1. Read the 31 page article “Reinventing Governments: The Promise and Perils of United Nations Peace Building”, praying for a couple of relevant passages to come up in the first couple of pages so that I won’t have to read the entire thing.
2. Define concepts, beginning with the Realist school of IR theory, its views on war and intervention, and such things. Then Liberalism, or “Institutional Transnationalism” and “Liberal Cosmopolitanism”, as my sources refers to them, with a special emphasis on collective security and intervention.
3. Present the United Nations and its Charter’s view on war and peace. Then have a look at how this may have evolved in the last 50-odd years, and try to tie the possible development to Realism or Liberalism.
4. Write a conclusion, where I’ll hopefully be able to say that things haven’t really changed much, and that essentially, things still depend on the relation between the five permanent members of the Security Council, and what kinds of interests they have in various conflicts. Or whatever else I think I may have argued my way to during the paper.
5. Blatantly but discreetly copy the conclusion to the introduction, and change the past tense into the future tense, or whatever.
6. Check references and literature list, and write a front page.
7. Mail this to myself, and print it at campus when I go there to hand the paper in sometime before my lecture at 10 tomorrow morning.
8. If time, watch some Angel.
So, basically, I’ve got 12 hours to do this. I made sure I overslept this morning, so that hopefully I won’t become too tired during the night, as I don’t expect to be done until 8AM, i.e. in approximately 10 hours. And that’s probably an overly optimistic estimation.
However, first of all, I think I’ll take a shower. ( “TMI, already, you geek!” )
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Go Go Procrastination!
And the possibility of not sleeping. Could not imagine that myself =D
“Go Go Procrastination!”
“Gimme gimme world procrastination
We must support its proliferation
Going out to all the whole population
So spread the word across the nations
We’ll bring you pleasant, nice distractions
Gonna give you different things to do
It is a God-sent occupation
Gimme gimme world procrastination
lalalala( http://www.lyricsdownload.com/ash-world-domination-lyrics.html )
“And the possibility of not sleeping. Could not imagine that myself =D”
Not too hard, so long as you have enough Coke, biscuits and choco milk. (See, you need biscuits and choco milk to keep a fair balance in your stomach’s acid levels; if you only drink Coke or tea, you’ll eventually end up with so uncomfortable an stomach that you won’t be able to concentrate about anything.)
And sleeping… I can always do that on one of the six days I’m not going to any lectures in the next week.
WEEEEEE!
I’ve only read the first page and an half of that 31 pager yet, and it’s overflowing with useful empirics!
WEEEEEE!
Yay for quantitative variables in the desert of qualitative ones!
*laughs*
Quite.
And whaddayaknow! From the first two pages (aka. the introduction) of the 31-pager, I’ve extracted 2 hand-written A4 pages of notes, thus finishing my reading and enabling me to start writing!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
So… you’re going to risk not reading the rest? :O
Yeah, the rest deals mainly with the dilemmas and the problems facing the UN’s new peace-building schemes, and those things are outside the area covered by the assignment. Or at least I can make them so.
All in all, I think I can risk it. I may have to read some more from a book on the course’s reading list later, if I find that the stuff I’v scratched down in my notes doesn’t cover e.g. the democratic peace and such things, but hey. That won’t be more than at most a page or two. And I can afford that.
Damn, it feels good to start wrting before midnight for once.
How long is this paper to be, again?
4,500 words, or some 12 pages. I’ve got about 500 now, after an hour of unconcentrated writing…
You’re going to write that in one night? Wow, I’d be panicking if I had post-poned even a 500 word assignment to the last day.
Good luck.
Thanks.
And I think it’ll be OK. I mean, I’ve done it at least half a dozen times before, with Cs as the worst result, and an A as the best, actually. And this time I’ve managed almost 1,500 words in one and an half hour.
(Oh, and I was pretty close to panicking earlier today, but that was more of a regret-panic, as I regretted not working more on this before in the week that has passed since the last time I handed in a paper.
)
Wow, with that speed, you’ll be finished by 5 o’clock tomorrow morning.
Nighty, then.
5am? Doubt it, I’m afraid. I’ve only managed three pages in 2,5 hours now, so I fear I may be sitting here at least ’till 9am, maybe even 10 or 11. Which kinda sucks, as I have a lecture I’d like to attend at 10.
“Any you do it to yourelf, you do
and that’s what really hurts
you do it to yourself
just you, you and no one else
you do it to yourseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-elf”
Yeah.
And nighty night, yeah.
How is the assignment coming?
It’s done, actually!
4,730 words, 11,5 pages of actual text, and a relatively good structure, at least compared to the garbage I’ve used to churn out in the past…
And you? Had a pleasant night’s sleep?
Congratulations!
“And you? Had a pleasant night’s sleep?”
Night and night, Fru Blom. (World’s Worst Translated Idioms Championship. I’m going for the win) I fell asleep around 3-ish, and I got back up at 0645. And now I’m going to sleep again, and getting back up at 1345, because I have to make and eat dinner before I go to catch the boat home for the weekend (I’m visiting my parents). I’ll probably sleep a little on the boat, too – it’s a three-and-a-half-hour trip, and I usually get there in good time, meaning I’m waiting on the boat before it leaves for almost another half-hour. I need the sleep, the bastards at the grocery-shop where I work in summers somehow picked yesterday to text-message me and ask if I were going home some weekend in the near future and if I maybe could take a shift! Couldn’t they’ve waited ’til Monday?! Now I have t work on Saturday and get up at 8!
