If you go to my myspace page, you will discover that I am a 56-year-old man. E (who is still staying with me) and I are doing an experiment to see how myspace.com decides what advertisements you get on your page when you log in (well, E is doing the experiment, and I'm just sort of letting him use my profile). Last night we changed me to a 23-year-old male (same as E), and this morning my ads were different. Instead of Victoria's Secret and laser skin treatments, I was getting "Win a free XBox" and ads for a dating website featuring a hot chick. So now I'm posing as a creepy old man to see if I get Cialis ads.
Yes, E and I have spent too much time in this little apartment working on our theses. The revisions are due today, but I'm basically done except for maybe a sentence or two at the end and another quick read-through. And God bless my friend C, who came over yesterday and made me work on the Macro problem set, because we managed to finish it (after spending literally two hours trying to figure out how to solve one problem that essentially involved algebraic manipulation to get one thing to look like something else), and now I don't have to worry about it anymore.
DWE was supposed to be back today, but he apparently has some urgent business in D.C. and then NYC. He was also supposed to come to my thesis defense on Thursday, and he said (during a phone call from Reykjavik) that he still will, but it sounds like it would involve him flying from D.C. to SF for basically one day, and then heading right back out to the east coast, which is ridiculous. I really appreciate his desire to be there like he said he would be, but I don't think I can let him fly around unnecessarily like that.
Okay, I'm supposed to be reading H's thesis for him (it's also due today--same advisor) so I better get back to work.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Saturday, April 28, 2007
shoe shopping
My stepmom and her friends are in SF this weekend, so I met them today for lunch and a little shopping. I'd brought the skirt I'm planning on wearing for my thesis defense with me with the intention of looking for a top to go with it. But we went shoe shopping, so instead I got shoes to go with it. Which is in fact very practical, because I really don't have any dressy light brown shoes, but I have dressy light brown clothing. My stepmom very thoughtfully bought the brown shoes for me (actually, they're more of a bronze), and then at another store I found the black ones. I do have several pairs of black dress shoes, but none quite as cute as these. And both pairs are cute and fun but could also be worn to work, which is I guess something I have to start thinking about.
We had martinis at lunch (I know...shoe shopping and martinis...my stepmom and her friends know how to have fun), and now I'm all sleepy. So much for getting work done this afternoon.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
ooh, pretty colors
I used some of Blogger's new features to make my blog look a bit more obnoxiously red and purple, which, as you may know, is how I prefer everything in my life to be.
yeah, i'm still talking about my thesis
Sorry I've been AWOL for a bit. I can't help but thinking that what T.S. Elliot was really talking about when he called April the "cruelest month" is the fact that school gets busiest right when the weather gets nice. And it has been quite lovely here.
It's pretty much been the same old same-old since my last post. I spent last week catching up in Macro, and got thesis comments back from my advisor last Friday. He was generally happy, but he did ask us to make one change to the data (a change that we had actually more or less suggested earlier, only to be rebuffed, but that's kind of a long and complicated story). It's just a minor change to how 2 variables are constructed, but it adds 2 years' worth of data that was being dropped from the regression (for mathematical reasons related to how regression coefficients are estimated) back in. Lots of interesting stuff happened in those two years, so it totally changed my results. I have to pretty much rewrite my entire data analysis section because my results are really different and because I now have demand-side endogeneity to correct for. I haven't done much of the rewriting yet, but I've re-run all of the regressions and redone all the charts. I had to give a "practice" defense presentation in Grad Seminar last night, and it went reasonably well. Once I rewrite the paper (revisions are due on Monday) I can revise and strengthen the conclusions/implications section of my presentation (it's pretty weak at the moment because I haven't thought about my new results enough to have much to say about them), and then just practice a bunch before Thursday (which is when I defend).
E has been staying with me since DWE left town on Saturday. It's nice to have the company, but it's made me realize how used to living alone I am (and how much time I spend naked or half-dressed in my apartment, which I obviously can't do with E around). But E is an entertaining and generally neat houseguest, and since he's working on his thesis too (and having many of the same frustrations I'm having), it works out well.
DWE has been at some big, important trade show in Aneheim since Saturday. It was kind of entertaining to have him drunk-dial me most nights at 2 in the morning (they drink free alcohol and dance and shmooze into the wee hours, apparently). I know that he's actually working pretty hard and that shmoozing people all day on very little sleep isn't all that fun for him, but of course my reaction is "how come you never take me out dancing?" He said that he would, which will probably only happen if I pester him repeatedly about it (which I'm perfectly willing to do). I pointed out to him that we had one night of dancing, at the Cherry Poppin' Daddies concert that we went to on our second date. "You know, back when you were still trying to impress me," I said. "Thank God I don't have to do that anymore," he said. Isn't he dreamy?
I did absolutely no work for most of the day today. I didn't even shower and get dressed until 8:30 at night (yeah, I know, what's the point?). I finally did the dishes and completed a few administrative tasks, and I might even work on my thesis or my job hunt a little bit. Or maybe not.
It's pretty much been the same old same-old since my last post. I spent last week catching up in Macro, and got thesis comments back from my advisor last Friday. He was generally happy, but he did ask us to make one change to the data (a change that we had actually more or less suggested earlier, only to be rebuffed, but that's kind of a long and complicated story). It's just a minor change to how 2 variables are constructed, but it adds 2 years' worth of data that was being dropped from the regression (for mathematical reasons related to how regression coefficients are estimated) back in. Lots of interesting stuff happened in those two years, so it totally changed my results. I have to pretty much rewrite my entire data analysis section because my results are really different and because I now have demand-side endogeneity to correct for. I haven't done much of the rewriting yet, but I've re-run all of the regressions and redone all the charts. I had to give a "practice" defense presentation in Grad Seminar last night, and it went reasonably well. Once I rewrite the paper (revisions are due on Monday) I can revise and strengthen the conclusions/implications section of my presentation (it's pretty weak at the moment because I haven't thought about my new results enough to have much to say about them), and then just practice a bunch before Thursday (which is when I defend).
E has been staying with me since DWE left town on Saturday. It's nice to have the company, but it's made me realize how used to living alone I am (and how much time I spend naked or half-dressed in my apartment, which I obviously can't do with E around). But E is an entertaining and generally neat houseguest, and since he's working on his thesis too (and having many of the same frustrations I'm having), it works out well.
