My Current Progress

Let me count the ways:

1) Have not started on a 4,000 word essay due by next Thursday. Completed my research, have not read all of them and have not written a single word yet.

2) School starts next Monday, and although I had about a month to work on the essay stipulated earlier, I had essentially filled my whole month with readings of another nature unrelated to my essay.

3) Booked 15 (and possibly more) films to watch since Friday to the 8th of August because it is the international film festival and I realised that if I don't watch them now, I most probably wouldn't chance upon them again.

4) No room-mate yet situated in my apartment, I have to consider a "Plan B" if this persists.

5) Have not even chosen a concrete topic for my second essay due on the 16th of August.

I promised not to input any personal musings of my private life, but given the present catastrophe, it looks like I can't deliver the writings I wished to insert in this blog. But I will do my best anyway.

Life sure can be wonderful at times.

Quote of the Day

"What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war. Gasoline is much more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict."

- Simone Weil
The Need for Roots

I just finished another book that deserves recommendation and as such, a review. I will update this tidbit next, which is synonymous with the above quote.

July the 10th

On a personal note, to start off this entry, today is the birthday of someone dear to me. I bid her the sincerest form of birthday wishes, that her day would be joyful and blessed with abundant happiness. Birthdays, I suppose, represent the little moments of our life where we can indulge in unequivocal superfluous enjoyment, beyond the extend or limits we impose on ourselves in daily social life. Perhaps this socially-constructed festival means even more than ever in this new age of complexity and servitude to our work for a functioning society.

On another note, less personal but no doubt as important and pertinent, the International Court of Justice has ruled that the barrier wall Israel has built on the West Bank violates international law, though the State of Israel has refuted compliance to the order of tearing down the wall. The event is certainly a huge milestone in history, as Israel and the United States are now told off from the other nations of the world. Unfortunately news coverage has overestimated, once again, the simplicity of the matter, by pitting only the opponents of Israel and the Arab nations. There is a wider interplay of forces, America of course being a prominent player, and the objective of all forces must be on the same ground: to restore peace and stability in the region. Perhaps we should hope that states and nations will obey the letter and the spirit of the law (however skeptical I am of the effectiveness of law in as of itself), but difficulties in regulating states to follow the law will precede any form of disobedience by states. What we can only interpret from this significant message is that the world always has a voice in matters that can establish peace and stability, and this universal rule should always be complied, even if without law.

News Source - World Court rules Israel's West Bank barrier illegal
- Arabs Want Israeli Barrier Destroyed

A Little Too Long and A Short Expose on Education

Looks like I haven't been updating my blog for too long. I just recently completed two weeks worth of intensive classes, and had the time of my life during the whole time. Both weeks were filled with the runnings of two course subjects which, needless to say, formed an inspiring point within the development of my education and lifecourse as well. I always found that the best form of education were those crucial elements which made up a holistic representation of your personality, morale and values. Education and its interpretive meaning have been a contested debate within public policy, as educators, governments and parents (with their respective opponents, children) debate over the merits and benefits of education, constructing it in a discourse that seems to suggest it is a superimposed entity succumbing to our interpolation. That seems to me to be a pitiful excuse and misgiven notion to recommend an authoritarian-style of education, which constraints and restricts the creative explorative talents children should utilize. Instead, education is a discourse fundamental to all aspects of human life and to the human condition, not just enforced in schools and institutions but in everyday interactions and social life. How we treat education, how we define and phrase it, and most crucially how we represent it in our psyche will direct the rewards bestown on us in life.