Meh.

I know I'm a few years late on this, but

HOLY SHIT BATTLESTAR GALACTICA IS SO GOOD.

Things are still really mathy over here, if you were wondering. Taking three high level statistics courses at once was a really good idea because I get to see three different iterations of the same concepts over and over again. Makes it easier to digest. Number theory is a lot easier than I was expecting. That's about all I have going on right now. How you doin?

I went to the American Economics Association convention in Denver a few weekends ago and had an awesome time. It was really interesting to get a taste of what people in the economics profession actually do for a living. The entire trip strengthened my resolve to pursue a PhD in economics once I finish my undergraduate degree.

I have another story about why you shouldn't put your real name on Amazon reviews, but I'll save that for another time. Hope things are going well in your neck of the woods.

This semester in brief:

My International Economics course has been the biggest waste of time in my college career. It's not the subject that annoys me, it's the professor. For the past month we've been doing group presentations so she doesn't have to lecture. She doesn't assign grades for them, and has no system for tracking who has actually done their presentations, so it's obvious she's assigning them so she doesn't have to do anything. Booooooring. She also gave three different multiple choice exams that she royally screwed up the answer key for, and ended up having to toss out 1/4 of the problems on each test.

Behavioral and Experimental Economics has been fun. I conducted an experiment last week. Turns out freshman business majors have some altruistic tendencies (towards each other, anyways).

I don't feel like I've learned anything in my Mathematical Statistics or Real Analysis courses that I couldn't have taught myself. Most of the time I depend on the professor in my math classes to make the material easier to digest so I don't have to spend as much time studying, but I feel like I've been on my own in these classes. Both professors lecture directly from the book without adding much explanation, so I have to spend a lot of time figuring out stuff on my own. Not that I expect upper level math courses to be easy to grasp, but throw me a friggin' bone here. I can copy the book into my notes on my own time!

American literature has been extremely time consuming. Reading stories, writing responses, repeat. It's been enjoyable but I'm ready to get this class over with. It's my last general studies requirement.

Hopefully next semester will be more interesting. Still taking a full load of courses. More math this time: Math Stats II, Regression Analysis, Differential Equations II, Econometrics, Law and Economics, Urban and Regional Economics. Hopefully three statistics-based courses in the same semester won't kill me.

I'm sure it's not thrilling to read this stuff, but it's pretty much all I do nowadays so it's all you get. Sorry!

I can't hear this song without thinking about this commercial:



DAMN YOU VAN HAGAR!

So I visited Chicago a few weeks ago. It was a really fun time. I especially enjoyed how the subway goes pretty much everywhere. Downtown kinda smells like poop, though. That wasn't very cool. I might consider going to Northwestern or UChicago for grad school as well, but my heart is still set on the west coast somewheres.

Someday I'm going to post a blog that has nothing to do with where I want to go to grad school, because I'm sure you're tired of hearing about it and I renewed my account because I missed blogging things. Maybe I'll start that now.

This semester is starting off way too slow. It's been two weeks without any real assignments. I'm afraid they're all going to hit me at once with a massive tidal wave of homework.

I've been doing really well about watching what I eat lately. I'd like to get down to 185lbs, which is about what I weighed when I graduated high school. It's not that I'm really obese, but when I gain weight, it goes straight to my gut. I started feeling like a pregnant woman when I got to 225lbs, which was when I decided to start doing something about it. I'm down to about 200lbs now. A few days ago I realized that none of my jeans still fit me because I've lost so much weight, so now I need to buy new ones. That's kind of exciting for me.

It's also weird (to me) that I don't wear pants in the summer. I remember when I lived in Seattle I thought that shorts were for dorks, but it's just not possible to wear pants in the summer here without having severe swamp crotch. Damn this humidity.

I have other things to talk about, but I will save them for another time. Gotta get ready for school.

Spent the last week in DC with my mom. Holy crap that was stressful.

DC was cool though. I really enjoyed riding the Metro everywhere. Makes me wish I lived in a city with a subway. Just not DC.

Makes me wish I could hurry up and get the hell out of here. It's going to be worth it, I think.

Speaking of things that I think, I think I'd enjoy living in Los Angeles. I'm really leaning toward UCLA for grad school. Or USC. Sucks that it's going to be a year and a half before I figure out where I'm going.

Google and I have been wondering the same things lately.



I'm between apartments this week so I'm not going to be around as much. Not that I comment a lot on here, but I do try to read blogs. I suppose that commenting on blogs would encourage people to write more blogs. Oh well!

Started playing EVE Online. It's pretty neat. Way better than Star Trek Online. I've been in a sci fi mood lately.

Taking a linear algebra class right now. It's incredibly easy considering I had multivariable calculus and differential equations last semester. Fall semester will be theory of calculus, mathematical statistics I, mythology in American literature, and a few economics electives.

Math is fun but I don't think I could do pure math for a living. Gotta have some context, you know.

P.S. For added fun, take a look at the results for the aforementioned Google search. Yahoo answers seems to have replaced the talk your parents give about the birds and the bees.

Hey, I renewed.

Wooo.