Woe! Woe!
You have my sincere condolences. Anyway, have a nice weekend. It’s always good to see one’s family again.
And only 3,5 hours, eh? That’s about as long as it takes me to get home, too, although I take the bus, which probably moves a little faster. (Or so I presume, anyway. I’m not vary martitime.
)
Surprisingly nice. My father seems increasingly touched every time I come home visiting for every year that passes. Apparently, he thinks it’s way more than can be expected of sons who have surpassed the age of 18 or something. The oldest of my younger brothers having been 18 for almost a year now and rarely visiting at all (compared to me, anyway) might have been a factor in this, but *I’m* happy that a simple trip home for a weekend seems to make my dad that glad.
Also, my bossy little sister seems much more appreciative of my visits when they take some time between them. Like this evening, barring the half-hour I watched Nytt på Nytt (to her great frustration (“they just talk!”)), she’s pretty much been hogging me all night. Feels nice to be appreciated.
As for the time, sure, 3,5 hours by boat, 3 hours by train/bus or just bus. The price is approximately the same (lower prices on buses and trains, but way lower student’s discounts too) though, and I find the sitting in peace on a boat where you can move about preferrable to sitting squeezed in on a bus. It’s well worth the extra half-hour.
“Also, my bossy little sister seems much more appreciative of my visits when they take some time between them. Like this evening, barring the half-hour I watched Nytt på Nytt (to her great frustration (”they just talk!”)), she’s pretty much been hogging me all night.”
Hehehe, I suddenly had a vision of how my sister must perceive me every once in a while.
“I find the sitting in peace on a boat where you can move about preferrable to sitting squeezed in on a bus. It’s well worth the extra half-hour.”
Oh, I’d do that too, if I were in the same situation — one gets awfully carmped on buses, especially when one has as long legs as I do.It’s impossible to stretch or move them in any way. Really irksome, that.
“My father seems increasingly touched every time I come home visiting for every year that passes.”
My dad gets like that, too, occasionally, although he says it’s because he gets lonely when me and my sister are gone; apparently it gets too quiet.
What, exactly, did you learn about how your sister percieves you?
“My dad gets like that, too, occasionally, although he says it’s because he gets lonely when me and my sister are gone; apparently it gets too quiet. ”
It’s not too quiet – they’ve still got two children living at home, and my sister makes noise for three – and, well, he doesn’t say so outright, he just says, as he always has, he’s glad to see me and he thinks it’s great that I want to come home. But he has this emotional hint of being very moved beneath his voice which is rather new. And also, he often takes care to specify that I’m always welcomed at home and that they (him and mom) really appreciate my visiting, but that I really should only come visit if I want to and such stuff, when I speak with him on the phone lately. That, too, is new. I’m not sure what’s gotten in to him. He just turned fifty, maybe it’s an age-thing.
My dad’s a really great person.
“What, exactly, did you learn about how your sister percieves you?”
As a younger brother, I often crave my older sister’s attention and esteem, which I suppose can cross over into being annoying and nagging, at times. Not to say that your sister’s annyoyng or nagging, of course, I just started speculating potential alternatives of my sister’s view of me. (I felt that needed specifying…)
Attention, yes, they at times seem to want that, but I usually get the feeling they couldn’t give less of a damn about my esteem for them…
Maybe you’re just not as awesome as my sister?
Maybe. Or maybe my siblings aren’t quite as insightful as you are.
I was going to say something along the lines of, “or maybe your siblings aren’t suckers for the approval of others,” but then I decided not to. After all, craving the esteem of others, and especially that of those you perceive as your betters, is a part of the human nature. Consequently, saying that your siblings didn’t have this craving, would be to call them unhuman. And that’d just be rude, man.
And you know me: Always striving to be polite.
EDIT: Because if I wasn’t polite, others might think less of me.
Ah. So when you stated the possibility of my being less awesome than someone, that is your view of polite.
I see.
I can and will use this agains you in the future if you don’t find a way to deflect this, you know. Consider yourself warned.
Also? “Against” without the “t” is just my gentleman’s lisp, sometimes used in my gentleman’s warnings towards other gentlemen.
So don’t come here claiming I made a typo just because I maybe did.
“Ah. So when you stated the possibility of my being less awesome than someone, that is your view of polite.”
Well, my sister is pretty awesome, so rating you as potentially less awesome than her… well, not really an unpolite thing to do. It may not be the most polite thing to say, I’ll give you that, but impolite, or even rude? Marginally, if that.
I’d say it’s rude to without any real incentive openly remark that somone is inferior to someone else, yes.
That being said, I’m pretty sure that while she might be the most awesome of the two of us, I have her beaten in awesomity. Why? Because that’s my personally coined concept, and as such, I define it’s perfect incarnation. (Me)
Good thing the question of awesomity isn’t on the line, then.
I just put it on the line. Booh-yeah.
Alright, then. If you perceived my comment as rude, than I apologize. After all, that’s the only polite thing to do; this pedantic nitpicking isn’t very polite.
Calling what we’re doing, and thus what I’m participating in, “pedantic nitpicking” isn’t very polite, either, so I’d say we’re square.