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October 21, 2006
Total immersion
After a summer full of travels and some research, it has suddenly dawned on me that I am at the beginning of my third year PhD programme and have to finish with classes and take my exams and start writing a dissertation. This is the time I have been waiting for, a situation where I have almost complete intellectual freedom to produce something hopefully useful, and I do have a good idea about what I want to do.
But I have also realised that there are many holes in my knowldge, among which I can count my meager knowledge of post-Islamic Near East. I am also still dealing with Greek (I think it is now my second strongest ancient language), but I need to improve it much.
So, all in all, I have been immersing myself in intellectual inquiry, reading, writing, researching, and discussing things with my fellow grad students. I am in a way rediscovering why I like being an academic or being in an academic environment. At the same time, I am more and more realising how much I don't know and how much there is out there, still closely related to my field, that I need to learn. So, forgive my occasional neglect of this weblog as I am doing something that is making me very happy.
By the way, any ideas about the death of Habeus Corpus? My American constitutional historian friend is freaking out badly!
Posted by Khodadad at October 21, 2006 12:56 AM
Comments
Good luck as you begin your third year of PhD studies! I am glad you are happily plugging your knowledge gaps. :) I seem to do most of my plugging through blogging these days. People keep telling me about things that I then have to look up and learn about! ;)
Regarding your question about Habeus Corpus (unfortunately my dial-up connection is not YouTube friendly, but I am on an ACLU email list), I think that Bush's so called "Un-American Military Commissions Act of 2006" is a profoundly Un-American law! Here is a quote from the ACLU: "The president now has Congress's blessing to hold people indefinitely without charge, take away protections from horrific abuses, use hearsay to put people on trial, authorize death penalty trials based on testimony literally beaten out of witnesses, and slam shut the courthouse door for those accused, lifting our time-honored habeas corpus rules." Well, all that I can hope for is that this law will very soon be set aside pending judicial review. Also, in a few weeks, America will vote. Assuming that the election is not fixed by the 23 states with electronic voting but no paper trail, I am hoping that the next Congress will exercise its Constitutional right to check and balance the President (or even inpeach him, along with Cheney and Rumsfeld)!
If you need anything more to wrap your mind around, may I suggest my new post? :)
Posted by: David at October 21, 2006 10:48 PM