Reflection 6

Time management: a concept lost upon this nap-obsessed college student. I make list upon list upon list, but the actual act of starting and finishing work within a set period of time is absolutely abstract to me. This week’s lab, and actually seeing my days mapped out (or lack of mapping) showed me how plentiful my naptime is, and how I work in short spurts of time. I really needed a session like this because of how eye opening it was. I rarely find time to just reflect on what my work ethic is and how focused I am in terms of dealing with work and handling my different activities. I also have been to the library a lot since I got there, and I am sort of ashamed to admit that I also thought that they only had research materials so it was fantastic news to hear that they have a fiction section so I can have downtime reading in the library.

As for class, I wanted to comment on the fact that the entire discussion revolved around the points that were made and clarified by students alone. Usually there is some part of the question that is expounded upon Professor Jackson, and that ends up driving most of the discussion because the statements become more controversial as they are more detailed. The fact that the discussion kept going, and everything that was said spurred another comment reflects for itself- we can really discuss anything. The question of why we named hurricanes created so much different schools of thought from pure classification purposes to driving the pathos and ethos associated with donations for relief funds. I thought that the summarization of the theories was helpful because it forced me to think from different points of view, and I needed the opportunity to compare and contrast all the IR theories against each other on the same issue.

The student-run discussion created some really interesting points about the people who are disenfranchised or feel like they have no real say in the government- often times they go to extreme measures to be a recognized entity by the world, and to be viewed as an actual viable threat. Through the end of the class, I was thinking about why this is; how many times does the international community need to be hit with bricks to understand how serious terroristic threats are? The answer would be too complex: thousands of terrorist groups have risen over the years, but only a few can actually become organized and be so intricately woven into a society it becomes a social norm of sorts, and if every threat was taken seriously, no real work would ever be accomplished. I just find it incredibly sad that so many wake-up calls need to happen in order for a terrorist organization to be taken seriously, and more terrorists feel like this “rite of passage” is now an expectation in order to prove themselves as actual threats. I remember the quote from the Spy Museum: What’s the purpose of terrorism? To kill hundreds, injure thousands, scare millions.