Breaking out of the post-pandemic cocoon — If you’re feeling uncomfortable about your partner’s after-work drink events, two threads on the internet tend to come up. One points out that you’re a jealous and controlling type, the other is that your partner is a potential alcoholic. Still, there can be more to it. As the world has…

The spectral glow of lingering thoughts —

The trials and tribulations of unemployment. — I took a leap of faith. I left my burgeoning career for the adventure of a lifetime studying abroad. Open to the goodness of the world, I was ready for wherever the road would take me. Few of us, however, calculated a pandemic into our life plans, nor the prospect…

GiaB writing prompt #22 intimacy — I wake from your embrace two blooms unfurling at dawn My likeness is mirrored in your smile but the reflection across the room beckons me to the mounted mirror Untangling my shape from yours I now stand before it alone I run my fingers over my reflection the smudges blurring the…

The Trials and Tribulations of Unemployment —

The Effect of International Influence in the Aral Sea Basin — The Aral Sea is dead. With one of the latest international initiatives planting trees on its dried surface, it begs the question what influence international actors have had in the decades attempting to resurrect the Central Asian waters. After the collapse the Soviet Union, water management transformed from an inter-republic…

A book review in search of the common threads in settler-based conflicts — In the edited volume ‘Settlers in Contested Land: Territorial Disputes and Ethnic Conflicts’, Professors Haklai and Loizides delve into seven complex cases of which five are ongoing intractable conflicts. They have written extensively on settler disputes. Settler-based conflict analysis is a relatively recent niche in the field of conflict analysis…

GiaB prompt #16 social media —

#GiaBPrompt : Wonders of the World — Herostratus stood before the Temple of Artemis, in her mind’s eye Artemis relished a memory, how Herostratus entranced by her immensity renounced other Goddesses and bowed in fidelity at the foot of her shrine. Yet with flames flickering in this dark night, driven by an unquenchable thirst for life, Herostratus had…