DWE has been at some big, important trade show in Aneheim since Saturday. It was kind of entertaining to have him drunk-dial me most nights at 2 in the morning (they drink free alcohol and dance and shmooze into the wee hours, apparently). I know that he's actually working pretty hard and that shmoozing people all day on very little sleep isn't all that fun for him, but of course my reaction is "how come you never take me out dancing?" He said that he would, which will probably only happen if I pester him repeatedly about it (which I'm perfectly willing to do). I pointed out to him that we had one night of dancing, at the Cherry Poppin' Daddies concert that we went to on our second date. "You know, back when you were still trying to impress me," I said. "Thank God I don't have to do that anymore," he said. Isn't he dreamy?
I did absolutely no work for most of the day today. I didn't even shower and get dressed until 8:30 at night (yeah, I know, what's the point?). I finally did the dishes and completed a few administrative tasks, and I might even work on my thesis or my job hunt a little bit. Or maybe not.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
thesis done! yay!
I just emailed the "final" draft of my thesis to my advisor. It's not really a final draft, because he will probably recommend a few changes, as will people in Grad Seminar, but it's a complete and polished draft anyway. Well, okay, it's not even all that polished, it just looks that way because I write well. I guess the parts of it that I wrote a while ago, like the lit review and the data description, are pretty well polished.
The point is, it's done and turned in. I don't have to think about it for the next week while my advisor looks at it. Yay, yay, yay. I'm so happy.
On the other hand, I have a Macro problem set due on Tuesday that I haven't even started, a half-finished journal article presentation for Macro that I've been putting off for two weeks, Intro exams to finish grading (I could get away with pawning the rest of that off onto Dr. J, but I don't really want to do that), CA state taxes to file, and a job to look for. If I were a superstar I'd start the Macro problem set tonight, but I'm not a superstar, so I think it's going to get done in a marathon session tomorrow instead. But grading can be done while drinking, and drinking is what I feel like doing.
The point is, it's done and turned in. I don't have to think about it for the next week while my advisor looks at it. Yay, yay, yay. I'm so happy.
On the other hand, I have a Macro problem set due on Tuesday that I haven't even started, a half-finished journal article presentation for Macro that I've been putting off for two weeks, Intro exams to finish grading (I could get away with pawning the rest of that off onto Dr. J, but I don't really want to do that), CA state taxes to file, and a job to look for. If I were a superstar I'd start the Macro problem set tonight, but I'm not a superstar, so I think it's going to get done in a marathon session tomorrow instead. But grading can be done while drinking, and drinking is what I feel like doing.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
r.i.p. kurt vonnegut
As you probably heard, Kurt Vonnegut died last night at the age of 84. He was among my favorite authors. I think he was among many people's favorite authors. Anyway, I didn't know him, and I wasn't very interested in his recent work, so it's not exactly sad, except maybe in some meta-death kind of way, but there it is. Maybe I'll give Breakfast of Champions a reread in his honor.
But then again, things with my thesis are getting messy again. I discovered something that is probably significantly biasing my results, and according to my advisor I'm not supposed to fix it, even though I think I should (in fairness, I did not speak to my advisor directly about this, so he is not aware of my particular dilemma). The circumstances under which my thesis is being written are becoming continually more frustrating, but at this point I've basically decided to do what I think makes sense, and if my advisor doesn't like it he'll certainly tell me.
But then again, things with my thesis are getting messy again. I discovered something that is probably significantly biasing my results, and according to my advisor I'm not supposed to fix it, even though I think I should (in fairness, I did not speak to my advisor directly about this, so he is not aware of my particular dilemma). The circumstances under which my thesis is being written are becoming continually more frustrating, but at this point I've basically decided to do what I think makes sense, and if my advisor doesn't like it he'll certainly tell me.
books
In the midst of being mildly panicked about my thesis, it occurred to me with a certain degree of shame that I've been reading the same book (Dance Dance Dance) since January*. I started it in Belize, then neglected it for a month after school started. When I picked it back up, I decided to start from the beginning again (I was only 50 or so pages in). I'd been reading in little spurts maybe once a week or less throughout March and the beginning of April, and then on Monday night I decided to stay up after E (who was crashing at my place that night) went to bed and finish up the last 100ish pages. It was an odd but enjoyable book. It was written in the 80s (or at least set in them), and there was a fairly strong anticapitalist theme, particularly apropos to the period. It was a rather lazy, nihilistic anticapitalism, which is my favorite kind. The book also had creepy supernatural elements which were very well written and freaked the shit out of me. I expected a particular ending, and I was dreading that ending, and then it didn't happen, and I was relieved but also kind of disappointed. Anyway, I enjoyed it very much, and it was great to read something by a non-English-writing author (the book was translated of course; I didn't become fluent in written Japanese while you weren't paying attention).
So now, in honor of tax season (or the rapidly approaching end of it), I decided to move on to Perfectly Legal, the thesis of which is that the American tax system is highly regressive, with the somewhat poor, the middle class, and even the genuinely wealthy subsidizing the tax shirking of the super-rich (who are even richer than we are aware because they know how to avoid reporting gobs of their income). Since I'm getting a fat refund this year, I figure now is a good time to read a book that seems to pride itself on making its readers livid regarding the unfairness of the tax system. It also fits the bill more generally for my next book: it's nonfiction, to follow fiction, but it's reasonably engaging layperson nonfiction, so it will still feel like a break from school.
Speaking of school, I'm feeling in good shape for having my thesis done on Sunday. It won't be a perfect draft, but it will be beyond a rough draft. We hit a few more snags in our regression specifications tonight (snags that I'm not sure my advisor has considered), but it will get worked out easily enough. After Sunday I need to refocus on Macro, my poor neglected other class.
And now it's time to focus on sleep. Yay, sleep!
*DWE pointed out to me that in this time I also read his sister's book, as well as The Bachelor Home Companion by P.J. O'Rourke, who is pretty funny despite being, as far as I can tell, a semi-pathetic, semi-despicable human being. But these books were short and easy reads about which I have little to say, so they don't count. (Although I will impart upon you my two favorite bits of advice from Bachelor Home Companion: 1. keep your sheets clean by getting drunk and falling asleep with your clothes on. 2. if your house is really messy, just tell guests: "Please excuse how the place looks. I'm psychotic.")
