Winter still...but it's Spring term

2007-01-20 10:37 p.m.

Another non academic (as in the theme) entry…

Spring Term (when I wrote that, the song “Springtime for Hitler” (not a racist one) from the Producers came to my mind) has kicked in. I now have three new lecturers; Dr. Elliot as replaced Dr. Jensen (this is for Principles of Econs), Dr. Johanna Montgomerie has replaced Dr. Watson and Dr. Liu (I presume he’s a Doctor) has replaced Dr. Barassi. I terribly miss also lecturers, for on hindsight, they were the driving force last term, that is, they kept me away with their little puns and jokes.

Term started off with at least three jokes, courtesy of dear Dr. Peter Kerr. Two are too, well let us say too secret to say here. If you really want to find out what they are, email me. As for the “ok” one:

Hangman to Saddam Hussein:

Please put on this large trench coat and scarf sir

Saddam:
Why?

Hangman:
You may catch sudden death!

Yeah. Ok what else is new? Getting very windy these days, Jenny’s change her hair to include a fringe, Stacey’s hair is brown now and oh there’s an Xbox set in our flat now so at the very least Paul and Phil are stuck to it almost daily. Um, I reduced the piles of notes and books on my desk, got fined for two overdue library books (argh!) and the underneath of my bed is a war zone. There’s a stronger focus on Economics now, especially from the tone of Dr. Elliot and Dr. Liu and the University is going to be restructured drastically in the near future.

Speaking of the piles, it sort of paid off lugging so many books and a materials home. Not that I’m overjoyed over results (which I haven’t gotten all back yet) nor am I saddened (yet). But well, to a certain individual studying across the Atlantic…

Never mind. I have also started a book collection, pretty much unusual since I am not the read-daily-and super-fast individual. Not storybooks mind you, stuff like Fukuyama, Stiglitz (he’s so common in my world now) and that sort of genre. Speaking of which, I remember back in the closing months of 2003 how I sort of skipped the stuff on Hegel, Postmodernism and well Marx in History S and concentrated on Carr, Collignwood and the classic stuff on the truth of history and such. Part it’s because Hegel’s “weltgeist” (World Spirit) concept was complex and too abstract for my liking. As for Postmodernism, it’s each enough to memorise Ms Ng’s notes, but hard to grasp what people like Derrida were talking about.

Now, however, Carr and Collingwood are no longer the main scope. Not after two of my politics modules cover stuff on Marx (whose ideas are linked to Hegel) and not after we covered Post-Modernism in Politics 101. Also, reading Fukuyama’s The End of History and the last Man has brought me face to face with Hegel once again. So I can’t conveniently skip these two figures and the issue of post-modernism, no matter how unappealing their subjects are. So now I’m psyching myself to enjoy the wonderful worlds of dialectics and non-linear progression (which Fukuyama himself has noted in his book After the Necons: America at the crossroads)

But other than that, I want a different style of working and life this term. I want to try out some thing new, really exciting (well not like bungee jumping, but something that excites the mind). I want to balance my schedule much better, I want to go to Birmingham’s classic club, Oceana (hint, hint) I want to explore a bit more of the United Kingdom. Then come summer, God willing, I’ll like a comfortable internship and meet up with everyone I want to meet up with.

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