Tag Archives: Russia
End of the Semester (Terrorism)
I’m suffering from a severe migraine right now and I’m starving but there’s nothing to eat and I kind of spent most of my money; not to mention I missed the bus. So I’ve decided to write this entry because the alternative, writing my history paper, is painful to even think about when I haven’t slept. I slept a total of about 5 hours in the past 48 hours, which isn’t abnormal for me but it’s fucking exhausting.
Today I finished my second, and final, final exam. It was introduction to mass communication, which I studied for this morning, but it was pretty straight forward so I didn’t have a problem with it. Yesterday I submitted my rhetoric portfolio, which contained every draft of every piece of writing we’ve done from the beginning of the semester. By submitting this complete body of work, I felt this sense of accomplishment; like it was all worth it in the end. I wrote the first and second draft of my final paper the night before and the book review, on a book I hadn’t even read, the next morning. This just proves that I am able to get my shit done on time, regardless of how or when it’s done.
But all of this isn’t entirely relevant to the topic of this entry. My final history class was yesterday, which I’m really sad is over. I really enjoyed that class, plus the professor is awesome. However I still need to write a 4,000 word paper for this class; comparing two types of terrorism in Europe one from the 19th century and the other from the 20th or the 21st century. The topic is quite interesting as was the course. So what I’ve done today was look for books on Russian anarchists and state sponsored terrorism in the library. Because what I’ll probably do is compare the tactics of the Russian anarchists to Stalin’s tactics during his rule of the USSR.
I realized that this would be my sixth paper on terrorism or a terrorism related topic. For some reason I find it to be very interesting. I attempted to write a paper about democracy once, got bored out of my mind, and ended up changing the topic to tyranny. What I also realized is that Poli-Sci majors have the capacity as well as the right to joke about terrorism. Because after all when you research the topic as often as I have you are allowed to joke about dating Hitler or Stalin or both. I realize that murders, dictators, tyranny and totalitarian regimes are not a joke, but unless you put a humorous spin to it, it will totally fuck you up. Believe me just trying to imagine how anyone can be that vicious is disturbing. So imagine watching a video about concentration camps, which was quite graphic I might add, at three in the morning*. Anyway putting aside the fact that political science completely screws with your brain sometimes, I’m really looking forward to researching this topic. Not entirely looking forward to writing such a long paper though, but I’d like to see how it will turn out.
*Had to write a paper on concentration camps for a previous history class, with the same professor, while using Elie Wiesel’s autobiographical novel Night (which is inclredible) as a primary source. When doing my research I came across an interview with the author on Oprah in Auschwitz. The video included pictures and clips of former prisoners during their time in the camp as well as hundreds of corpses. Good stuff! And there is no better time to watch it than at 3:00 am.
An Artist at Heart 