Update for Everyone IV - Hungover

[Crumpets]

Just got the worst f#cking haircut.

D:

Pics or didn't happen.

[Crumpets]

I got nominated for teacher of the year. That was kind of cool.

Aren't you the principal from Ferris Bueller, though?

[Crumpets]

I got to meet Valerie Plame today. Surprisingly inspiring and engaging person.

[Crumpets]

I have committed, and next fall, I will be attending Sewanee: The University of the South

I have a friend who goes there. It has a beautiful campus and is in a really pretty spot of the state with lots of outdoor stuff to do.

[Crumpets]

I finally turned in my thesis on Friday - 63 pages in total. It's going to be all downhill from here.

[Crumpets]

I finally turned in my thesis on Friday - 63 pages in total. It's going to be all downhill from here.

Congrats on finishing it, how long did it take for you to write it?

I've been doing research for about a year, but I started writing in September.

[Crumpets]

I was drunk the other day and I (in my drunk mind) "noticed" that Kentucky and Austria look similar in shape.

Discuss my drunken observations with maps.

Poland and Cambodia look like what happens when I try to make pancakes, omelets, crepes, etc.

[Crumpets]

Graduated from college today! I now have a bachelor's degree in International Studies with Honors.

[Crumpets]

So apparently Former Representative Joe Walsh followed my Twitter I just started... (I have 2 followers lol)

He was named "one of the most corrupt congressmen" in 2012 and lost to Tammy Duckworth.

Lawrence O'Donnell's "Dead Beat Dad Joe Walsh" Joe Walsh? That's... weird to say the least.

[Crumpets]

I went to a cat cafe for the first time last night.

[Crumpets]

While visiting family in Washington, I visited my first two Pacific states, saw and swam in the Ocean for the first time, kayaked the Columbia, backpacked for the first time around 6,000 feet above sea level, and saw part of the UW campus in Seattle. I picked up a few books down the street from campus: "On Revolution" and "The Origins of Totalitarianism" by Hannah Arendt, and a compilation: "Uncertain Transition: Ethnographies of Change in the Postsocialist World". It sadly only comprises Eastern Europe (I can't seem to find anything on Central Asia).

Check out Islam After Communism: Religion and Politics in Central Asia by Adeeb Khalid. I got it as a textbook for a class, but ended up reading the whole thing because of how engaging it was. Another good text if you like reading case studies is Ethnographies of the State in Central Asia which is a compilation of a bunch of essays on the region and how states operate in Central Asia and how citizens relate to their countries.

[Crumpets]

While visiting family in Washington, I visited my first two Pacific states, saw and swam in the Ocean for the first time, kayaked the Columbia, backpacked for the first time around 6,000 feet above sea level, and saw part of the UW campus in Seattle. I picked up a few books down the street from campus: "On Revolution" and "The Origins of Totalitarianism" by Hannah Arendt, and a compilation: "Uncertain Transition: Ethnographies of Change in the Postsocialist World". It sadly only comprises Eastern Europe (I can't seem to find anything on Central Asia).

Check out Islam After Communism: Religion and Politics in Central Asia by Adeeb Khalid. I got it as a textbook for a class, but ended up reading the whole thing because of how engaging it was. Another good text if you like reading case studies is Ethnographies of the State in Central Asia which is a compilation of a bunch of essays on the region and how states operate in Central Asia and how citizens relate to their countries.

Thank you! I'm trying to manufacture an honors thesis re: post-communism or something (I don't wanna talk about it) but the only stuff I know on Central Asia is from Encyclopaedia Britannica online. From those small scraps, it looks like an interesting situation: reluctance to secede from the Soviet Union, the maintenance of power of former Communist Parties, the fact that Islam seems more like a cultural attachment and thus apparently religious radicalism is weak compared to the secular nationalists in control of government, and urban Jewish and Slavic imports from Europe.

Cool! I wrote an honors thesis on a really similar topic in Belarus. One thing you might want to look into is the stability of the different Central Asian regimes with regard to the leader's former position in the Soviet Union. For example, people have argued that Kyrgyzstan's relatively strong democracy and the success of the Tulip revolution are partly thanks to the fact that the first leader after independence, Askar Akayev, was relatively young and unexperienced in politics compared to his neighbors, and was thus more influenced by public opinion and easier to overthrow than someone like Nazarbayev.

