Where did the time go?

I can't believe that the summer has flown by already. It seems that I only posted twice in the entire summer! Oh well...there are better things to do in the summer than read (or, apparently, write) blogs anyway :)

I have been trying to decide how to proceed with my Master's degree... whether to start it now and do distance, or wait a while and try to do it in-class, or do half and half... it's so complicated! I think I have decided to wait and do it in class. I could do part of it distance and start in January, but it is expensive and we have lots of other things we're saving towards right now.

So instead, I have contented myself with ordering books on the subject and I am beginning to read as much as I can in preparation for starting my program.

So, the first set of books I ordered were "Public Power in an Age of Empire" by Arundhati Roy, "Ethnic Conflict" by Stefan Wolff and "Direct Action and Democracy Today" by April Carter. These are books that are either required reading for some peace-studies courses, or they are written by profs at some of the universities I'm considering for my Master's. I am also working through a whole pile of articles online at the University of Coventry - they have a whole section of articles written by department personnel that you can download for free - so that's a great resource.

Even though Peace Studies is a relatively small field (compared to something like Business Studies or English), there is still a wealth of reading material available and it is difficult to know where to focus my energies. I have been able to download curricula from some peace studies courses, so I have taken the books mentioned in the curricula as "required reading" and added them to my list of books to read. But these are not the actual classes that I will be taking so I'm not sure how relevant they'll be. I contacted some department heads at some of the universities I am interested in and explained that I will be starting my program in a year or two and would like to begin reading ahead. I asked them for recommendations and was pretty discouraged by the response. I understand that they are very busy, but I thought they could have passed the assignment onto an intern or staff assistant, or just forwarded me the curricula from a basic intro-course. It doesn't even make good business sense for them... if they snag me now, they're guaranteed potentially $20,000 of my money... surely that prospect is worth a few minutes of effort... but apparently not.

OK, so yet again, my blog turns into a rant... but the good news is that I have at least found some books to start me off and I am thoroughly enjoying them (although I'm not sure that "enjoy" is the right word when you're reading about genocide and ethnic cleansing). It has given me lots to think about already and the more I read, the more excited I get about the future and the practical implications of this course of study.