Back down the rabbit hole...
Last night was another wild night, with a trip to an authentic Cypriot restaurant with PLENTY of wine strewn about. Everyone was dancing to traditional Cypriot music, with Myrto (the singer) and Cody (the madman) up on tables. The people that ran the place wasted about 30 packages of napkins throwing them on the dancers. We returned drunk with, Dionysis getting the better of more than one of us (yours truly was fine- except for an episode with the sword that I quickly remedied).
The past 2 days have been okay, including getting my Charter autographed by the guy in command of the UN mission in southern lebannon and a high up for the Iraq mission. ALMOST rivals Erin's SN for why my Charter fucking rocks- not that I'm a dork or anything. But today really had me thinking. There's a lovely little chicken and the egg problem with International Relations, where everyone wants experience, but no one wants to hire someone fresh out of college. I can't afford to do a shit-ton of internships, then do a MA, then hope for a job. I can't count on the Foreign Service, although I intend on keeping up with it. But today we had a speaker on Environmental Conflict Management. While it does sound lame, it's pretty damn interesting and will be in high demand in the not too distant future. He runs a program that he said is probably right for me, so I could get an MA in this stuff, be hot shit, get experience in the field, and then do a PhD in something that is much more security and diplomacy focused, then go about saving the world or what have you. It's an option I think I'll pursue, which would mean taking the GRE (ugh). I'll have to do a lot of thinking about this.
We also had a simulation today that was kind of a prisoners dilemma sort of thing, where cooperation gave the optimal ends and cheating would benefit one party in the short term. We had collusion going, until one group consistently fucked everything up. There were a lot of people SUPER pissed about it and gave tried to send us on a guilt trip about how "Maybe you really DON'T want peace" kinda thing. It had no effect on me because I think it clearly demonstrated something that some of these idealists don't get- reality, whether they like it or not, IS a factor. Trust is important because, well, people can and do breach it- and they do it often. This is why creative enforcement mechanisms have to be built into these sorts of things. When the one group screwed us over, we threatened war (consequence) and is we had the means to carry it out, then it would serve as a deterent for other groups. Blind idealism does no good when people don't realize that there ARE assholes out there and regardless of what your ideals are, people DON'T share them. Get over it and figure out how to achieve your goals despite their attempts. This is why we have the carrot and the stick thing.
Oh well, enough ranting. Hopefully I won't be updating for some time, which would indicate that 1) I don't make it north tomorrow and 2) I don't make it to Trodos (Mt. Olympus) this weekend. Here's Monday for ya!
The past 2 days have been okay, including getting my Charter autographed by the guy in command of the UN mission in southern lebannon and a high up for the Iraq mission. ALMOST rivals Erin's SN for why my Charter fucking rocks- not that I'm a dork or anything. But today really had me thinking. There's a lovely little chicken and the egg problem with International Relations, where everyone wants experience, but no one wants to hire someone fresh out of college. I can't afford to do a shit-ton of internships, then do a MA, then hope for a job. I can't count on the Foreign Service, although I intend on keeping up with it. But today we had a speaker on Environmental Conflict Management. While it does sound lame, it's pretty damn interesting and will be in high demand in the not too distant future. He runs a program that he said is probably right for me, so I could get an MA in this stuff, be hot shit, get experience in the field, and then do a PhD in something that is much more security and diplomacy focused, then go about saving the world or what have you. It's an option I think I'll pursue, which would mean taking the GRE (ugh). I'll have to do a lot of thinking about this.
We also had a simulation today that was kind of a prisoners dilemma sort of thing, where cooperation gave the optimal ends and cheating would benefit one party in the short term. We had collusion going, until one group consistently fucked everything up. There were a lot of people SUPER pissed about it and gave tried to send us on a guilt trip about how "Maybe you really DON'T want peace" kinda thing. It had no effect on me because I think it clearly demonstrated something that some of these idealists don't get- reality, whether they like it or not, IS a factor. Trust is important because, well, people can and do breach it- and they do it often. This is why creative enforcement mechanisms have to be built into these sorts of things. When the one group screwed us over, we threatened war (consequence) and is we had the means to carry it out, then it would serve as a deterent for other groups. Blind idealism does no good when people don't realize that there ARE assholes out there and regardless of what your ideals are, people DON'T share them. Get over it and figure out how to achieve your goals despite their attempts. This is why we have the carrot and the stick thing.
Oh well, enough ranting. Hopefully I won't be updating for some time, which would indicate that 1) I don't make it north tomorrow and 2) I don't make it to Trodos (Mt. Olympus) this weekend. Here's Monday for ya!