So much to do...

and less and less time to do it. I got my thesis approved (!) which means I'm taking 20 credits now. My thesis is on the signal effect of sources of unemployment on displaced workers' re-employment wages and probabilities. The proposal only skimmed the surface of a decent working model, so I have to work on the theoretical model as well as learn how a hazard model works. The work is far from menial and should definitely be fun.

Not as fun is that I'm also trying to stamp out a decent personal statement, but I have many different things to talk about. I hope I can fit everything into the 500 word limit.

A weekend like never again...

So I didn't do anything this weekend. Why? Here are my moderately legitimate excuses:
Didn't learn enough in real analysis to do the next problem set,
Already did the industrial organization problem set,
Reading for radicals reactionaries is delayed because our last class was canceled Rosh Hashanah, and
Economic analysis of the university reading is... has always been optional.

And my thesis? Still waiting for approval... other people already heard back last Thursday, so what's taking mine so long? I didn't expect so many thesis proposals to be submitted. Maybe the academic standards committee had a very controversial thesis proposal - not mine, right? - that took a lot of discussion time. The "black box" is impermeable.

The idle weekend so far has made me reconsidering bringing my ps3 or ps2 to campus. I am waiting for the work to pile up... please dissuade me from video games!

Now See How You Like It

When a small fanatical (?) church burns Qurans, the entire international Muslim community is up in arms against America. This article from Slate makes the point that we are all guilty of the same crime of being simply moronic in using the actions of a few to judge the larger population.

Not as easy as it was four years ago.

My personal statement neither states anything meaningful nor is personal.

How did I pull this off four years ago? 

Hey There, Math

Dear Intro to Analysis, also known as Math 3110.

I hate you.

With the Greatest Love, Julian

Here, There, Everywhere

It's the second week of school and Labor Day Weekend is here. I'm pretty excited to start the long weekend of reading and problem sets - no, really.

I ended up dropping the evolution class because (a) it's a freshmen class, and (b) I have to read 6 books to write three ten-page papers. Too much work for a three credit class I wanted to take just for fun. So I swapped it for an IO class - because (a) it's an economics class! (b) I kept on seeing IO as a research specialty for econ professors, and (c) because there are problem sets. Problem sets are always so straight forward compared to those convoluted readings.

The economic analysis of the university class is getting to be fun too. This afternoon I was shooting ideas for my research paper in my head and it was an absolute blast! I haven't done that since around July and the high I got out of it was amazing.

On the other hand... analysis is confusing. To make matters worse, my prof has parkinsons so whatever he wrong on the board starts normal sized and then gets smaller, smaller, and smaller. That and he always stands in front whatever he's writing so when I doze off for a bit (which happens often, it's right before lunch!) I immediately become lost.

Oh, and applications? Yeah, applications. Need to work on a good personal statement.