Being a TA is a completely natural process for graduate students. I think all my classmates have been TA before. Not me though. That is why I am REALLY REALLY excited to be in a position of teaching this Fall! Yeh! Yeh! Yeh! It is an undergrad core principals of macro class at my school and all undergrads have to take them at some point in their undergrad years. The class is introduction to economics. It reminds me of myself when I was taking Econ 2 at Berkeley. In some sense this is harder than teaching harder econ class because there you’ll be teaching tools rather than the thinking. I tutored somebody on principals of economics before in DC and I found it so much harder than teaching statistics or math.
The professor handed me an instructor version of Manikw’s book, as well as a published book named “Naked Economics”. I am so excited! Now I can get distracted from studying by reading it!
As children we used to ask each other “What do you wanna be when you grow up?” Well I am still asking that question. Economist is just one of the answers. There are too many:
I want to be Gene Kelly, jumping onto the lamppost with the umbrella, Singing in the Rain,
I want to be Sheryl Krowe, hugging my guitar and writing on the lines, Singing First Cut is the Deepest,
I want to be Robert Lucas, christening the world with my insights, My mind swimming in a lagoon of ideas,
I want to be one of the 3 Musketeers as in Alexandre Dumas’s book, Disengaging and Lunging at my worthy opponent,
I want to be JK Rowling, scribbling my novel in the cafe, my characters being part of me and being as real as it gets
I want to be Indiana Jones, walking across mystical sites in my fedora hat, my hand a hard grip on the whip.
I want to be Ellen MaCarthur, sailing solo across the world unaided, returning in triumph waving firecrackers at the entrance of the harbor.
I want to be Patricia Barber, her fingers flying across the white and black keys, music from her piano blending mythology with songs.
I want to be a scuba divist that has explored caves and holes where nobody has stepped foot on.
There is so much I want to be.
Watching the trailer for an upcoming movie (in Fall) named “He’s Not that Into You”, I was reminded of all my unanswered experiences with guys in the past.
The sequence of event usually happened like this: we had an amazing conversation and clearly clicked, then he died off from the earth.
Really: why was it that he didn’t call me after we had that great and long conversation? What happened? This didn’t just happened once. It happened….let me count….4 times.
I am actually grateful for my speed-dating and post-speed dating experience now. Because it reminds me how dating feels like and that I have to keep on dating. To maintain a forward and proactive attitude (confirmed by the mathematical proof by Shapley and some other mathematician about the pareto optimality of a proactive seacher in the game of matching), I hereby state my goals in the rest of the year (by stating them here, I can be sure that some of you would come questioning me about them in the future thereby driving me to take action):
1. I will have made friends with 5 guys I found attractive by the end of summer.
2. I will have had 32 dates by today next year.
There!
I spent the last entire week resting. In sum I spent 2 days finishing a novel and watched 2 movies in the theatre today. Here are some quick thoughts on them:
1. Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skulls
Harrison Ford still makes my heart beat faster after all these years. This sixty-plus year old man looks even fitter than Mutt (Shia Leotif). The first 1.25 hour of the movie is fast paced, funny, and totally enjoyable. My favorite scene is when Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) appears and Harrison Ford asks in shock, “Marion?!”, while Mutt looks on with shock yelling somewhat naively and roughly, “MOTHER!” Marion Ravenwood is the same tom-boyish character and is at her best when she drives up to the branch at the cliff. I thought Shia Leotif was impeccably casted as the son of Indiana Jones, and I can only see him excelling at that role — he possesses that combination of street-smart charm and mamma’s boy quality that no other young character I know possesses. Another great scene is where Cate Blanchett was fencing with him as each stands in their speeding car, as Marion supplies fencing instruction for Mutt. The only disappointing thing about this movie is the revelation of the treasure of the crystal skull. Come on , UFO?! My mind screams LAME when the metallic UFO spaceship spinned its way out of Peru. But overall, it is very entertaining and a fun ride. Though I would always think better of the Last Crusade.
2. Kung Fu Panda
The fact that it is a movie about animals behaving like human beings (i.e. working, owning shops, being in jail) gave me an effy feeling even before watching the movie. Though the lines are funny, overall the movie as an animation disappoints. The plot mirrors that of Mulan — the underdog learns Kung Fu from the master amidst disparagement by others and finally succeeds in defeating the enemy. Yet it lacks the grandeur of the battle scenes in Mulan, it lacks the elements of a hard and long journey of the hero of the story (in this case, the Panda), it even lacks the motive for the bad guy to behave the way he did. Even as a movie intended for children it lacks the basic logic of a story. The panda never has to go through conflicting emotions as Mulan did. How the Panda suddenly acquires the Kung Fu in a mater of 2 or 3 days is really questionable. The only redeeming feature of the movie is the dorky/awkward humor.
