RIC-(en)rolling

Back to college for me, I guess.

I’ve already enrolled in Microeconomics and in Beginning Russian at Rhode Island College, and am still awaiting confirmation on Macroeconomics from the professor of that course. These courses are going to be necessary for my future career in international relations, and it’s better to do them sooner rather than later. I’ve completed all my applications to master’s programs in public policy and international studies; now all I have to do for them is keep my fingers very tightly crossed and see what kind of choices I have by March and April.

My reading list right now is pretty long; I’m currently reading a selection from Dr. Samuel Johnson’s collected works. It’s funny – the more I read the guy’s work, the more I admire him. It’s not just that he was a cat person and a teaholic, though both are excellent qualities. Here’s a guy who was decades (if not centuries!) ahead of his time in his thinking on racial and sexual equality and on treatment of the poor and socially-outcast, who spoke out stridently against war in the Falklands and against empire in the Americas. And yet, in every line he conveys a deep sense of respect for tradition, for his country and for the social order. Despite his witty jabs at journalists, authors and critics (some of which are more light-hearted and teasing than others – his cautions to authors were done quite obviously tongue-in-cheek given his own profession), you read a man who entertains a lot of serious thought on a number of issues. Reading some of his Idler essays and his Thoughts on the Late Transactions Respecting Falkland’s Islands, I feel as though much of what he said is as applicable now as it was back in the mid-18th Century!

Also on my reading queue are the letters, essays, prayers and speeches of Elizabeth I Tudor of England (who had the fortune – whether good or ill depends on one’s perspective – of being born a royal and thus a preordained claim to fame which exceeded her literary and scholastic talents), Hints to a Quaker by Frederick Denison Maurice and The Death Trilogy by Terry Pratchett (a much-appreciated Christmas gift from my sister).

Will keep posted as events merit, &c.