So now, in honor of tax season (or the rapidly approaching end of it), I decided to move on to Perfectly Legal, the thesis of which is that the American tax system is highly regressive, with the somewhat poor, the middle class, and even the genuinely wealthy subsidizing the tax shirking of the super-rich (who are even richer than we are aware because they know how to avoid reporting gobs of their income). Since I'm getting a fat refund this year, I figure now is a good time to read a book that seems to pride itself on making its readers livid regarding the unfairness of the tax system. It also fits the bill more generally for my next book: it's nonfiction, to follow fiction, but it's reasonably engaging layperson nonfiction, so it will still feel like a break from school.
Speaking of school, I'm feeling in good shape for having my thesis done on Sunday. It won't be a perfect draft, but it will be beyond a rough draft. We hit a few more snags in our regression specifications tonight (snags that I'm not sure my advisor has considered), but it will get worked out easily enough. After Sunday I need to refocus on Macro, my poor neglected other class.
And now it's time to focus on sleep. Yay, sleep!
*DWE pointed out to me that in this time I also read his sister's book, as well as The Bachelor Home Companion by P.J. O'Rourke, who is pretty funny despite being, as far as I can tell, a semi-pathetic, semi-despicable human being. But these books were short and easy reads about which I have little to say, so they don't count. (Although I will impart upon you my two favorite bits of advice from Bachelor Home Companion: 1. keep your sheets clean by getting drunk and falling asleep with your clothes on. 2. if your house is really messy, just tell guests: "Please excuse how the place looks. I'm psychotic.")
Sunday, April 08, 2007
word-a-day colonialism
I usually don't get too hysterical about these things (you know, now that I'm an evil capitalist instead of a righteously-indignant socialist), but this one surprised me a little. Yesterday's "word of the day" on my "Word-a-Day" calendar is "Equatorial Guinea". First of all, yeah, I know, what kind of a "word" is that? I have many beefs with this calendar, one of which is that the Saturday words, which are all accompanied by a picture or diagram, are always pretty silly. Usually some kind of obscure animal or architectural term or something I'd never be able to use in conversation and therefore probably never retain unless I worked really hard at it. Or it's something like "Equatorial Guinea", which does not need "defining" per se, but at least I learn a few interesting facts about it. Anyway, I will now quote from the "definition" of Equatorial Guinea: Originally inhabited by Pygmy peoples, it was discovered by the Porgtuguese in 1472.
Come on, really? Are we really still referring to non-Western countries as having been "discovered"? I'm not saying that it should say "it was raped and plundered by the Portuguese in 1472", but dude, discovered?
Come on, really? Are we really still referring to non-Western countries as having been "discovered"? I'm not saying that it should say "it was raped and plundered by the Portuguese in 1472", but dude, discovered?
happy easter
As you might imagine, things have perked up a little regarding my thesis. The data from IMED was not what we had asked for, but it ended up being okay. Actually, it ended up meaning that I had to go back and change a bunch of dates in our data that were apparently wrong, and then recreate all the variables we need in Stata, which was a pain. But not nearly as much of a pain as I thought it would be, and now our data is correct and will probably yield more interesting results, which is a good thing. On the other hand, I ran a few of the preliminary tests to identify supply-side endogeneity, and I seem to be finding that there is some, which is bad but not the end of the world.
So I don't know if things regarding my thesis are really any better, or if I've just decided to accept them how they are because the thing is due in a week and I still have to figure out how to test for demand-side endogeneity and finalize my results and write between ten and twenty more pages and create a couple more charts, etc. Regardless of why, I'm feeling better, and even sort of looking forward to working on it.
Yesterday I didn't get any work done on my thesis, mostly because I spent most of the day either preparing for or attending a barbecue that one of my classmates and her husband had. I had a really good time, and I had enough to drink that when I got home, I couldn't exactly do anything productive besides maybe some grading, and I didn't even feel like doing that. I've been trying to go to bed earlyish lately, but I haven't been sleeping well, so either I wake up in the middle of the night for a couple hours, or I take something sleep-encouraging like an allergy pill, and it puts me out for ten hours. Yesterday I could have gotten up at 9 a.m. (early in my world) when my mother called me and spoke to me in a loud, animated voice (she claims she wasn't yelling) about the very expensive call to Paris on my (i.e. her) cell phone bill. But I went back to sleep afterwards.
So I don't know if things regarding my thesis are really any better, or if I've just decided to accept them how they are because the thing is due in a week and I still have to figure out how to test for demand-side endogeneity and finalize my results and write between ten and twenty more pages and create a couple more charts, etc. Regardless of why, I'm feeling better, and even sort of looking forward to working on it.
Yesterday I didn't get any work done on my thesis, mostly because I spent most of the day either preparing for or attending a barbecue that one of my classmates and her husband had. I had a really good time, and I had enough to drink that when I got home, I couldn't exactly do anything productive besides maybe some grading, and I didn't even feel like doing that. I've been trying to go to bed earlyish lately, but I haven't been sleeping well, so either I wake up in the middle of the night for a couple hours, or I take something sleep-encouraging like an allergy pill, and it puts me out for ten hours. Yesterday I could have gotten up at 9 a.m. (early in my world) when my mother called me and spoke to me in a loud, animated voice (she claims she wasn't yelling) about the very expensive call to Paris on my (i.e. her) cell phone bill. But I went back to sleep afterwards.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
procrastinationishness
I have to present a journal article in Macro tonight, and I haven't even finished reading it yet. So I thought a quick blog entry would be, you know, productive somehow.
We finally got the extra data that we needed from IMED, but I'm semi-certain that it's not really the information we asked for. I'm also becoming increasingly convinced that there is yet another way in which our data are fundamentally at odds with our methodology (or, as I have been pointedly calling it, our advisor's methodology). Everytime I think about my thesis I literally want to cry.
All news is not bad: E returns from D.C. tomorrow. His presence is always welcome, and now there will be three of us to suffer in our thesis hell together (yes, it's possible that I'm being melodramatic, but I really don't care).
