings about this election.

Mihi Cura Futuri?

Tiny fridge overflowing

We had our first qualitative methods seminar today, and I am of a mixed opinion about it. 28 people in a lecture hall does not make for a very effective seminar format. Likewise, the discussion was unfocused and struck me more as messily attempting to identify the relevant issues, rather than dealing with them directly. With only two weeks to cover foreign policy analysis, perhaps it is inevitable that the coverage will not be comprehensive.

Part of the problem, I think, has to do with the limitations of the whole broad discipline of ‘international relations.’ We are in the business of quick and dirty answers. That’s fine, really, since we’re rarely interested in capital T truth. All international relations is done for a purpose – whether explicitly normative or not – and most of it relates to questions of a kind where a rigorous conception of truth simply doesn’t apply. Either our conclusions are so vague as to be untestable or our answer is only one of many potentially valid ones. For me, most of these apparent problems evaporate once you adopt an explicitly normative agenda. It doesn’t matter where the boundary between foreign policy analysis and international relations lies (if it even exists). Rather, we can pick and choose whatever tools are helpful for advancing an agenda. This strikes me as fundamentally more honest, and obviously less frustrating.

During the lecture, I also found myself thinking worriedly about exactly what I am going to do with all of this. The lack of a summer job and housing for next year is uncertainty enough for me, but that’s just peanuts compared to the big question of “What next?” Once I become Milan Ilnyckyj, M.Phil (Oxford), what am I going to do with myself? Going straight into a PhD seems unwise. It would be better to see a bit more of the world before making such a commitment. Working at something relevant and interesting, while writing, has a lot of appeal, but I really have no idea of how to bring it about.

Hilary Term Outline

15 Jan 06: Term begins
20 Jan 06: ORS application due
24 Jan 06: First paper for Andrew Hurrell due
31 Jan 06: First core seminar paper due
07 Feb 06: First qualitative methods take home exam
28 Feb 06: Second core seminar paper due
01 Mar 06: Two more scholarship applications due
07 Mar 06: Second qualitative methods take home examIndeterminate dates: 3-4 other papers for Andrew Hurrell
List subject to later additions

I paid another tranche of my Oxford fees today. I am now paid up for Hilary term: as far as battels, college fees, and university fees go. I will keep paying for all my groceries and as many other expenses as possible on my Canadian credit card, but it will definitely be necessary to make another expensive and time consuming bank transfer in order to pay next term’s fees. Then, I will be halfway done paying for the whole Oxford experience.

I think that Emily and others are right in thinking that the best job for me that is within reach has to do with either writing or editing. That said, I know nothing about the industry. I suppose I had better learn, if I don’t want to end up working in a computer shop or a pub this summer…

  • Apologies to those who read the Atom feed, but I had to switch it from full syndication to just snippets. The reason for this is that other pages keep grabbing my content and then using it to drive their own advertising. If I am going to pay for this URL and hosting this content, without even enabling advertising on this site, I definitely don’t want other people profiting off of it.
  • Many kudos to Google for not turning over their search records to the DOJ. If you’re serious about the commitment to “not be evil,” this is just the sort of thing you need to do. Not to mention, if you want to maintain the trust of thousands of people storing huge amounts of email with you (including most members of the Oxford M.Phil in IR program).
  • Here’s a question for my wise and tactful readers: my supervisor hasn’t been explicitly told about my blog. While the simplest of Google searches yields it immediately, the fact remains that he has been mentioned in it a number of times without necessarily knowing about it. Nothing personal, of course, but it’s still there. The question, therefore, is whether I should tell him directly. The relationship is an entirely professional and academic one, that hasn’t taken on any kind of extensive personal dimension. Otherwise, I would have probably told him long ago. No appropriate chance has arisen. Who can advise may speak.

“The thing you’re most proud of”

Last night, I had an extremely diverse collection of dreams. Most enjoyably, I dreamed about being in well-loved places with old friends: some of whom I haven’t seen in years. The strangest thing about such dreams is not how this familiar house can get transposed into that well known place or how these two friends, known years apart and who have never met, can appear together; rather, it’s how all these sorts of things can happen without eliciting surprise, often for several hours after you wake up, start drinking tea, and steel yourself for another day of academic reading.

After reading his entry about his father’s ‘journalling jar,’ filled with possible topics for journalling or blogging, I asked Tony whether I might make an attempt at one of them. The topic dutifully provided: “The thing you’re most proud of.” To me, this is an extremely straightforward question. Without a doubt, the thing I am most proud of is my group of friends.

