Did Winston Churchill believe in democracy?

This is the question that Sir Martin Gilbert addressed yesterday at University College where I spent a few lovely hours outside of the library school bubble. Great talk, and he was charming and brilliant as my favourite historians always are! Learned quite a bit about Churchill of which I hadn't been aware, including his thoughts on women's suffrage and some of his more subtle influences on Neville Chamberlain. Conron Hall was packed, and as a result I made a new friend to the right of me, a retired Ontario Hydro employee who is picking up degrees in his spare time. He finished his degree in poli sci this spring and is now taking courses in biology and film studies. We talked about learning, life, travel and it was like a great first date, but of course, not at all like a first date! Regardless, a very sweet man, and he encouraged me to go overseas for a work adventure. Up 'til now I have been been focused on just getting out of Ontario, but mostly thinking within Canada or the States (yeah, yeah, we all know I really mean New England)

I honestly don't know what I'm going to do. I'm having a really tough time balancing schoolwork and finding the energy to apply for jobs, though I know I have to get going on it or else the new year is going to look pretty bleak. I'm feeling incredibly transitional and just generally ill at ease. Only 7 weeks of school to go.... which means only 7 weeks until I can have an entirely fresh start, which is increasingly becoming equal parts thrilling and terrifying. I feel as if I used to be so sure about things, and in my typical Virgo way, I could plan and organize with few surprises. I realize this is not how life should be, and if nothing else, this past year has proved to me that amazing, overwhelming, seriously insane things can happen when you least expect them, both good and bad. I'm hoping that goodness will prevail in terms of the new experiences I'll be having come 2007, but I'm just feeling jittery about it all tonight.

This might also be influenced by too much caffeine and not enough sleep. Going to rectify that right now (the sleep part at least!) Hope you are all well.
~S