One Essay Down (and that's all that matters for today)

So after several weeks of research into
- the structure of the United Nations;
- the UN Security Council;
- the mass atrocities in Darfur;
- the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that lead to the independent state of South Sudan this past summer;
- the roles of the US and China with the Security Council with respect to the ongoing mass atrocities in Darfur;
- the established international norms of non-interference and respect for state sovereignty (you don’t invade another country’s territory just because you feel like it)
- and the Responsibility to Protect (simply put, if a country isn’t protecting its own citizens, as in the case of the Rwandan genocide or the mass atrocities in Darfur, the international community has a responsibility to intervene to protect those citizens)

I have finally submitted my first essay in grad school – worth a shocking 100% of my grade in my “UN and Peacekeeping” class, analyzing the success of the UN in conflict resolution and peacekeeping in the case of Darfur.

I went out for a celebratory pint with my Burundian classmate Nestor and after about an hour, a musician showed up to provide some live entertainment. His second song of choice: You Can Call Me Al. It’s a song off Paul Simon’s Graceland CD that my Dad used to play in his car on our way to and from church when I was younger. Gotta love a little piece of home in Ireland…and globalization. And I have to say, it sounded good with an Irish accent.