It's the home stretch. I'm on page 2 of an 8-12 page paper discussing the pertinenceof the natural elements as metaphors in modern scandinavian epic literature. Due Friday. I took my physics inclass final today. Still have to slay the take home, by friday.

Then a week off as I hopefully hike around the White Mountains, though my ailing knee may detain me.

Looking forward to seeing those people I will have time to see, which isn't many.
Looking forward to Sweden.
Looking forward to June in Jersey.
Looking forward to the Summer term.
Looking forward to...

It's very odd to feel detatched from anything at Deep Springs, and to be looking so far ahead amidst such opportunity is truely frustrating. I'd like to say that I am passionate about my classes, but right now, as a result of having spent a massive amount of time on planning my summer, the summer feels like it should be arriving. Bring it on.

I was elected Labor Commissioner for the Summer. That is going to be exciting. It's quite a load of responsibility, but ultimately I feel confident in my relationship with labor and aspire to share it with the incoming first years. A delicate balance of seriousness and comradery is what I hope to achieve.

Less talk, more rock. Need to tend to the dairy cows, then be academic for a while. Perhaps this site will see less stagnation over my break....yea right.

I've had two thoughts treking through my mind these past few days, and here they are...

Since Sunday, Richard Goldstone, Jurist from South Africa, the first chief prosecuter of war crimes in an international court (yugoslavia, rwanda), the man who undid Aparthied and essentially the biggest swinging dick in human rights, has been visiting as a guest lecturer, and last night I took the opportunity to sit down with him and discuss the Iraqi War.

Let me begin by saying that I would have never expected a man of his stature to be so outspoken in opposition of the war. While he wouldn't directly support Mandela's claim that Bush wasn't thinking straight (due to lack of tact), he did hint to the fact that he pretty much agreed. He openly criticized the Bush administration, but prided himself on being able to seperate the Bush administation from the American people, a distinction that he said most people in the world have trouble making.

So we got to talking about what he called "American arrogance" throughout the war in Iraq, as well as the refusal of the United States to recognize the international court. On the later note, he informed me that they have threatened almost all countries (including South Africa) to withdraw military alliance with them if they didn't sign the US documents... He said that the deadline for this is coming up either this or next month, and at this point the only 1.5 countries of any significance that have signed it are India and Israel.

So I asked him if there was any face-saving manuever that the US could pull to not force them to break of ties with the rest of the world, and he basically said no, they've really done themselves in this time.

I wonder about all this. That a country should not recognize the international court is awfully similar to a country not allowing UN weapons inspectors...By my calculation, after we're done with Iraq, we should be invading ourselves...

In my lifetime, unless something is done soon, I forsee much suffering before a vastly different world takes shape.

--

Second thought.
I've started reading Primo Levi's The Monkey's Wrench, and it's thrown a number of thoughts into the air, dispite the fact that I'm only on page 30 or so.

One of the main characters, and essentially the only character that's been of any importance so far, is a rigger, who travels the world in pursuit of excitment. Fair enough, a modern novel that praises carpe diem philosophy, nothing new. But it goes a bit deeper than that. To paraphrase, the rigger says "there was a point that I realized that to see the world I could either get a job like this or travel many years later as a tourist." Fair enough. He then goes on to praise the variety that traveling affords, speaking of this change as something essential for his sanity.

Now, I'd like to explore that change as something more. While Levi places change in the physical, in travel, I feel that it could just as well apply to more abstract changes. The way I see the world and view employment and work, I'd go mad if I were to do the same thing every day, or every year. I need progress, I need change. And through Levi, I see that only I can make that change. Only I can travel, and only I can innovate.

Perhaps I hold very high standards for myself, but I will consider myself a failure if I end up a 'desk job.' I have a fundamental need to bring about change. I don't want to design tuperware, or even toys. As much as I love engineering, ultimately I think that I'm headed for public policy. I've thought a lot about the state of the beaurocracy that surrounds rehabilitative and assistive technology, and perhaps thats were I'm headed.Changing the world is a tough task to swallow, but somewhere, somehow, I believe.

I guess I'm acting on a binge of inspiration provided by Justice Goldstone. I mean, for the past few days I've been hanging out with the guy who, as a judge from within, took down the apartied government. That's huge.

Commence the bursting of my bubble.......now.