School's started, can you tell?

Well I knew that it would come to this, school starts and I become less able to post on el blogo. I promise I won't let it go more than a week without writing, unless its essay crunch time.

This week has been pretty good. There have been a few guest lectures happening in the GSIA (Grad Studies in International Affairs), and in the larger CAP (College of Asia Pacific, which houses GSIA), so I've been attending those. One was by someone who started the Human Security Report Project, which is funny because that used to be housed at UBC, and now it's at SFU. So of course being the only Vancouverite in the room I had to get a few geographically-based questions in there, which was fun. I also asked about how they are able to continue when the wonderful Conservative government of ours has LITERALLY removed certain phrases like 'human security' and others from their political rhetoric. NICE Harper, very nice. Glad you care about the rest of the world.

But I digress...

My class yesterday was on humanitarianism, and I think it's going to be a really exciting class. After 3 years in the non-profit sector it was really interesting to see a lot of what we struggle(d) with written in academia. They use the case of the International Red Cross a lot, but many of the principles are universal across NGOs, or they should be, or they are and shouldn't be. Ah, the world of debate, love it.

Today I had IR Theory. It's a mandatory class, and I've taken IR theory classes before. They are dry as anything but do lay a good framework going forward in order to analyze things. I also love that the feminist perspective is a widely respected, if not entirely accepted, theory. I argue for it regularly :-)

Tomorrow I'll have Ethics and Culture in World Politics. It sounds like there will be a lot of intersection with the humanitarianism class, but I don't think that's a bad thing. Its what I'm interested in and what I want to learn about, so I'm happy to be able to get two different views on things.

I wish I could tell you about Simon's classes but he'll have to do that himself at some point! I know that they are business-related, and that the one yesterday seemed dry and boring but today's was all about analyzing strategic marketing, which he said sounds really interesting.

I've also taken a few library tours. There are 6 libraries on campus, plus the National Library in the city. It was really awe-inspiring to be in the presence of that much combined knowledge. And the librarians really know what they are talking about, and seem really excited to help students find whatever they are looking for, which makes me happy. I *almost* wish I was doing a thesis, but it's so hard to justify paying them these crazy fees so that I can write a paper. A few people in the program feel the same way, but a few also had scholarships, so lucky them!

The make-up of my classes is great. I'm really looking forward to learning from others who have real life experience in the types of issues were going to be discussing. There are foreign diplomats etc who are here for the year to improve their knowledge and skill base too, which is so cool. Definitely can't wait to hear people's opinions about things as the semester continues.

Well, for wanting to hop on and write a quick 'yes we're still alive!' this seems to be pretty long, so I'm going to go now. I do have the intention of taking my camera with me to a few spots where I've seen some crazy spiders to document them for you, but I haven't got there yet. Maybe this weekend :-)

Until then... :-)