Mantras and Abstractions

Wednesday 8 April

So I'm sorry these are so late, this week has literally been hell and I don't know what I've been doing other than a lot about trade and less about everything else, which is problematic.

Dragged myself out of bed to work more on rigid rotors in Quantum, which I know super well from Lab. Hooray synergy (is that how you use that word? Whatever.)! Water and Soil Chem was less fun talking about carbonate systems and ocean sediments, but I learned exactly what I needed for the quiz on Friday. Woot.

After that class let out late, I booked it over to the UMC, where I attended a panel for CWA called "Should I Stay or Should I Go? Scotland, Northern Ireland, the UK and the EU" which was really good and full of people with wonderful beautiful accents. My professor actually moderated and forced me to come up and join the rest of the students and not isolate in the back. I met a wonderful woman that grew up in Scotland and moved to the US in her 20's, who was so sweet and really interested in my brief foray into the world of nationalist politics. I can be what is described as "charming" if I try to not actively despise everyone.

Anyway, I was really expecting more about the interplay between the UK's regionalism and EU regionalism, and found myself thinking that I was almost disappointed about the fact that it was mostly very personal stories about the Scottish referendum and the national feeling there.

It was then that I was like, "Wow, Mags, you have officially forgotten why you got into politics in the first place, which is to make people's lives better and care about people over policy. You're going to be a great congresswoman." Because even though I adore thinking about institutions and democracy and policy, it gets really hard to remember that all of those things have a real impact on people's lives. It's really very heartbreaking to realize that a seven on the Freedom House measure of autocracy means that someone lives under a brutal regime. Maybe that's why we block it out. It's really hard to go on when you start thinking about the individual unit of analysis versus the systemic unit.

I have to remember that, however. I get caught up in abstractions, which is why I'm a hella rad academic but not honestly the greatest human being. Smack me on the head if I start forgetting again.

Anyway. Read about SADC while I printed off a lab on electronics, which confused the guy sitting next to me to say the least. My life doesn't make sense, this has been proven.

We talked about African regionalism in Europe and the International System, which, Spoiler Alert, is a giant mess and the best example of decoupling (institutions that are there but completely ineffective) there is in the world. It's not a good time, and honestly kind of resembles a neocolonial and almost paternalistic attitude toward foreign policy, which is a hard thing to discuss.

Good times in politics, kids, are very few and far between.

Lab was pretty rad, Randall and I built some great circuits and learned how to math for voltage differences. We then built a polarity circuit with some LED's and then made a binary counter, which was really cool. I forgot how fun chemistry could be without the stress of a 20 page lab report looming at the end. Process over product, kids. It needs to be a mantra.

I came home, ate some pizza, and read about Iran's nuclear program, which put me in a grand mood for three hours of orchestra (come to our concert! April 21! It's pretty and mostly Russian with that song that we always had to do fucking arabesque penchées to in ballet class! Music! Not PTSD! Yes!).

Spent two hours in the library after that panicking about my presentation and also reading about Iranian nuclear programs. It's a good time to be a stupid procrastinating problematic high achiever, believe me. Walked home, had a mild panic attack in stress, suppressed it so that's healthy, and watched the John Oliver interview with Edward Snowden, which was fucking hilarious and that cheered me up.

Anyway. I repeat a lot of mantras in my head which represent some assumptions that may or may not be true, and it's really scary to start to think about those assumptions breaking down. Things like "You're going to be fine" keep me going, and when you start to think about the alternative "You might not be okay" (which is always very, very real if my life experiences have taught me anything), it's panic inducing. That's another thing I deal with a lot—fear that primary assumptions will break down and I will be forced to confront a painful alternative. Maybe it's a product of being in policy research and thinking about possible failures and alternative options, or maybe it's because I hang out with a lot of pragmatic engineers and scientists. I don't know.

Anyway, I'm tired. Welcome to my tired rants about hypotheticals. Help would be appreciated.

Thanks for reading :)