Another cool thing to look into is the contrived histories that have been set up post independence to give some meaning to the existence of countries which were really only created in the 20th century to make it easier for the Soviets to govern. Turkmenbasy wrote a book called Ruhnama which traces a fake history of Turkmenistan back to Biblical times and offers basically a new religion (centered around him, of course) to prevent a rise in Islamism. In Tajikistan, they have refashioned an obscure 10th century warlord as a supposed founder of the country and moral guide.

[Crumpets]

I'm running off to Eastern Europe tomorrow and probably won't be back until early October. I should still be able to post, but I'll probably be on here a lot less often until I get back. Here's hoping absolutely nothing interesting happens between now and the debates!

[Crumpets]

I don't suppose anyone has her last name (don't post it if you do) and could try to look her up either on Facebook or just a Google search?

[Crumpets]

thanks guys, that's sweet of ya'll to worry (and stalk). i was in the hospital and otherwise sulking by my lonesome, but I'll be fine. You can call off the dogs/Cathcons tho

[Crumpets]

I am in Istanbul Airport on a layover right now. The seat pocket on my flight here had a pamphlet called "FETO's coup attempt in Turkey" which was an 80-page government account of the coup and why the US should extradite Gulen - of course entirely in English.

[Crumpets]

I am in Istanbul Airport on a layover right now. The seat pocket on my flight here had a pamphlet called "FETO's coup attempt in Turkey" which was an 80-page government account of the coup and why the US should extradite Gulen - of course entirely in English.

Any remaining signs of the bombing?

I didn't see any, although I'm not exactly sure where it was in the airport. The main thing I noticed since the last time I was in Istanbul Airport is that there are now Turkish flags everywhere - all of the buildings, all of the stores, it's like America after 9/11.

[Crumpets]

I'm finally back in Seattle. Now time to find a temporary job while I apply for a full-time job and look for apartments in DC.

[Crumpets]

So today I feel I have accomplished my goal since July to convert 15 voters from uni/work to Hillary. I quickly abandoned talking to Trump supporters because it was annoying me, but I got 14 Johnson voters and 1 Stein. I have an 80% confidence level since I talk to them on a regular basis (about other things too!)

I have to admit, the Stein voters I talked to were incredibly stubborn and more ideological than the Johnson voters by far. This could just have been my luck of the draw, but the Johnson people seemed like their support was merely a placeholder while they waited for some reason or some other candidate to sweep them off their feet.

Anyway, time to relax (for now)

Wow, well done. That's probably a good sign for Hillary when it comes to states where Johnson is polling well. I think I have converted a grand sum total of two people, one of which may or may not actually vote.

[Crumpets]

I'm going as Brexit. Maybe sexy Brexit if I can figure out how...

[Crumpets]

Shtty situation right now.  I'd complain about it over Facebook again, but I don't want to be "that guy."  So I'll just do it here.

Basically I just slept the entire day today.  Woke up at 10 PM or something (more accurately, I slept until 6, did some stuff, went back to sleep and woke up again at 10).  I have absolutely zero motivation to do anything these days.  I was creating music a month ago, which I had enjoyed doing, but now I can't even do that anymore because of my depression and because I'm frankly losing motivation to do so and I have no ideas.  That was sort of important to me because it was one of few things that kept me happy and gave me reason to do stuff other than sloth around in bed all day.  Atlas doesn't seem to be filling the void for me, either, whether it's my routine shtposting or Atlasia stuff or whatever.  Right now I'm pretty much just lying in bed waiting to fall asleep, which is hard as it is because my sleep patterns are already fcked up and have been for years.

I just don't know what to do anymore.  I'm not looking for pity or anything, and maybe part of me even deserves it for being such an asshole on here all the time (which in large part is rooted in my general cynicism and anger about my personal situation), but I can't really find anything to justify my existence on this earth anymore seeing as I contribute basically jack sht to it.

I feel like this is my fault and there's something I could be doing to change it, but I don't know what it is.  I'm losing more and more of myself.

Sorry for the bawwww fest.

Last time I felt like this, I went for a long, aimless drive over a weekend without any particular destination in mind, and it helped a lot. I don't know if you have a car to do the same, but maybe just take a random mini-vacation to somewhere you're unfamiliar with and just hang out there. It'll rattle your senses and help build up a sense of place. Just my two cents.

[Crumpets]

Your boy is now in a relationship. Happy New Year.

Congratulations! Although, I think this might be against the Atlas code of conduct. I'll have to double check.