2003-05-09|3:46 p.m.
I just finished midterms with the completion of that eight page freakin� paper on the origins of World War I just now. One midterm I simply did �ok� on, one I am afraid there�s a possibility that I bombed it, and the midterm paper is fairly good, if I can say so. I got enough help on it from a couple very kind brainiacs I know.
The paper was, however, already written for me by boogityx2. Though, I think I�ll have to turn my copy in instead of this brilliantly funny one. You know, just in case I want to actually pass the class.
It was strange when I finished. I picked up one of the books, The First World War written by John Keegan, that I used for the historical foundation of my claims and began flipping through the parts I didn�t have to read for the class. Deep into the reading were actual pictures of the war. It was disturbing to the point that I felt I was going to vomit.
For the last few days I had reduced the war to an academic/political science level with terms like: structural and instrumental explanations, bargaining model for war, audience costs, etc. In my paper, states were �rational players� in a game of �strategy.�
But when I opened up the book to the black and white photo of the soldiers killed at the battle of Arras, I was startled. It was a long line of men all lying side by side awaiting a burial party. A few men, still alive, stood around them. One was reaching down to pull a sheet over a man.
It�s not that I forgot that war, especially this war, was horrific, but somehow breaking it down into two dimensional theories and events stole from the reality of it.
It is good we have pictures.
this time last year had two entries