We finally got the extra data that we needed from IMED, but I'm semi-certain that it's not really the information we asked for. I'm also becoming increasingly convinced that there is yet another way in which our data are fundamentally at odds with our methodology (or, as I have been pointedly calling it, our advisor's methodology). Everytime I think about my thesis I literally want to cry.
All news is not bad: E returns from D.C. tomorrow. His presence is always welcome, and now there will be three of us to suffer in our thesis hell together (yes, it's possible that I'm being melodramatic, but I really don't care).
Sunday, April 01, 2007
african miniaturized hedgehog
DWE and I took a little roadtrip this weekend. We had no plan or intended destination, so we just sort of drove and stopped in places that seemed interesting. We spent the first night in Marysville and the second night in Chico (yes, we drove through Stevie's hometown, Paradise). It was a wonderfully aimless and relaxing trip. DWE is a big fan of back roads, so it took us over six hours to get back to the city today (and we drove on a dirt road for almost thirty miles), but the scenery was incredible. Lots of really beautiful valleys, a couple lakes (one of which we stopped at and I learned how to skip a rock over water), old farms, fields of wildflowers, tree-lined roads, wine country, etc. I made DWE play the guessing game with me (one person thinks of something, the other person asks yes or no questions until he or she guesses it). DWE is terrible at the game because it's almost impossible to get him to think of anything other than Scott Bakula (I'd explain why, but it's a long, nonsensical story). We had the following conversation no less than five times:
"Okay, I thought of something."
"Is it an animal?"
"Yes."
"Is it a human?"
"Yes."
"Is it Scott Bakula?"
"Yes. You're so good at this game."
"Stop picking Scott Bakula!"
When it was his turn to guess, he'd always ask me if something was smaller than an African Miniaturized Hedgehog, which is apparently about the size of a fist.
Up in the mountains past Paradise, we ended up on a dirt road that didn't really go anywhere, and encountered some people from the tiny town several miles downhill that had a flat tire. We drove the mom and the daughter back into town to get their other truck, and she was telling us about how they let thier ten-year-old and eight-year-old sons drive sometimes up on the little dirt roads, and it's so funny because the eight-year-old doesn't really get the concept of letting go of the clutch after he changes gears so they just keep stalling, and I'm thinking, you let your eight-year-old drive?! In Chico I had a fun drunken bathroom bonding moment with a girl in the next stall who needed some TP, and then asked my opinion about her hairstyle. It was very cute. I also had a salad with a really, really good vinagrette dressing (good enough that I feel the need to tell you about it).
So now I'm back in SF and I'm tired and I have a ton of work to do. I did get my federal taxes done on Friday before we left, which is nice, especially since I got to file for free online and since I'm getting an $817 refund (student loans don't count as income, and I only made $5000 as a TA last year, so I get all the taxes I paid refunded, plus I qualify for the EITC). But the much more important April 15th deadline is my thesis being due, and although I've made decent progress with running all my regressions, I really need to get a lot done this week.
"Okay, I thought of something."
"Is it an animal?"
"Yes."
"Is it a human?"
"Yes."
"Is it Scott Bakula?"
"Yes. You're so good at this game."
"Stop picking Scott Bakula!"
When it was his turn to guess, he'd always ask me if something was smaller than an African Miniaturized Hedgehog, which is apparently about the size of a fist.
Up in the mountains past Paradise, we ended up on a dirt road that didn't really go anywhere, and encountered some people from the tiny town several miles downhill that had a flat tire. We drove the mom and the daughter back into town to get their other truck, and she was telling us about how they let thier ten-year-old and eight-year-old sons drive sometimes up on the little dirt roads, and it's so funny because the eight-year-old doesn't really get the concept of letting go of the clutch after he changes gears so they just keep stalling, and I'm thinking, you let your eight-year-old drive?! In Chico I had a fun drunken bathroom bonding moment with a girl in the next stall who needed some TP, and then asked my opinion about her hairstyle. It was very cute. I also had a salad with a really, really good vinagrette dressing (good enough that I feel the need to tell you about it).
So now I'm back in SF and I'm tired and I have a ton of work to do. I did get my federal taxes done on Friday before we left, which is nice, especially since I got to file for free online and since I'm getting an $817 refund (student loans don't count as income, and I only made $5000 as a TA last year, so I get all the taxes I paid refunded, plus I qualify for the EITC). But the much more important April 15th deadline is my thesis being due, and although I've made decent progress with running all my regressions, I really need to get a lot done this week.
Monday, March 26, 2007
South African butt plant
I actually had a really great time in Bakersfield. I guess I should expect to have a good time; otherwise, why would I visit? (Out of obligation, I suppose.) Anyway, the trip was relaxing and productive, which is what I was hoping for. My sister-in-law and I got my brother to taste raw fish while we were having sushi (think of how picky an eater I am, then marry it with intractable stubborness, and you have my brother) and we taught him how to use chopsticks. Well, okay, she did most of the teaching, partly because he takes instruction from her more readily than from me, and partly because I find that when you're learning to do something, it's usually not helpful to have more than one person telling you what to do. But I did throw in the insight that the bottom stick should be held still while the top one moves, which I think was helpful.
I spent a lot of time in our backyard helping my mom with chores and playing with the dog. The landscaping my mother has done is really beautiful, and the weather was perfect: sunny and 70ish with a slight breeze. If only Bakersfield would stay like that instead of becoming an unlivable furnace. We also did a bit of the requisite shopping; at Target, my mother-approved (and mother-financed) impulse purchase was a little succulent garden I made by purchasing three succulent plants (they're a kind of cactus without pokey things--or at least that's what they seem to be) and a red pot for them. Two of the plants I bought because they were pretty (and in my experience succulents are quite hardy), but the third I bought because it is shaped exactly like a butt. Exactly.
According to the plant's tag, it is South African, so I asked my sis-in-law about it. She said she'd seen the sort of plant before, and that the butt will open up and a second pair of "cheeks" will grow in perpendicularly to the first. Apparently it will also flower in the winter. But isn't it freaky looking right now?
