Sleepless Dreamer > Recent Status Updates

Uni adventures:

Using class recordings to write an essay & hearing my past self know the material so well is wild. How could have I forgotten so much now? How can past me be so confident about this reading when I do not remember ever learning this? How dare they educate present me about this?

In other news, I've definitely reached immortality because a version of me will live forever in our class recordings.

me: finished less than half of their assignments for exam season

also me: I just spent an hour panicking about my next semester. If online learning doesn't happen, I am doomed. I know I can't expect consideration from 5 different uni departments but ugh, someone is gonna have to work with me

Also, oh god, next semester has so much finance, I need to be stopped if I start to transform into a finance bro

“If I were to tell you that the UN had tasked a conflict-resolution expert from, say, Kazakhstan with ending gun violence in Baltimore, but that neither this expert nor any of her bosses were familiar with American racial politics, police-community relationships in the USA’s inner cities, debates over the right to bear arms, or even spoke English—you would think this is absurd, wouldn’t you?”

This.

"The West is the height of culture and morals, here to save you savages from yourself" and "the West is solely responsible for everything bad that's ever happened in the world" are mirror images of each other.

They both remove agency and responsibility from non-Western people. Let's find more nuance, Dan.

What I planned to do today: improve my economics skills

what I did instead: fell into a rabbit hole of Aramaic and wow. It's so similar to Hebrew, so much closer to Hebrew than Arabic. I've never had this experience with a language before so this is the coolest thing ever.

I suddenly have this twinge of sadness, like where are you, Aramaic? Come back to the region! Make me feel skilled at language learning!

Ah yes, the men are having an important strategy meeting while the women, despite apparently being great warriors, are going swimming. Ugh.

So there's an evil queen here who's secretly dating the neighboring prince from a kingdom who committed a mass murder against her people. That's a better story than the main plot and I demand to see more of this romance.

I just used game theory to model why the two state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can't happen.

I then saw that, ofc, others have already done it but as expected, they inherently misunderstand Israel.

All I really want to now is read more on how game theory is used for conflict resolution and ughh, I can't believe I have so much Econ to study instead, can't we just skip to the part I apply it?

“the situation is seen as a “war” requiring “peace,” as if a previously orderly society had fragmented into civil conflict and needed only to be repaired. But Burma was never whole. And it’s not a coincidence that nearly all the fighting since the 1950s has been in valleys that had always been a patchwork of authority and had never before come under the sway of a single state”

What a fascinating thought.

"I know how to read in 5 different alphabets, surely Korean won't be that bad," I said confidentially, before flunking the first Korean Duolingo lesson.

Seriously, people say the Korean alphabet is easy, I am not feeling that.

uni adventures: getting a bad grade on a paper and then immediately after, grading a student's paper and giving him an excellent grade cause i don't want anyone else to feel as frustrated and full of self doubt as i feel now.

i wish i could abolish the grade system instead.

It seems that people from the 70s-80s genuinely thought it's accurate to talk about "Palestinian Jews" vs "Zionists". We don't understand ourselves this way.

Self identified Palestinian Jews stopped being a thing in 1948 and even before, it was Eretz Israel for us.

“If the Welsh activists relaxed their enthusiasm for a moment, all might still be lost, and only the idea of Wales would remain to haunt imaginations for ever after."

I stared at this sentence for way too long, I could probably write an entire philosophy paper about this.

I've got to give it to Morris. This description of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is likely to annoy both Israelis and Palestinians equally.

Please don't say Palestinian Jews- we're Israeli.

And seriously, why do people from the British Isles feel compelled to compare themselves to us? I promise, you're interesting enough without it, you don't need to add ✨Middle East sprinkles ✨

uni adventures:

i am such a bad communicator that my "i'm not sure i will have time for this job" seems to have translated to "here's the forms you need to sign, congrats on your new employment". dear god, how did this happen?

All I want in life is to finish this nightmare of an essay and for Hanne and Nina to live happily together. That's it.

Also, I am sticking to my headcannon of the Suli as Jews, even when I realize the intention is likely the Roma. But come on, a diasporic group who hides their identity to succeed in Russia/Ravka and emphasizes family connections, you can't tell me that's not Jewish.

"I could work in community management", I say as it takes me an hour to calm down after a collaboration meeting.

But really, why is speaking to functional adults so scary?? i am a baby.

Also, me introducing my vision with, "you see, our goal isn't to change the world, we're just a bunch of nerds trying to educate ourselves... I'm really uncultured. Like seriously, severely".

There have been three twists today in my life that feel like the beginning of NaNoWriMo novels, I am mildly stressed. Like oh dear, this could be the start of a (1) villain origin story (2) coming of age or (3) self-help book.

Everyone in Jerusalem is familiar with the frenetic back-and-forth between a state of emergency and business as usual, and there always seems to be an element of the arbitrary in the way the typical signs of crisis—mostly manifested in a more rigid sep­aration between Jews and Arabs—suddenly vanish and things go back to normal.

Uni adventures:
A guy in my philo class brings up my questions, words them better and argues for them. I am stuck between going "dammit, stop stealing my ideas" and feeling gratitude cause he is way more confident than me and gets them taken seriously.

Also, I love a class that concludes with doubt as to whether people are separate from each other and if my future self is me now. Time for an existential crisis!

There have been so many terror attacks in Jerusalem in the last few weeks that it doesn't even make the front page of the news anymore. Wild to think that we can grow so used to something so insanely abnormal.

“We must revise the notion that attending a four-year college is the mark of being a legitimate American, and return to truly valuing working-class jobs.”

I don't agree with much of this book but this? This is an excellent point.

fast adventures:
- studying philosophy when you're dizzy is a unique experience

- complaining to observant Muslims about a 12 hour fast like, we all know Jews are weak, we couldn't do Ramadan

- making a point to tell religious friends that I'm also fasting & living off their surprise like fuck yes, religion isn't just yours

- i read too much jewish history in the morning & became very sad and self-victimizing

Foriegn leftists usually pick one of these strategies when dealing with how little Palestinians are invested in 2 state solutions:

1. Denial- "Palestinians have agreed to two states in Oslo, they want two states"
2. Agreement- "We have to dismantle the settler colony of Israel, only Palestine exists"

I am not sure what I find worse.

Sometimes, all I can really think about is how incredibly grateful I am for the life I have.

And spending time with cool people from all around the world really emphasizes how remarkable it all is, like I don't want to miss a second, everything is exciting and magical.

"Yet, much like Fanon, the colonized in Palestine still crave the metaphorical and proverbial whiteness of the colonizer. This craving was expressed in the manner a Palestinian businessman I met in Ramallah proudly revealed that he once had Israeli friends and spoke Hebrew"

Oh no. The horror. How dare he try to build a life with his neighbors? Glad to hear our whiteness is only proverbial though.

Me, when editing a friend's writing: you come across like a dick here, this line is the most condescending thing I've ever read, this paragraph is terrible, I hate your usage of this word, your arguments are weak, do better.

Me, when checking students' papers: beautiful! amazing! perfect! phenomenal!

"Only when there is no privacy can there be total control."

This book is so eloquent, I can't believe I waited so long to read it.

uni adventures: the only thing motivating me at this point is that one day I will be working in a cool creative/ political job and the people around me will be shocked to learn that I know so much about foreign direct investments, like surprise, here are my opinions on the ICSID.

Having conversations in my third language 4 minutes after waking up, (before my coffee!) makes me feel like I can face any challenge.