Whistle while you work

Oh dear. After not posting anything for 2 weeks (vacation weeks!) - not because I was busy with life's thrills, but rather because I have been reading obsessively and there is nothing like reading to cripple any desire to write - I finally decide to break the dry-spell at the precise moment when I actually have work that needs to get done. No big deal, just preparing presentations for tomorrow's MUN session. The poor souls will have to listen to me talk about regional arrangements for almost an hour. As it is, the topic is usually met with aggressive skepticism, perhaps stemming from the disillusioning ineptness of the Arab League***.

The house is empty as the family is traveling for a couple of weeks. (I am smoking a cigarette! Right now! In my living room!) Before their departure, the two spheres of my life which I have so cautiously polarized (i.e. my family and my friends) came face to face, in my house, for dinner. And the earth did not crack open, my mother did not shit a brick and throw it at any of my friends, and trouble-making interactions which trigger such fantastical scenarios were generally absent.

I don't know why I've been so reluctant (the use of that word is such an understatement that it makes me a liar) to introduce these two facets of my life to each other. I guess maybe while growing up our behavior around family is so drastically different from our behavior around friends that the thought of dealing with both simultaneously promises little besides nervous loss of assuredness and massive social awkwardness. (Our is being used to refer to myself and those who were as lucky as I to have had their childhoods and teenage years agitated by cultural dualism. You're really blessed if the mixed messages and clashing value systems are never discussed within the family.)

Anyhow, all went well, and the dinner which my mom whipped up (like magic, or art, I swear to god) was delectable as always. After everyone left, I picked her brain for her insight into these characters with whom I spend so much time, and her feedback was as terrifyingly accurate as only a mother's can be.

Back to work.


***Brief pause during which I considered launching into a political discussion. Quickly decided against that. Simply not in the mood, and I think 4 years of political science have diminished my eagerness to discuss politics. They have also convinced me that while everyone has opinions, very few of them are interesting or remotely original, least of all my own. While we all have the right to voice our opinions, I am not particularly keen on hearing most. As for sharing my own, I've come to realise that one of the skills most vigrously developed while trampling around the social sciences is how to disguise your mostly uninspired thoughts as coherent, thoughtful, and even elegant formulations. In conclusion, I will spare myself and this blog from anything which has become so...worn.