3. Pillars of the Earth - by Ken Follet (about 1000 pages)
This historical fiction is written in 1989 but it sits on my bookshelf. I have forgotten when or how I acquired it. But as Maple just read it, I read it as well (I also saw its sequel in Borders).
Gripping is the word to describe the plot of the story. The prose is expected for a bestseller. Each of the major characters are pretty well developed. The 1000 pages depict the long journey of the building of a catedral in a small English town called Kingsbridge, and the lives of the characters involved in building this cathedral. It is a story about how good triumphs over evil.
I wonder what Ken Follet was thinking as he writes this story. Obviously, the story is inspired by his passion for the stories behind the building of cathedrals in England. (whenever a long term project is involved it must involve much politics, blood, and personal struggles). But aside from that, I felt that the story reflects the religious struggle of Follet. A question that any religious person asks during bad time is, “Why is God doing this to me?” Illustrating the stubborn faith in God is highest in the agenda of writing this story. I think the key line of the story occurs as Prior Phillip gave his unconvincing sermon on the Book of Job.
So I started reading the Book of Job yesterday night. I found it very difficult to read. In fact, it’s the hardest part of the Bible I’ve ever encountered. I felt that I really need a priest to guide me through it.
Another immediate reaction I have about the story is the character Aliena. It reads like an exact replica of Scarlett from Gone with the Wind.
Filed under: Movies
I have wanted to see this movie for a long time and have formed some expectations because of the beautiful setting of the film (tell me if that’s rational). Tonight I caught up on my movies and I am not entirely impressed.
The movie is supposedly about the “strength of an American family” but I do not see the strength. I just see people standing by as their loved one ruined himself into self destruction. The point of the quiet message is that we love someone completely even though we have incomplete understanding of them. But if you had understood that the person ruining himself, do you stand by and not do anything? Norman McClean (by the way, was a professor University of Chicago in English Literature) should have dragged his brother away from the gambling house when he got the chance. But he didn’t.
I understand when we love someone we don’t want to run into direct conflict with them. But sometimes such actions are neccessary even if it meant causing unpleasant screaming fights.
I think the fundamental message of the movie is wrong. How disappointing. Despite the beautiful scenary.
There simply cannot be a deep platonic friendship between an available man and an available woman. The rare case that it exists is if the friendship was forged during the unworldly times of youth. Once men and women grew up, they became different species and if they are not instantly attracted to each other, they would regard each other with mutual suspicion. Thus, no deep friendship is bound to exist.
The suspicion may not be mutual. Many single women single-sidedly regard single men who eagerly strike conversation with them with suspicion and will react by distancing themselves if they don’t find them suitable to their potential mate. If they did not distance themselves, when the single men one day declare their affection only to be turned down, the single men will accuse the women of leading them on.
Same with single men. Single women who actively try to be friends with them would be regarded as hitting on them and my understanding of the male tendency is that they tend to be scared and therefore immediately distance themselves. Again, this is a lop-sided response.
Thus no deep friendship can ever be forged between a single woman and a single man in the grown up world. For they will always eye each other with suspicion if they don’t see each other as potential mate.
The tragedy of this is that it will be a pareto optimal situation if only they could be friends. Women can offer their womanly sensitivities to the men, and men can offer their hard-headedness and straight talking view to the women. Therefore, they can support each other and have a large set of choices for emotional support.
I would regard this mutual suspicion as iceberg cost.
The society of single men and single men need to decrease this iceberg cost to facilate more trade!
If only single women and single women have the following code of conduct when they greet each other:
Single woman or single man: Hello, do not fear me. I will not declare that I love you. I just want to be friends with to and talk to you about life and books and music and movies and do and talk about stuff that friends do and talk about and play sports. Let’s kick down the walls between us and have a heart to heart.
Then continue to talk about what friends talk about, and do what friends do.