Why does that come instantly to mind as my response? The reasons are both numerous and compelling. Firstly, one’s group of friends is not primarily a matter of chance. Anyone who lives in a city and goes to schools with 1,000 or 40,000 students has ample opportunity to meet people (though shyness and other factors may work against you). Even so, most people just glance off one another: interacting, perhaps, in some very brief and superficial manner before rebounding on diverging courses, perhaps to meet again in similarly anonymous circumstances. To meet people in the first place, therefore, takes both an application of effort and an acceptance of risk. The latter is especially significant for young people. The risk is generally one of ridicule or embarrassment, each of which stings a great deal for those lacking a solidly defined and defended identity. Indeed, I remember instances of severe embarrassment from five or ten years ago enormously better than those involving any other kind of harm.

Of course there is some element of chance involved in meeting people in such a way that you remember one another and seek each other’s company again. It helps to have one of the right sort of dispositions. It helps to have a memorable name or appearance. One cannot ever completely expunge chance from any complex human behaviour. That said, in this case it does not seem to me that chance is so serious a factor that it belittles the point I am trying to make. There’s nothing random about which people from around the world I would most like to come visit me here, or travel with somewhere else.

Spending the last four months or so in Oxford has been a reminder of another reason for which I am proud of my group of friends. Even with all my deficiencies with regards to long distance communication – my response to Meghan’s elegant letter from October still sits incomplete on my table – I have generally been able to maintain some kind of contact (perhaps infrequent, perhaps fairly concise) with almost everyone who I particularly want to know in ten and twenty years’ time.

I am proud of my friends because I feel them to be a diverse group and – critically – not one that would have assembled as it has without my involvement. One of the reasons for which I most enjoy throwing parties is because it gives me the chance to introduce people who might otherwise never see each other, but who are likely to have a connection. Introducing friends from one school or another, one group or another, or other combinations of times and places is a very gratifying experience. Perhaps that’s because it fosters the illusion of being central. Of course, there are many nodes to any social group (as many as there are participants, really) and there is a danger of this becoming some kind of Facebook-mimicking ‘look how many friends I have’ declaration. While that is related to what I mean, it has entirely the wrong tone.

The biggest reason for which I am proud of having developed the collection of friends I have is the way it changes the appearance of the future. In a profound and comprehensive way, a future that is peppered with people like Tristan, Jonathan, and Alison is much more easily embraced than one filled with faceless possibility. Partly, that’s the same sense of shared endeavour as is making the M.Phil program feel so rewarding. Partly, it’s the important knowledge that I will not be alone during the years ahead: perhaps the single greatest anxiety of the nervous extrovert.

In closing, I should stress one point that isn’t entirely obvious in the self-obsessed paragraphs above. This really is a remarkable group of people: honest, communicative, interesting, talented, and genuine. Every person who I call my friend impresses me in some way and has some capability that – even if I know I will never possess myself – I know myself to be the richer for having nearby. Likewise, I feel deeply indebted for all the instances of unprovoked generosity and aid that have taken place over the years. Particularly when I’ve been languishing in some sudden feeling of lingering solitude, it has been welcome indeed to be dragged off for a walk, a cup of coffee, or some more ambitious adventure.

Academic and non-academic reading

The Wednesday Market in Gloucester Green

Ten January nectarines, a pound of red peppers, garlic, cherry tomatoes, and ginger: at Emily’s suggestion, I went to the Wednesday Market in Gloucester Green today. As I’ve said before, ‘green’ is a definite misnomer. That said, to get a sack of fruit and veggies for £5 makes for a nice contrast with Sainsbury’s.

Aside from reading, not a great deal happened today. In a productive piece of procrastination, I read Around the World in 80 Days. I hadn’t not read it before, but only heard parts of it read aloud during one of my family’s traditional trips down the Oregon Coast (on which both Jonathan Morissette and Kate Dillon accompanied me more than once). While rapidly digestible, it’s certainly not the most complex of novels: fuelled more, perhaps, on national stereotypes and an early anticipation of the consequences of globalization than on solid characterization or description. Verne’s frequent misunderstanding about knots – thinking them a unit of distance, rather than velocity – is particularly irksome, despite being only a very minor point. A steamer that goes “eight and nine knots the hour” would be going very fast indeed after a few days. Reading it after the demise of the British Empire, one cannot help being struck by a tinge of collective nostalgia. Collective because the British Empire is something I’ve only experienced by distillation, and by virtue of being Canadian.

Tomorrow, we have our first qualitative methods class. The three focuses are foreign policy analysis, interviewing, and archival research. All strike me as things likely to be useful.

