Congressing, advancing

I squint and try to see the shores of a week ago, and there seems to be so much between then and now. It's been a full week, the congress having filled my little heads the most.
Left wing congresses are like a holiday camp, a parenthesis in normal life, a gang of for the most part friendly and generally open people put together randomly and willing to communicate and open up, even in the metro, even with people who are not even from the congress. I enjoyed the Trust: being able to dump my bag and coat and everything anywhere in the massive buildings of the technical uni to go help out in the kitchen, or carrying food, or doing any other thing that needed to be done - and coming back and knowing everything would still be there. Knowing that whatever task needed volunteers for, there would be a handful of people ready to spontaneously take it on. Carrying a heavy box of rice to the tables where the food would be handed in and knowing that I could just turn round and ask the person closest to me to help me carry it. We would talk and be friendly, and then disappear our ways in the Congress, leaving other tasks to other spontaneous helpers.
Auburn head M. and I spent most of the congress together. She and I have surprisingly overlapping interests and are in a similar phase of our reflexion and self-development. It started to make me laugh when I realised that whatever interest I would express ("Have you ever studied Rosa Luxembourg a little closer?", I asked, myself interested in learning more about R.L.), she would say she was into that too ("no, but I'd really like to!") - or vice versa. We went to all the commune workshops on Saturday and were both excited and inspired.
I wasn't sure whether her girlfriend was jealous and suspicious of me whenever she saw us together.

Listening and speaking with various people from communes really made me think. There are so many aspects I am attracted by, and the images, now idealised and glorified, of Longo Mai in Forcalquier, keep floating in my head and coming back. The faces, the looks, the attitudes of communards, rougher, tougher, yet respectful. A different rhythm. Building trust, accepting (and rejoying in) slow processes, witnessing evolutions, both in the community, its material basis, human relations, and within one's self.
Trying out other ways of organising a society. Learning to be a different social animal. Learning through practice, not books, not just two days a week in a seminar.
Gaining freedom through collective organisation.
Offering and creating spaces of alternative freedom for others. Inspiring bubbles of differentness. Giving examples of concrete, comfortable yet sustainable life styles.

I started my studies in large parts because of a book called Alternative Lebensentwürfe - Gelebte Utopien (alternative life sketches - lived utopia). I'd bought it in the German book shop near Beaubourg, a little randomly. I wanted to read in German, I don't think I even really had a conception of what the book could contain. It sounded good. Looking back, it's a pretty bad book. The essays are written on a scant data basis by journalists who are happy to criticise and seem to glee at the examples of failure they focus on. But at the time, I was thrilled. it got me thinking about societies, rules that held people together, the functioning of societies - and I eventually started political science.

During the course of my studies though, I hardly focused on aspects even closely related to that. I did a lot of environmental policy, then development policy, started realising I disliked policy but was interested in theories and politics beyond state activities and with a more sociological approach. And now I've eventually reached my starting point again, but with so much more in me than when I was reading the book in the RER to Paris8.
Going for my present studies was one of the greatest and most beneficial ideas I've ever had. I'm glad. I'm happy. I feel good.
A lot of people smiled at me over the weekend. I think I have a good aura these days.

Boyfriend came, boyfriend went

Mr. Big & Important came over for the weekend. It was surprisingly comfortable and easy to fall back into a 2-people rhythm. The weekend was very pleasant and relaxed, inspite of being squashed between two presentations I had to do for uni. The work I did for the first presentation on Rorty did help me prepare the second presentation on Bernstein's text though, so I suppose this time having a high concentration of work actually was a good thing.

The next five weekends are totally booked - I will
1) attend the congress on solidarity economy,
2) go visit a commune a couple of hours north of Berlin with a co-student (M) I really appreciate,
3) prepare another presentation on this commune for a seminar linked to the congress (see 1 and 4),
4) and attend a block seminar before
5) flying off to the UK for my first Christmas there.

I'm really looking forward to visiting the Longo Mai commune and interviewing the people there. It's fairly small compared to the one I visited in southern France, but then again, it hasn't existed for half as long (a good 10 years I think). It's part of the same European network which gathers perhaps 200 people across France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Austria and Ukraine. I am getting more and more fascinated with the whole enterprise - the network aspect most of all, and the travelling, experience and knowledge exchange, and general openness this allows for.
Of course northern East Germany in winter is bound to be a lot less glamourous, from an aesthetic perspective, than a hill in southern France in Summer. But I'm excited to go.
More generally, I'm excited by my own personal development over the past year, and especially over the past couple of months. I have the feeling at last that I am becoming the person I wanted to become.
The cubist worldview is slowly becoming more approachable.

frustration & overstimulation

The presentation went fine, but I was left with a certain sense of frustration after the discussion, first because of the arguments some of the students had, but mainly because I didn't feel capable to react articulately and quickly enough, so I didn't try to change the course of the conversation.
Walked with lovely M with whom I will visit a commune on the first December weekend for a common project, and with one of my presentation partner, a sweet mousy blond girl whom I told all about the communes. I saw psychology student C in the large central campus building whom I know from the students working group environment. Our bond is a general anti-absolutist constructivist perspective, and I enjoy talking with her. We made an appointment to eat together after the seminar she was rushing to.
The weather was beautiful and I needed to walk to get rid of the thought surplus and intellectual overstimulation that wouldn't let me in peace. Sat in the sun, took some notes, tried to empty my brain. I eventually walked back into the large building to find C. While we were getting our food, she said she'd just seen the flatmate of a common aquaintance of ours, and suggested waiting for her too, describing her as "very nice, in spite of her christianity." In between paying and getting cutlery, I would tell C about my presentation, and generally had the feeling I was becoming more articulate that I used to be, more able to talk about theories and ideas.
After lunch, I spent a few hours in the library, reading for my next presentation. They have fancy retro arm chairs on the top floor, and people use them for a combination of comfortable reading and napping. As I sat down, the girl in the armchair next to me was loving herself in a comfortable position for a sleeping break. I did the same an hour later. It was a strange nap - I felt conscious the whole time, and there were thoughts crossing my brain constantly. But when I woke up, I realised that I must have been asleep after all.
Mr Big&Important is coming on Friday. I have a lot of work to get done before that. Heehee.

exhaustion

Right before the donkey gets used to not eating anymore, he dies. And right before I get used to sleeping very little, my strength gives in. I've been sleeping between 3 and 7 hours (on average 5) over the past couple of nights, working until pretty late on my various intellectual tasks. This semester is very stimulating, and I was lucky to have a motivating presentation partner from whom I learned a lot. That's also a curse though, as it makes one want to outdo one's self.
In any case, I seemed to be doing absolutely fine not sleeping very much. I would go to work and go to uni and go about my business and feel absolutely fine. This afternoon though, I suddenly felt how every ounce of energy in my body was leaking - my knees started to hurt, and this special kind of tiredness one gets from lack of sleep - not sleepiness, but rather a general physical exhaustion, the absence of strength - crept in.
But that's not the end of it. Tomorrow, I'm giving the presentation I've been working on all those nights, and then I can start working hard on the presentation I'm giving the following week.
I've hardly ever been so motivated and focused throughout my studies. I'm enjoying it.