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The past month or so has been an unbroken string of disappointments, most of all with myself. I constantly wonder whether I am learning from my mistakes.

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I am enjoying the Decameron a lot more than I had expected, but I found a section in Boccaccio’s prologue rather chilling in how close it hits home:

For from my youth until the preset day, I have been inflamed beyond measure with a most lofty and noble love, far loftier and nobler than might perhaps be thought proper, were I to describe it, in a person of my humble condition. And although people of good judgement, to whose notice it had come, praised me for it and rated me much higher in their esteem, nevertheless it was exceedingly difficult for me to endure. The reason, I hasten to add, was not the cruelty of my lady-love, but the immoderate passion engendered within my mind by a craving that was ill-restrained. This, since it would allow me no proper respite, often caused me an inordinate amount of distress. […] And it pleased Him that this love of mine, whose warmth exceeded all others, and which had stood firm and unyielding against all the pressures of good intention, helpful advice, and the risk of danger and open scandal, should in the course of time diminish of its own accord. […] When men are in love, they are not affected in this way… They, whenever they are weighed down by melancholy or ponderous thoughts, have many ways of relieving or expelling them. For if they wish, they can always walk abroad, see and hear many things, go fowling, hunting, fishing, riding and gambling, or attend to their business affairs. Each of these pursuits has the power of engaging men’s minds, either wholly or in part, and diverting them from their gloomy meditations, at least for a certain period: after which, some form of consolation will ensue, or the affliction will grow less intense.

Seven hundred years later men are still much the same, I suppose.

The Columbia University Partnership for International Development (CUPiD, cute name) held a conference yesterday called “Philanthropy, Profits & Progress: The Role of Private Actors in International Development“. I got a CUPiD poster and folder at the conference and everyone was wondering whether I had just gone for some sort of dating agency session.

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Last week I skipped a macroeconomics lecture to attend Dr. Amien Rais’s talk at SIPA. He gave a broad historical overview of Indonesian politics and spoke about his experience with the democratic reform movement, but things began to get more interesting when he gave his explanation about why resource-rich Indonesia is still largely poor - he blames something he calls a ‘corporatocracy’ of multinationals, foreign governments, international agencies, mass media, and academic ‘intellectual prostitutes’ (his words) that coopt local elites. Sounded a lot like Confessions of an Economic Hitman. He spoke about multinationals that operate mining and oil extraction in Indonesia and how the profit-sharing agreements were unfair and operations did not create opportunities for technology transfer or technical training. Afterwards, I crashed an 8000-level polisci class which Dr. Rais was giving a guest lecture to, where he spoke at length about Islamic fundamentalism and Shariah law - he does not believe Indonesia is in danger of becoming less secular. Which is a lot different from the picture I got from a muslim women’s rights activist in Indonesia, who visited SIPA late last year and spoke about the difficulties she faced in speaking out in the debate on women’s rights in Islam.

In retrospect I should’ve taken notes since I am writing this from memory.

My initial response to reading Mark Eleven’s post on his experience as an ASEAN pre-university scholar was to dismiss it as the rant of someone who doesn’t have the talent, initiative, or willpower to benefit from being given such a great opportunity - the next best alternative would have been to pursue his studies in M’sia and fight through ethnic quotas on local university placement and primary Bahasa language instruction. I question his competence, and most of all, his ridiculous sense of entitlement that demands that the world owes him a living. They do not, and that should have been the first lesson he learned in this country - because it is the most important one in life.

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