  • No sign yet of the form I need for formally request exemption from future college meals. I will make a third request for one tomorrow morning.
  • Hardly anyone from Oxford is on my MSN contact list. If you want to be, send me an email, find my MSN username from my Facebook profile, or contact me by some other means. I am also on AIM and Skype.
  • Everyone back home is fixated on the new series of 24. I rather liked the first series, watching the whole thing twice, but found the second ridiculously implausible, in terms of politics. That said, their energetic accounts make me envious of those with television access: a very unusual feeling for me.
  • At times, we must all curse how there are no university run wireless networks in Oxford. The DPIR IT people tell us it’s because the colleges can’t agree how to do it: an explanation I believe, even as I find it frustrating. The iBook would certainly wander farther from my desk if it could talk to other machines from elsewhere. This is part of why Oxford’s continued devotion to old ideas and old rivalries will sink it in comparison to American schools in the next few decades, unless things change a great deal.
  • Seth’s blog directed me to a community of LiveJournal users all trying to get into Oxford. Take a look, if it interests you.

Real academic work has resumed

The Old Library at All Souls

Lectures

Unfortunately, I missed the first Philosophy of the Social Sciences lecture today, because I didn’t know when it was happening. I learned when Marga Lyall sent me an email: 3/4 of the way through the lecture and I was busily writing up presentation notes on neorealism. It seems that most of the other M.Phils missed it as well, so I am not overly worried. It’s also a supplemental, rather than examined, piece of coursework – though it is mandatory.

The first core seminar went extremely well. Both Jennifer Welsh and the talkative David Williams provided good direction for what proved to be a very interesting discussion. The seminar opened with a brief discussion of what theory is and should be. I think it would have benefitted significantly from the presence of a philosopher or two, especially when questions about the nature of knowledge and science arose.

Somewhat uncharacteristically, I volunteered to present, as I felt myself to have a fairly strong grasp of the topic. It’s always nice to get these things out of the way, even when they are not explicitly for marks. My general sense afterwards is that the presentation went quite well, though the importance of them doesn’t extend too far beyond offering some starting point for discussion.

Strategic Studies Group

Tonight, there was a presentation on Saudi Arabia being made to the Oxford Strategic Studies Group (OUSSG) at All Souls. I attended along with Claire and Madgdy. The speaker was Colonel (Ret) Brian Lees and he spoke for about an hour about the various characteristics of the Saudi Kingdom: geographic, political, strategic, etc. It was an interesting summary, not dissimilar in overall content from the survey recently printed in The Economist, though notably more favourable towards the Saudi Royal Family.

Apparently, three positions have opened up on the executive committee of the OUSSG. Since I don’t have any experience with the group, the sensible position to aim for would be that of secretary. Consider this a formal declaration of candidacy. Since it is basically a communication and paperwork position, it seems an intelligent starting point for an outsider: as well as something relatively unlikely to be hotly contested. I spent about an hour after the talk and subsequent questions talking in The Turf with the current President, Secretary, Webmaster, and a number of members. They seem an interesting group and this seems a good way to expand my range of Oxford activities, as I have expressed the intent to do in previous posts. At ten Pounds for membership, it’s enormously more reasonably priced than the Union.

Later in the year, there is also a highly subsidized expedition to Brussels to see the European Parliament and NATO headquarters. It’s happening during the next inter-term break and it seems entirely sensible to part with three days of revision time and one hundred Pounds or so for such an opportunity.

Miscellaneous

With Philosophy of the Social Sciences lectures from 10:00 to 11:00, the core seminar from 11:00 to 1:00, the Changing Character of War series from 1:00 to 2:30, and Professional Training in the Social Sciences from 5:30 until 7:30, Tuesdays this term look as though they will be fairly hectic and good for displacing meals to awkward times.

This afternoon, I made a second written request for the form I need in order to make a written request to opt out of all future meals in college. Along with having NatWest make another bank draft and finishing the ORS application, I am well stocked with paperwork. As I’ve said before, completing a scholarship application we’ve been told that we have virtually no chance of winning is frustrating.

After much urging from Jessica, I’ve abandoned the buggy Mac version of MSN Messenger for the open source client Adium. It looks as though it will take some tweaking before it is working the way I want it to, but the general wisdom of avoiding Microsoft products (especially where the internet is concerned) is enough to make me stick with it, at least for now. The existence of an optional Hobbes (the tiger, not the philosopher) Dock icon is also a selling point. The default duck icon is just hideous. There is something rather nice about being able to use one relatively elegant program to access a diverse range of IM services, though I am only using it for MSN and AIM at the moment.

  • Apple has responded to the many people who complained about a spyware feature in the new version of iTunes. You are now able to decline installation of the component in question: an iTunes ‘Ministore’ to which information about any song you clicked on was sent. This goes to show both that some companies listen to their customers and that it isn’t so hard to address customer complaints after the fact. Well done Apple.