DWE is coming to SF tonight, a day earlier than was expected. I hesitate to even mention this, partly because it's trivial, and partly because more important "anniversaries" have gone unexcusably unheralded by me (specifically dear, wonderful A's birthday, which I neglected while wrapped up in the PacDev converence), but today is the 6-month anniversary of when DWE and I met. It seems like it's been longer, especially given how often he's out of town, but it also surprises me that it's been that long, given how much can and does happen in half a year. So far things seem to be working out pretty well, but I guess I'll get back to you on that in another six months.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
lovely
I'm in a lovely mood this evening. I presented my data analysis, or what there is of it so far, in Grad Seminar tonight. Basically I presented the same results from the PacDev conference, plus some additional regressions that I ran in the last two days in an attempt to get more significant results. In theory, this attempt was sort of successful, but the results I got are seriously weird. Anyway, I need to keep at it, because my thesis is due in 25 days, but at least I don't have to have anything prepared for class for the next few weeks. What I really should do is start writing my data analysis section, because even though I haven't settled on final results, I can write up my summary statistics (i.e. where did my data come from, what are the means and standard deviations of my variables, what are some of the characteristics of my sample of borrowers, etc).
I'm going to Bakersfield again this weekend ("weekend" in my world meaning Thursday morning to Monday morning). I was just there a few weeks ago, but as you may recall I was quite ill and therefore spent literally almost all of my time there in bed. I had been thinking about going to San Diego to see DWE this weekend, but he's not sure of his schedule, so he ended up recommending against it. Which is just as well, because I will be far more productive in Bakersfield, I will get to see my family, and DWE will be back in SF next Tuesday anyway.
Anyway, my bag is packed, I took a nice long bath, I had a good conversation with DWE, and now I'm drinking a Hornsby's and goofing off a little before bed, hence the lovely mood.
I'm going to Bakersfield again this weekend ("weekend" in my world meaning Thursday morning to Monday morning). I was just there a few weeks ago, but as you may recall I was quite ill and therefore spent literally almost all of my time there in bed. I had been thinking about going to San Diego to see DWE this weekend, but he's not sure of his schedule, so he ended up recommending against it. Which is just as well, because I will be far more productive in Bakersfield, I will get to see my family, and DWE will be back in SF next Tuesday anyway.
Anyway, my bag is packed, I took a nice long bath, I had a good conversation with DWE, and now I'm drinking a Hornsby's and goofing off a little before bed, hence the lovely mood.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
the last two weeks
The problem with blogging, as I practice it, is that when I actually do something interesting, I don't have time to write about it, so I only post regularly when I'm watching paint peel or reading about the NAIRU. The nearly two weeks since my last post, however, have been a good bit more interesting.
I took my Macro Midterm, and I have reason to believe it went pretty well. There was half of one question that I had to sort of bullshit, so I don't think I aced it. The last question had me panicked, because it was a proof that I didn't know how to do. I had to prove that the slopes of two things were the same, but if I took the derivative (the way you find something's slope) I wasn't getting a useful answer, and if I did a series of substitutions to get the variables that I needed into the equation, I ended up losing the thing I needed to derive with respect to. So after scrawling out a desperate and aimless page of related math and graphs, I finally figured out that if I did one substitution, took the derivative, and then did the other substitution, then I'd get what appeared to be the right answer. A lot of work for what ended up being four lines long, but it's nice to be able to successfully derive a proof (even a very simple one).
I spent March 8th through 15th in D.C. (or, more specifically, at the Days Inn in Alexandria, with daily adventures into D.C.). H and JSOC were my travel companions on what could possibly have been my last Spring Break, and we generally had a very good time. We saw the usual monuments and buildings, I saw the awesome Jasper Johns exhibit (as well as a lot of other good art) at the National Gallery, and we did two cool things that I hadn't done on my previous trip to D.C.: the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and the International Spy Museum, both of which I really enjoyed. I'm not very interested in either air (well, except what I breathe) or space, but I have to admit that it's cool to touch a moonrock or see the amazingly tiny Apollo 11 shuttle that carried Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldren, and Michael Collins (the one that stayed on the shuttle...not to be confused with the Irish freedom fighter played by Liam Neeson in the movie of the same name) home from the moon. It was also cool to see a U2 spy plane like the one that took the surveillance photos that led to the Cuban missile crisis. And at the spy museum, there was this thing where you could test yourself to see how good of a spy you'd be, and I aced it (this, of course, was based simply on being able to remember details of my fake like and to make up new, plausible details on the spot...the computer kiosk couldn't tell obvious I am when I try to lie in real life).
So, D.C. was a lot of fun, and we got to spend some time with E, who has an intership at the State department. I also spent a big chunk of time while we were in D.C. getting work done and worrying about the Pacific Development Conference, but let's see a few pictures before I get into that.
Yes, that's my finger. I'm quite juvenile.
This is part of the new World War II Memorial. It was fairly conventional, but it did evoke some vague sense of international unity, along with the important respect for and gratitude toward the dead. I liked it.
A part of the WWII memorial close to my own heart. It was dusk when we visited these memorials, and the fading light and skeletal trees and greyness were all really lovely.
Here is E standing in front of the State Department building where he works. Doesn't he look handsome and professional? My little boy is all grown up!
The giant Caulder mobile in the atrium of the National Gallery's modern wing.
A smaller Caulder (actually two of them) that I found out later I wasn't supposed to be photographing. Aren't the shadows awesome?
So, as I mentioned, the PacDev conference was two days after we returned, so I spent a lot of time working on my regressions and my powerpoint presentation while we were there (I also managed to read and summarize two macro articles...possibly the most productive I've ever been on a vacation). Then, after we got back, my advisor called me on early Friday afternoon to tell me about a bunch of changes and additions he wanted me to make (in his defense, I should have called him earlier in the week, but in my defense, he could have made his expectations clearer sooner...he's been throwing huge quantities of occasionally-contradictory information at me all semester, and I'm doing the best I can to record, absorb, and implement it all). I never got the data that I needed from the MFI, so I halfway faked it with data that I do have, and then, at my advisor's suggestion, I faked it the rest of the way with more data that I have. The first part of that took a while (well, just one very long late night in D.C.) but the rest of it I was able to do in a few hours on Friday. So I generated the new variables that I needed, I added the new regressions that he wanted, and I revised my presentation again. I had to go pick up the rental car (the conference was in Davis) on Friday night, I had to practice the presentation and make sure it wasn't too long, and I had to be all nervous and panicky, so I only got about 3 hours of sleep that night.
