Pause, Reflect... head back to the library.

I don’t have one book out of the library. I don’t have a file titled ‘essay’ permanently open on my computer, staring at me accusingly every time I check my email or surf face book. There is no deadline hanging over my head. Essays have been handed in, and classes are finished. I have a sense of freedom and desire for celebration, but there is also a sort of sense of needing to pause and reflect.
Eight months ago about 100 of us peace studies students crammed into the lecture hall for our first Introduction to Peace Studies class. We instantly created ourselves into a tribe of friends, living in a confined village which included the library, café, pub, halls, etc. We’ve read the same books, had stress attacks at the same times, and complained about the same weather. We’ve consumed copious amounts of coffee, and almost as much wine. We’ve tried to cram conflict resolution, political science, international relations and more into our head space.
The courses have been great, but it’s the people that I have learned from. I wonder when I will have the opportunity to sit around a table in a pub with people from a dozen different countries again, while discussing concepts like universal human rights, just war, and failed states.
Part of the reality of being a diverse group is that we are all pointed in different directions. Since classes ended two weeks ago, and our essays were handed in last week, we have already started to scatter. Some people are heading to their home countries to write their dissertations, others are heading out on field research, some have other exciting adventures planned.
In a month and a half I’m boarding a plane to Durban, South Africa to intern at the Health Economics AIDS Research Division. I’m terribly excited about the opportunity to work at THE place to be if your interested in the social and economic dimensions of the AIDS pandemic (which I am!). I’m also hopeful that my work at HEARD will inform my dissertation.
In fact that is the next task that looms over me. I have to finalize my topic, begin my background research and write my proposal. So today I’m off to the library to get some books out and then no doubt I’ll have a permanently open file on my computer titled ‘dissertation,’ starting at me accusingly. There is not much time for pause and reflection after all – but there is a lot still going on, which is just the way I like it.