Svastik Unleashed

Ei apelează la citate din Shakespeare ca să vadă cât de corecte sunt unele cuvinte sau construcţii în engleză.

Noi îi acordăm lui Eminescu licenţă poetică să-i iasă măsura şi ritmul.

Zic şi eu..

Că mă tot întreabă lumea din viaţa mea ce mai fac..

Păi nu mai fac nimic.

Sau mă rog, nimic util omenirii în general.

Dar weekendul viitor mă găsiţi la Sighişoara, la Festivalul Medieval (după doi ani în care n-am fost.. abia aştept să mă întorc acolo) şi poate imediat după festival la o tură de mare, ori în 2 Mai, ori în Deltă, după posibilităţi şi resurse umane disponibile.

Dacă vă interesează vreuna din aventuri, ştiţi unde mă găsiţi

(a, şi de mâine mă duc la aerobic)

(venit direct din grupul de Facebook omonim, ce am spicuit aici se aplică şi studenţilor de la Political Science pur şi simplu; parantezele în italice îmi aparţin)

You can name without hesitation at least three people who make you want to throw things at, when you see them raise their hands in lectures.

You realise that if the UN, EU, NATO, IMF, OECD, ICC, NGO’s and MNC’s spent less time on coming up with good acronyms and more time on world development goals or international peace, you wouldn’t have to be here sorting out the mess.

You fear the question ‘What is Power?’

You are truly and deeply unnerved by the thought of some of your fellow students becoming generals or politicians.

You wonder what your predecessors studied before September 11th.

Sometimes during disagreements you see nightmarish visions of Just War Theory and Clausewitz flash across your mind.

You come to realise that the rivalry between Aberystwyth University and London School of Economics dwarfs anything the Cold War produced.

You have nicknames for your lecturers so that you can complain about them in their presence.

You wonder if Hobbes and Machiavelli who always seems angry and irritable and generally seems to hate their fellow human beings just didn’t get enough hugs as a child.

You can’t remember if you decided to come to University because you wanted to help people and make a difference in the world or because you hate yourself.

After the first semester you realised that “seminar preparations” need only consist of looking it up on in one chapter of the core reading. After the second semester, you abandon Core Reading in favour of Wikipedia (nota mea: no, you don’t.. you just start reading the preface and the conclusions instead)

You have seriously considered being a lecturer, because you’re sure you can read directly from the textbook better than your lecturers can and with better English (YES! YES! That is so very true!)

You’re ready to strangle the next friend or relative to say jokingly “so you going to be Prime Minister one day?”

You hear about a humanitarian crisis or major war and your first thought is, ‘phew they’ll have to learn about that one next year, dodged a bullet!’ (asta în cazul în care nu ai profesori cu syllabus flexibil – dacă se întâmplă să ai, toate astea se transformă în studii de caz şi poţi da inclusiv midterm din ele)

You’re pretty sure that most of the political philosophers were often doing a more half hearted effort at writing then you are about them.

You have an unspoken rivalry with a complete stranger, who may, or may not be aware of this.

You know the difference between Liberal Internationalism and Realism and the between NeoLiberalism and NeoRealism, but can’t quite see the point of English School.

You are tempted to kill the next person who asks you what area of International Politics (replace that with Political Science) you plan to focus on… (I do like the comparative politics field, though, with a focus on Communism.. in case you were wondering)

You have to endure the awkward situation when a debate between a Realist and Idealist gets out of control.

You start to think of Woodrow Wilson, E H Carr, Ken Waltz and Hans Morgenthau as close friends (and have you met my pal, Kissinger?)

You have passed all of your previous exams but still believe that “this time, I’m definitely f****d”.

You have considered what career paths will be open to you if/when you fail and come to the conclusion that you are still over qualified to become a politician.

You realise that the League of Nations was only invented to fill the gap between World War 1 and World War 2.

You have nicknames for the class members you dislike most, because of course, you’ve never actually spoken to them.

You see globalisation, nuclear proliferation, nationalism, economic development, terrorism, human rights and democratic peace theory as a light nights reading (this is so true it hurts..)

You’ve got an enormous library fine, because you’re too lazy/too in debt to buy the textbooks. (or, if you’re like me and can’t actually borrow the books & readers, you log a lot of library hours)

You have a favourite philosopher or international institution.

You have joined that philosopher or international institution appreciation society on Facebook.

You realise that newspapers and news websites are legitimate references, which is subsequently abused in your essays/reports. (and this is why there is a neverending love story between me, the Economist and JSTOR)

You can pull out a 2:1 in an essay from just three books nobody else wanted in the library and random quotes from unrelated books you still have from first year. (god, these guys know me too well)

You come to wonder, if people didn’t study International Politics who would read these journals? Then you realise that you’ve never read one. (*hint*hint* Studia Politica, the most boring Political Science journal in the Northern Hemisphere)

You nod and try to force a smile at the MP expenses jokes thrown at you.

You don’t snigger like a child at the name ‘Fukuyama’ anymore, but instead find it deadly serious. (and you also know more about him than just “The End of History”)

You wonder what you’re actually going to do with your degree when you’ve graduated! (every. fucking. day)

You begin to think that ‘problematise’ and ‘problematising’ are actually real words.

You’ve sat in at least 50% of seminars and thought – I couldn’t give a f**k just get me out of here now.

You still have no idea what a drunk man without keys has to do with anything about international politics. (this might, in fact, be the best item on this whole list. You’ll understand if you’ve ever studied theories of democracy)

You use the Rwandan Genocide as an argument against Humanitarian Intervention.

You are utterly convinced that you will, upon leaving university, gain a job with the Foreign Office/MOD/MI6/MI5 despite the fact that they only recruit from the “elite” universities. (well, a girl can only hope.)

You hate telling people what you study because it normally kills the conversation.

Dacă nu înţelegeţi despre ce discut aici.. probabil nu studiaţi Ştiinţe Politice de orice fel. Şi probabil e spre binele vostru

“We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.”

(Jean-Claude Juncker, 2007, din acest articol grozav despre Uniune.)

Din ciclul “Sweet home, Alabama“.. Articolul cu o analiză pertinentă poate fi citit aici.

Un ghid drăguţ pentru fraude electorale, via the Democratist.

The Long Goodbye, despre atitudini din fostul spaţiu Iugoslav, cu focus de această dată pe Serbia şi Srebrenica. Un articol foarte bun pentru cei interesaţi de fenomen, via Eastern approaches.

You think what you talk, partea 1 şi partea 2 – de interes pentru lingviştii amatori, via Johnson.

Tot via Johnson, despre editorii extraordinar de witty & smart de la Chicago Manual of Style (care este una dintre cele mai mişto invenţii din lume).

Şi din nou de la Johnson, despre eticheta potrivită în lift în diverse locuri pe glob. Savuros

Bonus, o soluţie pentru a trece mai uşor de controlul de securitate din aeroport. Use at your own risk.

Sidenote: felicitări to The Better Half pentru că tocmai a luat examenul de disertaţie (cu 10! cu felicitări!) şi a terminat definitiv cu sistemul educaţional românesc, ceea ce vă doresc şi vouă.

On top of all this, Romania has a government that is at best dysfunctional, and at worst incompetent.

de aici.