It didn't matter, though, because my nervousness kept me awake on Saturday morning, and I think my presentation ended up going pretty well. My advisor (and my other two professors that were there) said I did a really good job, as did my classmates (of course, what else would they say?). I know I sounded nervous and I spoke a little quickly, but I generally managed to be articulate and clear, I stayed within my 15 minute time limit, and I sounded more or less like I knew what I was talking about. And it was all over by 9 a.m., so I was able to relax for the rest of the day and enjoy the other presentations. The other IDEC students that presented (H, JSOC, and a girl named C that I'm buddies with) also did a good job--nervous but articulate and knowledgable--and they all had presentations that were, in my opinion, more interesting than mine.
Which actually brings me to a minor revelation I had on Saturday, which is that I'm not sure if I'm really that excited about microfinance, and I'm certainly not all that excited about my specific thesis topic. I'm not sure what I am excited about anymore. I still really love development economics, but the uncertainty about what I'm going to do after I graduate is sort of snowballing at this point, and I'm not really sure about anything. I'm aggravated with DWE, not so much for always being out of town, but for never quite knowing where he's going to be or when or for how long. He's probably going to be back in SF on Tuesday, but he doesn't know when he's leaving again, and it could be right away. And when he leaves, he doesn't know where he's going. The only thing I know for sure is that when he does get back he'll be tired, and I'll have class. I'm sure we'll have a great time.
But then again, I just found out that he scored 20 points higher than me on the SAT, which is annoying because he beat me, but otherwise an extremely attractive quality (yes, I know how demented I am). Except for his schedule, I really adore him. He seems to think that I'm eventually going to get sick of his travelling and break up with him, and I keep telling him that it's not going to happen, but I'm starting to wonder if maybe he's right.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
pack your passports, we're going to New Orleans
I'm grading Intro Macro exams, and I came across a wrong answer so spectacularly (and depressingly) funny that I have to share. The question I'm currently grading is about whether certain transactions would be included in the U.S.'s GDP. One of the transactions is the U.S. government spending $200,000 doing reconstruction in New Orleans. This would be included in GDP, since government spending gets included (as long as it is spent on a final good or service, and not, say, as a transfer payment like unemployment insurance). Someone wrote on their exam, however, that this would not be included in GDP, because New Orleans is not within our national borders. Where does she think Louisiana is? Mexico? France? Or has she been living in a cave with her eyes shut and her ears plugged for the past couple years, thus never having heard of New Orleans?
At least I'm finally getting some work done. Grading is the easiest thing I have to do, but it's also the most boring, so it's probably good to get it out of the way.
At least I'm finally getting some work done. Grading is the easiest thing I have to do, but it's also the most boring, so it's probably good to get it out of the way.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
so much to do, so little doing
It is 11:42, and I haven't gotten a damn thing done today. Well, okay, that's not entirely true. I finished reading the book that DWE's sister wrote. I started it last night; it's only 200ish pages long, and not, shall we say, a challenging read, so it only took me a couple hours last night and a couple more this morning. Since when, you ask, is DWE's sister a published writer? Well, since last year, when she published her Christian fiction novel at a small publishing house of the sort that is not very discriminating and requires you to pay in order to be published. Anyway, I found out that DWE had not read the book yet, so I ordered it on Amazon so that we both could read it. It was, um, interesting. That's all I'm going to say.
What else did I do today? I went to the ballet, which was excellent, but I need to stop going to matinees (I can barely sit still through a two and a half hour ballet; why do parents think their three-year-old can?). Then I spent this evening watching Season 1, disc 2 of House, to which I am becoming addicted courtesy of Netflix. I have a Macro midterm in three days, I have to give a practice-version of my PacDev presentation in four days, I should have booked a hotel room for D.C. by now, my floor is covered in dirty laundry, my kitchen is covered in dirty dishes, etc. But I'm sitting here blogging. I guess the first step is admitting you have a problem ("My name is Jennifer, and I'm totally intert...").
On the plus side, I'm only a little tired, so I can in theory still get some stuff done tonight. If I stop writting this blog entry...
What else did I do today? I went to the ballet, which was excellent, but I need to stop going to matinees (I can barely sit still through a two and a half hour ballet; why do parents think their three-year-old can?). Then I spent this evening watching Season 1, disc 2 of House, to which I am becoming addicted courtesy of Netflix. I have a Macro midterm in three days, I have to give a practice-version of my PacDev presentation in four days, I should have booked a hotel room for D.C. by now, my floor is covered in dirty laundry, my kitchen is covered in dirty dishes, etc. But I'm sitting here blogging. I guess the first step is admitting you have a problem ("My name is Jennifer, and I'm totally intert...").
On the plus side, I'm only a little tired, so I can in theory still get some stuff done tonight. If I stop writting this blog entry...
Friday, March 02, 2007
advising
My advisor came up to SF today, so M and I met with him this afternoon, which ended up being very productive and helpful. He showed us how to make some necessary additions and modifications to our data so that we can run our regressions. I'm still missing the data that I need to run a village-level fixed effects regression (rather than a household-level one), but I was actually able to estimate some preliminary results today, which is exciting. (It's also a very good thing, since the Pacific Development conference is two weeks from now.)
My advisor made the weirdest comment to me today and I think I was kind of rude about it. I have a picture of DWE on my computer's desktop; it's a profile shot of him working on his laptop at the Sacramento airport, so his face is only partially visible. My advisor, who is a pretty good-looking white guy in (I think) his very early forties, saw the picture and asked who it was. I told him that it was my boyfriend. Then he said, "Gosh, he sort of looks like me." Now, like I said, my advisor is not bad looking, but I still found the comparison horrifying. First of all, he does not look like DWE (other than being of a similar age, having shortish brown hair, and being a white guy). Second of all, my advisor is, for various reasons, one of the last people on earth that I want compared to my boyfriend. He's a very nice guy, and he's a very smart guy, but he drives me nuts half the time, he can't spell my name right after almost two years (he calls me "Jen"), and I think of him as a very married, grown-up, nonsexual person.
Anyway, my reaction to him was literally to say, "Oh my god, please don't say that," in a sort of joking-yet-horrified way. And when M got there I told her to tell him that he doesn't look like DWE. I basically acted like it was the grossest thing I'd ever heard, and now I feel bad. But seriously, it was a vaguely creepy comment. (Which is not to say that he meant anything creepy by it, because he is not a creepy guy, but still.)
