Overload

The past days have been filled with more fresher's activities on top of course induction and choosing my classes.

Yesterday was the official "Fresher's Fair" and can I say, Chariots of Fire, anybody? I felt as though I were in the 21st century version of the film where they arrive at Cambridge and shortly thereafter find themselves in a massive hall with all the societies from debate to choir, politics and cricket. All of these activities are open to anybody to join. I counted, and I found there are at least four separate ski vacations planned to France or Austria each year, there are at least three socialist societies, and even an archery society (who were very eager to find anyone to join).

The highlight, of course, were the free cadbury chocolates found at every booth, the free pens and other such delights. I ended up volunteering my name for the ski club, yoga club, sailing club, and graduate union (Debates, speakers etc.), but am likely to maybe only participate in one of those because...

I had my first set of lectures today, and the next year is going to be nothing less than super intense.

At this point I am probably going to stick to my original choices of War and Society, International Law and Middle East Politics, although I am also going to attend International Security and perhaps choose that as an alternative to one of the others.

The required reading is close to 1000 pages per week (all the classes combined) at minimum. Also, I am expected to be devoting 25% of my time to research already. Needless to say, it was a bit overwhelming, but these are subjects that I also thrive on so I look forward to the challenge and all the knowledge I will hopefully gain.

Finally, yesterday after we had our "induction" (basically orientation), they had a luncheon for all the MPhil students in Politics and International Relations, and it was also a chance to meet our supervisors. Come to find out, James Mayall will only be supervising my thesis which is a bit intimidating but also very exciting. Some of you know that I was playing around with the idea of completely shifting my thesis subject (which would inevitably mean a new supervisor), but after only a brief chat with Dr. Mayall, I knew that if I changed my focus I would be missing out on a once in a lifetime opportunity.

I am actually still bubbling with excitement over the prospect of working with him. For a little background, he has worked in the British Foreign Service, London School of Economics, and is former Chair of the Centre of International Studies here at Cambridge (my department). His area of focus is North-South Relations, Africa, Nationalism, ethnic conflict (and other sources of conflict) post Cold War and more recently he has focused on post-9/11 international relations.

This is right in line with what I have focused on the past few years, and I have even turned to his work in much of my research on Somalia. So, as of now, my thesis will remain focused on intervention but rather than solely looking at Somalia, my plan is to step back, look at a broader framework of the relationship between human security and security/defense, and use Somalia as a case study of the failures and potential solutions to Western response.

It seems the days of simply being a tourist here in Cambridge have rapidly come to an end. Though this was quite a bit of information overload, on several different fronts, the bottom line is: I am so excited and ready for the academic year to begin!