(note that in the FRIENDS tv series, that circle of friends ened by hooking up with one another. I wish this would not happen. In my experience, this does happen very often. You were in the same circle of friends and suddenly they are hooking up with one another. It sucks for Joey. But you see, that proves my point again: available men and women can only be so called “friends” as defined by the FRIENDS series if they were at least attracted to each other as potential mate)
If you want to know why I am saying this, it is because I am always regarded with this suspicion from the opposite sex, if their reaction to me is not instant and aggressive advances. I see the fear in their eyes. There is an invisible lines which they dare not cross, and if I take the initiative to cross, they huddle together and withdraw rapidly. I would like to offer my friendship to them, but they fear to take it.
Don’t worry baby. I just want to be friends with you. Seriously.
Filed under: Personal
All I gushed about last time is the sweetness of my family. Now it’s sweetness of old friends. MY sweetness as an old friend for someone.
You see, I am not a sensitive person and it’s hard for me to detect abnormal emotion in my normal friends’ lives. But with an old friend, I can even detect that something is wrong with only the very slighest hint. I can detect it via online messaging.
So I haven’t chatted with this friend for a long time. He is one of first good friends I made in US. But with an old friend, despite not having chatted, you still talk like old friends. So we were having simple online messages, starting with discussing whether women who play instruments are hot and exchanging youtube video of singers whom we admire. But all the awhile I was feeling something is wrong. And of course, something is wrong.
It’s strange that you get that vibe even via very simple online messaging.
The process of writing this exam is so memorable that I had to document here so that in the years to come I’ll remember how “exciting” it has been. It has been exciting in the sense that since I started on Friday night I had been very excited about it to a degree that when I am in bed I would be thinking about it and couldn’t wait to get up to do it. Would rather not sleep to do it. Usually this happens only when I am really excited about a research idea and want to work on it. Thinking back, Mick Jagger’s material always made me behave this way: could spend days look at it with concentration (though only understanding it mildly in the end) and have this urge of wanting to continue look at it. In fact, I don’t think other classes have this effect on me. Trade has it, but the urge is not as strong. Mick Jagger’s stuff is addictive.
You see, I am still trying to analyze why Mick Jagger’s class has such effects on me such that I kept on taking them. This course caused me much pain towards the end of each professor because I wasn’t understanding as much things as I should and that caused fear. But toward the last week, I became quite into it again because I, belatedly but finally, made the connection between all the papers we are reading about to things that my parents care about. There’s finally a real world connection. This paved for the way for my excited attempt for the exam.
Another reason for my excited attempt of the exam is that it’s the last one for my second year. From Friday to Monday, whenever I think that this will be the last exam which I would be working until I see the sunrise, and the last exam to be stress over because of grade issues, I became reenergized and attacked it with zeal. The thought that I could finally be a full time researcher, running my OWN show, gives me the energy to close this year with a bang and then cast me unworldly eye toward the future of research joys and pains.
But these expectations, incomplete understanding and yet strong resolve to do the exam well made the exam writing process of Friday to Monday an emotional roller coaster ride. It has been so full of ups and downs that I felt like a year has past. The process is like a movie: one minute you are feeling down because you got something wrong, the next minute, you are super happy because you thought you found a solution to the problem, the next minute you…..anyway, here is a brief documentation:
Friday 10pm: downloaded the 8 pages exam. There are 4 questions. (each question with a, b, c, d, e, f etc) Started the last problem which requires you to read a paper. I read the paper with relish because I like reading and avoiding math. Was happy because the paper is actually very understandable. Felt very optimistic about exam.
Saturday 3am: Began question 3a. Same as problem set so cool. Feeling very optimistic. (But have not seriously looked at probelm 1 and 2 which looks long and daunting since heard bad things about those two).
Saturday 5am: read through homework to understand 3a because I didn’t know how to do it in the homework. Understood it and couldn’t wait to start that problem.
Saturday 11am: Began question 3b, with the expectation that it’s easy. And with the expectation that by 4pm of the day will have finished problem 3 (a, b, c, d, e)
Saturday noon: Realized that 3b requires writing out algebra because it’s a variation of 3a. And to me no algebra is easy and all algebra takes time.
Saturday 3:35pm: Realized that something is terribly wrong with my approach after 3 typed pages of algebra. Did not know what too do.
Saturday 4:00 pm: terribly depressed because of wasted effort.
Saturday 4:10 pm: terribly terribly depressed and had to lie down in bed.
Saturday 4:35pm: Dragged myself from the bed to sit in front of computer. Figured out my mistake and redid the algebra.
Saturday 4:55pm: Wrote the computer codes for 3b and got something reasonable! Felt like walking on clouds.