In other news, I'm going to the ballet again tomorrow, to see Sleeping Beauty. Other than that, it's going to be a working weekend--I have a Macro midterm to study for, exams to grade, thesis work to do, about four loads of laundry waiting, and my apartment is a pig sty. I really should have been more productive this evening, but I guess it's a little late for that.
My advisor made the weirdest comment to me today and I think I was kind of rude about it. I have a picture of DWE on my computer's desktop; it's a profile shot of him working on his laptop at the Sacramento airport, so his face is only partially visible. My advisor, who is a pretty good-looking white guy in (I think) his very early forties, saw the picture and asked who it was. I told him that it was my boyfriend. Then he said, "Gosh, he sort of looks like me." Now, like I said, my advisor is not bad looking, but I still found the comparison horrifying. First of all, he does not look like DWE (other than being of a similar age, having shortish brown hair, and being a white guy). Second of all, my advisor is, for various reasons, one of the last people on earth that I want compared to my boyfriend. He's a very nice guy, and he's a very smart guy, but he drives me nuts half the time, he can't spell my name right after almost two years (he calls me "Jen"), and I think of him as a very married, grown-up, nonsexual person.
Anyway, my reaction to him was literally to say, "Oh my god, please don't say that," in a sort of joking-yet-horrified way. And when M got there I told her to tell him that he doesn't look like DWE. I basically acted like it was the grossest thing I'd ever heard, and now I feel bad. But seriously, it was a vaguely creepy comment. (Which is not to say that he meant anything creepy by it, because he is not a creepy guy, but still.)
In other news, I'm going to the ballet again tomorrow, to see Sleeping Beauty. Other than that, it's going to be a working weekend--I have a Macro midterm to study for, exams to grade, thesis work to do, about four loads of laundry waiting, and my apartment is a pig sty. I really should have been more productive this evening, but I guess it's a little late for that.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
rockin' the suburbs
The health o' meter is running at about 90-95% today, I think. My voice still sounds a bit funny, and I still have to blow my nose a lot, but I feel fine, or very very close to it.
So, one annoying thing about being sick while I was in Bako was that I didn't get to properly enjoy the suburban splendor. No shopping trip to Target, no casual family dining, no traversing of vast parking lots. But last night, DWE and I met up, and we started driving south. "Where are we going?" I asked. "I need to buy a new razor. I dropped mine and broke it yesterday," he said. DWE hates chain stores, but as he observed, there aren't that many places to buy a razor at 8:30 p.m. that aren't chain stores, so we went to Target. I was, of course, delighted. I don't have access to a car and Target at the same time very often. So I got a big red pot and some potting soil, which I used this morning to re-pot the Peace Lily that B gave me a year ago when my dad died (despite how neglectful of a plant-mom I am, it is doing quite well, and will probably be much happier now that its roots can spread out). I also stocked up on toiletries and got a cardigan and a pair of jeans. DWE is baffled and mildly disturbed by my tendency to impulse shop and to be convinced that I "need" things like a travel case for Q-tips. He observed that "when I get my job at Goldman Sachs" (we have a running joke about me working at Goldman Sachs and supporting him) I'll shop like I do at Target, except I'll do it at Nordstrom's. I pointed out to him that that's the precise reason I don't really want to work at Goldman Sachs or anyplace else that would pay me a shit-ton of money (also, I probably don't want to do any of the jobs at Goldman Sachs, but that's another matter).
We hadn't had dinner yet, and since we were out in the suburbs, DWE busted out the entertainment book (the book with all the coupons in it) that he'd gotten for free (his company is thinking about advertising in the entertainment book, so they sent him a free sample...he's probably not supposed to be using the coupons in it). He came across the coupons for TGI Friday's, and I suddenly remembered that I'd seen a commercial for TGI Friday's while I was sick, and they were advertising something called "Crispy Green Bean Fries", which is exactly what it sounds like: breaded, deep-fried green beans. I love green beans, and I love deep fried things, and the commercial had made an indelible imprint on my fever-adled subconscious, so I immediately started lobbying for us to go to TGI Friday's.
Long story short: the Crispy Green Bean Fries did not disappoint (although I eschewed the wasabi ranch that they came with for regular ranch), but I did feel a bit of deep-fried-food-eater's remorse afterwards (they're probably better consumed in small quantities as an appetizer rather than as one's meal). I was marveling over the fact that it had taken someone so long to come up with the idea of deep-frying green beans when DWE characteristically responded that someone probably did think of it, but since they didn't work at one of the major chain restaurants that largely dominate the dining landscape, I'd been denied the experience. He's got a point, but I just can't work up his level of distaste for national chains. They're homogenous, they're culturally oppressive, they're frequently unattractive, but they're deeply comforting, not to mention convenient and usually affordable. I respect people like DWE who spend a minimum amount of time complaining about them and a maximum amount of time avoiding them, without being nazi-ish about it. I also respect people who like chains, frequent them, and understand and are willing to live with the consequences of them. I guess I'm somewhere in the middle.
Well, I need to get a little homework done before I head out to meet the econ kids for a couple drinks. I think I'll do the Econometrics problem set (i.e. the problem set for the class I'm TAing). If I do the homework then I'm able to help people with it more easily, and it's always more fun to do someone else's homework than my own.
So, one annoying thing about being sick while I was in Bako was that I didn't get to properly enjoy the suburban splendor. No shopping trip to Target, no casual family dining, no traversing of vast parking lots. But last night, DWE and I met up, and we started driving south. "Where are we going?" I asked. "I need to buy a new razor. I dropped mine and broke it yesterday," he said. DWE hates chain stores, but as he observed, there aren't that many places to buy a razor at 8:30 p.m. that aren't chain stores, so we went to Target. I was, of course, delighted. I don't have access to a car and Target at the same time very often. So I got a big red pot and some potting soil, which I used this morning to re-pot the Peace Lily that B gave me a year ago when my dad died (despite how neglectful of a plant-mom I am, it is doing quite well, and will probably be much happier now that its roots can spread out). I also stocked up on toiletries and got a cardigan and a pair of jeans. DWE is baffled and mildly disturbed by my tendency to impulse shop and to be convinced that I "need" things like a travel case for Q-tips. He observed that "when I get my job at Goldman Sachs" (we have a running joke about me working at Goldman Sachs and supporting him) I'll shop like I do at Target, except I'll do it at Nordstrom's. I pointed out to him that that's the precise reason I don't really want to work at Goldman Sachs or anyplace else that would pay me a shit-ton of money (also, I probably don't want to do any of the jobs at Goldman Sachs, but that's another matter).
