Summer in the city

I might be addicted to noodle soup. That being said, I can get to more earthly matters. I do use English when I'm in Pest, it's surprising how I even catch myself thinking in languages other than Romanian. When I watch the news online it feels so strange to hear everybody speak my mother language. Anyways.
The first four days of summer school are over and it feels like it was longer than that. On Monday we had the usual introductory stuff, with a reception in the evening (oh, my, I've been eating way too much the last weeks). There were lectures each day and we watched two documentaries so far. 'Life and Debt' was following Jamaica's struggle to cope with the effects of globalization and 'Mardi Gras:Made in China' is more about production relations and worker exploitation.
I enjoy a lot of what we do there. Christy Glass gave a presentation on the Global Development Project, we had Elaine Weiner giving a lecture and talking about her research in the Czech Republic on female workers and managers, yesterday David Ost spoke of class and how much it is a vehicle of mobilization in capitalist societies and today Mahua Sarkar presented her research on Bangladeshi workers in Singapore, a striking example of regulated oppression.
What I don't like is the narrow mindedness, snobbery and hypocrisy we approach such stories with. Sometimes it feels like social science is some new religion and every scholar feels like a chosen one. We look down on those who dare to contradict us. We fail to understand the conditions under which certain situations develop and are hasty to interpret things. But we rarely remember that what we do need to do is make sense of things. And if we are such activists, find ways to approach issues. But it is rather difficult to do the latter, isn't it? Well, then we shouldn't make judgments. Our pity does not help, our being shocked and angry is just so empty if all we do is sit around a table. I'm not saying we cannot have feelings about such issues. We need to be angry and care, but I just hate it when this turns into a parade banner and nothing else and that's what I feel we do at moments in our roundtable discussions.
I don't want to end in this mean tone. Life is beautiful. Budapest is everyday amazing and all its scents and noises and sights make me feel like dancing. All right, that was a bit tacky.