Nerdy post

Ergh I just completed an essay that was rather excruciating to write -not that the topic wasn't interesting, but I had all these bits of information but had no idea how to piece them together into a coherent argument.

Which just goes to show how little I understand socialist and post-socialist societies.

All the same, I have no regrets about taking this module (Anthropological Approaches to Socialist and Post-Socialist socities) -I'll always remember how utterly lost I felt during the first tutorial, not knowing anything about socialist societies in Europe (not exaggerating here). Well, now I'm pleased to know something about them! Especially since it's an anthropology module, I think the lecturer did a good job of really going into the everyday lives of these people under socialism and post-socialism, and I think that's one of the reasons why I'm doing a social science in the first place, to understand more about the lives of people on our planet hohoho.

But this module has been strange in that the more I learn about these societies, the more I cannot find explanation or use the theories I've learnt so much about (on ethnicity, nationalism etc) on them, socialist/post-socialist societies are so complex in terms of the different forces that brought about such drastic changes within a relatively short period of history, at some point through the course I genuinely felt like I just couldn't comprehend what was going on (like how could perfectly functioning social relations just suddenly break down into ethnic violence?).

Well, of course I can't claim to have been doing my readings religiously so that's perhaps the reason why. Also my grasp on history is really really bad.

Oh goodness I'm rambling. And I'm not even rambling about vaguely interesting stuffs (sorry for putting all of you through this torture). I promise more interesting stuffs the next time round on my not-so-academic life haha. 1.25am, time to go to sleeeeep without having to worry about this essay anymore.

And in slightly more than a day's time, I will be missing out on an opportunity to perform on Steinway pianos in the Esplanade Recital Studio (whywhywhy)!!! Good luck to all NUSPE performers for the concert! (: