Category: studies

Caroline BachLeave a comment

Hurricane

So, I’m here again.. in Orkanen, or the Hurricane as some call it. It’s the really nice Malmö University library and it’s a great place to study.

The windows here are huge, from the floor to the high ceiling, and the view is great. There’s water surrounding the building, and the weather is fantastic. I’m sitting in a red little sofa, making notes from my notes, and trying to remember all this Nussbaum, Giddens, Tilly and Kant stuff.. It’s nice, I like it.

My Spotify keeps me company, I couldn’t concentrate to music with lyrics, but my ambient list is perfect for today.

I actually enjoy this. :)

Caroline BachLeave a comment

Creative lovers

We can all agree on the fact that thinking of love and sex affects our way of thinking, an article published in the Personality and Social psychology Bulletin suggests how:

Why Love Has Wings and Sex Has Not: How Reminders of Love and Sex Influence Creative and Analytic Thinking

This article examines cognitive links between romantic love and creativity and between sexual desire and analytic thought based on construal level theory. It suggests that when in love, people typically focus on a long-term perspective, which should enhance holistic thinking and thereby creative thought, whereas when experiencing sexual encounters, they focus on the present and on concrete details enhancing analytic thinking. Because people automatically activate these processing styles when in love or when they experience sex, subtle or even unconscious reminders of love versus sex should suffice to change processing modes. Two studies explicitly or subtly reminded participants of situations of love or sex and found support for this hypothesis.

Caroline BachLeave a comment

Peacekeeping vs. Sleeping. Who wins?

I’m too tired for this.. but I have to, have to, have to finish my assignment.

For those asking, the course in International Peacekeeping at Queensland University in Australia is mainly about the work of the UN, it’s an intensive distance course which is given during a period of about three months and I am attending it as a part of the Universitas 21 Global Issues Programme which is just an extra thingy I applied for as they offered really interesting courses at really nice universities.. and hey, I get a Global Issues Certificate when I’m done.. whatever that means. haha

Every week we get the assignment of writing a blogpost answering a question where we have to take a stand in some matter.. so there’s an active on-line discussion and it’s really interesting to read other people’s statements on the topic.. However, as I am miss procrastination and a crazy time optimist, I tend to start way too late.. and then I have to sit here.. hoping to post my blog before 6 o’clock in the morning when the deadline is. And right, I have to get up at 9 tomorrow.. Crazy timezones, crazy me.

I love all this though, the conflict resolution, the world politics, the international relations.. And today I’ve met two really interesting and inspiring people that don’t see the limitations that seem to keep others down.. My prospects to solve wars and mediate between arguing parts scare people sometimes, they think it’s too big and too far away.. impossible. That I want too much from life, that I should slow down. I don’t see the limits, as the world is all out there, just waiting for people to use it. And I find every-day standard life, working 9 to 5 completely unsatisfying and understimulating.. Give me the world!

The picture above is from a 12hour hardseat trainride from Kunming to Guiyang in China last year.. I’m as tired right now as the guy on the picture was after our attempt to communicate for a couple of hours using a dictionary and my notebook.. and the book is Ayn Rand’s – The Fountainhead.. it’s fantastic.. I swear, it’s perfect. Do it.

Back to Peacekeeping. And I really want to sleep.

Caroline BachLeave a comment

peace.. sleeping.

Q3.Does the categorisation of peace operations into these five different types make sense? How and why, or why not?

Categorising peace operations into the five main categories of traditional peacekeeping, managing transitions, wider peacekeeping, peace enforcement and peace support (Bellamy et al 2004:95) may be useful for analysing the outcomes of the missions retrospectively /…/ However, I do not believe that categorisation in such fragile matters as conflicts is suitable as I think that it is of key importance to really try to understand the complexity of the conflict and design every mission individually. /…/

See what time it is?
This is what Australian deadlines do to me.. or well, maybe it’s just me.. goodnight. :)

Caroline BachLeave a comment

Glöm aldrig Srebrenica!

Another day of studying equals another day of procrastinating.

The course I’m doing right now at the University of Queensland is about International Peacekeeping and focuses on the work of the UN around the world.. This picture that I took in Sarajevo fits well into the context: never forget Srebrenica. Moving on is one thing, forgiving another, but forgetting the mothers & daughters left alone after one of the biggest massacres of our time is just a big no-no.