Saturday 5:30 pm: finished part c swiftly and got reasonable numbers. Experiencing nirvana.
Saturday 6:00 pm: gushed about the excitement to mother and father since they called and it’s father’s day in Hong Kong.
Saturday 6:30 pm to 9:30pm: in really good mood and decided to take a walk in the park outside apartment and walked to have dinner on 57 th street. Talked to two friends and felt very happy.
Saturday 10pm – Begin 3d. Experimented with different approach.
Sunday 5am – finished algebra for 3d. Got something not totally crazy but not totally convincing. But the sun has risen.
(Sunday 6:30 am to 4pm) went to bed at 6:30 am but couldn’t fall asleep until 9am.
Sunday 4pm – goal for day is to finished 3e and the whole problem of 2. Began to worry since had a bad night sleep for a couple of days straight and strain is beginning to show. Began 3e and not sure what to do.
Sunday 5pm- got inspiration from rock and had an inkling of what to do, but still got stuck on something. Felt discouraged. Look at Mick Jagger’s part and even felt very discouraged because have only less than 48 hours to do it. Felt it’s hopeless to finish everything by then.
Sunday 6pm – Forget it, have to start problem 2 (Mick Jagger’s part). Because Mich Jagger’s part is quite different from question 3 and 4 (posed by the other professor), I decided to clean out my desk (with all the papers from the other professor) and take a long walk outside, to have a clean start.
Sunday 8pm – begin working on Mick Jagger.
Sunday 10pm – 2a and 2b are smooth ride because similar to procedure used in homework. Very happy. (unbeknowst to me then some bad things is awaiting after 2b)
Sunday midnight – had pages of algebra for 2c. Stare at the equations and at various point in time had flashes of IDEAS to get through it. Everytime an idea hit, I was very excited because I thought that really was gonna solve the problem. Everytime that idea fell through, I felt like a rock has fallen on my head.
Monday 1am: The algebraic mess in 2c is not going anywhere. Furthermore, realized that doing 2a in continuous time is in correct.
Monday 3am: had continued to try 2c in the past hours but getting nowhere useful. But started on 2d. According to rock 2d is “easy”. But again had terrible algebra for 2d and was getting nowhere.
Monday 3:15: terribly, terribly discouraged. Especially when looked problem 1 and the rest of problem 2 (and 3e) and wondered how in the world am I gonna beable to finish this by midnight on Monday (then, less than 24 hours)
Monday 3:30am: started crying due to helplessness enhanced by looking at all the problem still awaiting to be solved under time pressure. Called brother in NYC. Brother in NYC joined in denouncing my school, and told me that he was in the ER for a cut finger the previous week.
Monday 4am: Continued to work on 2d and realized that it was indeed simply. Felt very happy and optimistic again.
Monday 5am: Charged onto 2e, but has nothing useful to say.
Monday 5:30am: Began to work on 2f, which is an algebraic mess. But felt very optimistic since I felt like I know where I am going.
Monday 6:15am: Algebra mess of 2f has developed controllably. But realized that the result from the uncontrollable mess is unreasonable. Felt sad. Stopped working.
Monday 6:45am: went to bed but mind could not stop thinking and did not fall asleep until 8am. Had an idea of what to do with 3e. Couldn’t wait to get out of bed to work on it.
Monday 11 am: Went back to 3e to reworked something. Begin problem 1.
Monday noon: Felt very good about problem 1 and know exactly what I am doing.
Monday 2 pm: Finished problem 1 and felt very optimistic.
Monday 3 pm: Redid problem 2a and 2b in discrete time. Felt good.
Monday 4 pm: Redid problem 2e. Felt good.
Monday 4:30pm: Went back to problem 3e. Implemented idea, and it worked.
Monday 5:30 pm: got some ressults for 3e, though felt effy about it because something is strange. But overall approach am satisfied.
Monday 6:55pm: Embellished the existing work and decided to get it over with, submitted on chalk.
That’s the past 66 hours and 33 minutes, resulting in 23 pages of typed economics/algebra.
In that time, I finished the last final exam of my 2nd year, and hopefully years to come. How memorable. More to come.
Never, ever, ever give up.
I think Winston Churchhill said that.
That motto comes true again today. It is the ultimate truth whose wisdom overwhelms me everytime it helped me. It did it last year. It did it this year.
I mean, when you are really really on the very verge of giving up, but instead you hold on by that one single strand of hair, the fruit of hanging on amazes me.
This only applies to situation when really, you are on the end of the limit.