We hadn't had dinner yet, and since we were out in the suburbs, DWE busted out the entertainment book (the book with all the coupons in it) that he'd gotten for free (his company is thinking about advertising in the entertainment book, so they sent him a free sample...he's probably not supposed to be using the coupons in it). He came across the coupons for TGI Friday's, and I suddenly remembered that I'd seen a commercial for TGI Friday's while I was sick, and they were advertising something called "Crispy Green Bean Fries", which is exactly what it sounds like: breaded, deep-fried green beans. I love green beans, and I love deep fried things, and the commercial had made an indelible imprint on my fever-adled subconscious, so I immediately started lobbying for us to go to TGI Friday's.
Long story short: the Crispy Green Bean Fries did not disappoint (although I eschewed the wasabi ranch that they came with for regular ranch), but I did feel a bit of deep-fried-food-eater's remorse afterwards (they're probably better consumed in small quantities as an appetizer rather than as one's meal). I was marveling over the fact that it had taken someone so long to come up with the idea of deep-frying green beans when DWE characteristically responded that someone probably did think of it, but since they didn't work at one of the major chain restaurants that largely dominate the dining landscape, I'd been denied the experience. He's got a point, but I just can't work up his level of distaste for national chains. They're homogenous, they're culturally oppressive, they're frequently unattractive, but they're deeply comforting, not to mention convenient and usually affordable. I respect people like DWE who spend a minimum amount of time complaining about them and a maximum amount of time avoiding them, without being nazi-ish about it. I also respect people who like chains, frequent them, and understand and are willing to live with the consequences of them. I guess I'm somewhere in the middle.
Well, I need to get a little homework done before I head out to meet the econ kids for a couple drinks. I think I'll do the Econometrics problem set (i.e. the problem set for the class I'm TAing). If I do the homework then I'm able to help people with it more easily, and it's always more fun to do someone else's homework than my own.
Monday, February 19, 2007
recouperating
I'm leaving Bakersfield to go back to SF in 2 hours. I haven't done anything but be sick since I've gotten here. I haven't left the house or even gone out into the backyard to see Emma (well, earlier today I stood at the back door and petted her, and I'll probably go out and sit on the patio with her after I'm done writing this). Even though I've hardly seen my family and I didn't get to do any of the things I wanted to, I'm still glad I came home because my mother, of course, has been taking excellent care of me, and I would have been miserable by myself in SF. On Thursday, Friday, and part of Saturday I had a fever, and I apparently do not deal well with fevers. I like to think that I'm generally not too much of a baby about being sick, but I cannot handle having a fever. On Thursday night my temperature was around 102 and I felt like I was dying. I was pathetic.
Anyway, I'm doing much better now; still achey and coughing up plenty of grossness, but my fever is totally gone, my sinuses are much clearer, and my energy is rebounding. Hopefully in a couple of days I will be back to normal. Being sick really put me behind in terms of schoolwork (which is particularly annoying because the plan for this weekend was to get ahead a little bit), but hopefully this means that I won't get sick again until after I graduate.
Anyway, I'm doing much better now; still achey and coughing up plenty of grossness, but my fever is totally gone, my sinuses are much clearer, and my energy is rebounding. Hopefully in a couple of days I will be back to normal. Being sick really put me behind in terms of schoolwork (which is particularly annoying because the plan for this weekend was to get ahead a little bit), but hopefully this means that I won't get sick again until after I graduate.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
yucky yucky sick
I'm sick. Yucky, awful, achey-shivery, talking is painful, breathing is not so fun either, hacking up chunks of phlegm kind of sick. (And yes, just to clarify, the purpose of this post, or at least this part of it, is to feel sorry for myself.) I missed the train I was supposed to take to Bako this morning, so I have to take a later one, which is mildly annoying but no big deal (especially since I realized I was going to miss it before I got to the train station or even left a one-block radius of my apartment building). Hopefully by then the drugs will have kicked in. The odd thing is that DWE got sick a couple days before I did, but I haven't seen him in a good ten days, most of which time he's been in Oregon. So it's a mystery to me how he got me sick (I know, you're all thinking that he obviously wasn't the one that got me sick. But I refuse not to have a scapegoat, and I can't seem to come up with anyone else, so he's the bad man with the sneaky interstate germs).
The happy news is that last night I finished marking all but one thing off of my long to-do list. Most notably, I finally got that email sent to IMED giving them a summary of our data and our early findings, and asking them for the info we need. It took a lot longer than I thought it would to get the whole thing prepared and written, but we really need the information that we're asking them for (when credit was first available from IMED in each area where we surveyed groups), so I wanted to make it as easy as possible for them to give us the information as quickly as possible. I discovered that we still have the addresses of most of the group meetings, so I typed the addresses onto our list of groups (even though IMED obviously has that information, hopefully that will eliminate a step for them). I have other thesis related stuff I could be doing (like looking for literature that's been published since I wrote my lit review or that I just missed last time I did research), but this does make me feel like I can not obsessively think/worry about it for a little while.
Okay, I have to go curl up in a ball under a blanket for a while.
The happy news is that last night I finished marking all but one thing off of my long to-do list. Most notably, I finally got that email sent to IMED giving them a summary of our data and our early findings, and asking them for the info we need. It took a lot longer than I thought it would to get the whole thing prepared and written, but we really need the information that we're asking them for (when credit was first available from IMED in each area where we surveyed groups), so I wanted to make it as easy as possible for them to give us the information as quickly as possible. I discovered that we still have the addresses of most of the group meetings, so I typed the addresses onto our list of groups (even though IMED obviously has that information, hopefully that will eliminate a step for them). I have other thesis related stuff I could be doing (like looking for literature that's been published since I wrote my lit review or that I just missed last time I did research), but this does make me feel like I can not obsessively think/worry about it for a little while.
Okay, I have to go curl up in a ball under a blanket for a while.
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