Back to school, and so far fluless.

Now that school has started, I suddenly have a bunch of time set aside for procrastination. And thus, I have finally updated my blog. And I don’t think it can be really called blog anymore. I mean I posted like 4 times? 5? But for lack of better word, here I am, “blogging.”

And I actually have a fair amount to say, or at least enough. So now for updates on Jessica’s life that most people reading this blog already know:

1. I have applied and been accepted to a co-term in Statistics.

This means that I get to stick around for a couple of quarters after graduation (2 most likely) and then receive a masters in Statistics. Wooo-Hoo. I have already taken one course that will count towards my degree so I’m at 3/45 completion (vis-a-vis credit units). This quarter I was going to take 2 courses that would count towards the Statistics degree (Foundations of Analysis and Stochastic Processes). However, since one of them was too hard (I was 100% lost during the second lecture), I dropped it! I am not sure this is a good sign, but as my mother told me I should take things as they come. Or something. I’m not sure how this applies (or if my mother really tells me this).

2. My sister is getting married next labor day!

This, I guess is not news about me, except for the fact that I am one of two bridesmaids. Sorry to everyone else who was jockeying for the position. Apparently you weren’t awesome enough (read “blood-sister” enough) to be accepted for the position. As bridesmaid, I have started to fulfill my duties by going dress shopping with my sister and strategically going to get the car when a decision was to be made. I mean that doesn’t really make sense if you don’t know me well. The problem is that like most people in my family, I am a complete control freak and have strong opinions. This would work well if it was my wedding that was being planned, but if it is someone else’s I have hard time translating what I would want to what they would want. Nevertheless, without my decisiveness, my sister was able to pick out a beautiful dress. This is when it dawned on me, “my sister is actually getting married.” Indeed I was discussing this with my mother. I was telling her how half the time it (it being Emily getting married) was weird just because it wasn’t actually that weird, and the other half the time it was just plain bizarre – My Sister is Getting Married!. I’m really excited for her and hope that my mother and her don’t eat each other alive in the process. Or anyone else for that matter. Just lots of really good food would be preferable.

3. I’m back at school!

Woo-hoo. Classes have started, I’m a senior (well sort of considering the whole “co-term” thing), I can go to infamous Senior Pub Night (or not), but mostly I am just taking a bunch of classes. In case people are interested I shall list them: Foundations of Analysis (Math Course), Labor Economics (currently a 5 person lecture course which has the potential for being awkward if nothing else), International Finance (fulfills Econ units), and Introduction to Prehistoric Archeology (fulfills an Education for Citizenship requirement but should be in general cool). Basically all the classes are kind of mush (some work but fairly easy to understand) except for the Math course. That course and I are going to be spending a lot of time together this quarter. Office hours, textbook reading, practice problems, etc. are going to be everyday fun times. Also it is the “Writing in the Major” (WIM) course for Math. Enough said.

Well enough said about Math, but I do have more to say about other back to school things. I’m currently living in apartment style Stanford Housing with two friends, Margot and Allison. I have my own room (as do they), and it is super nice. We eat dinner together a lot, they eat up my muffins, I eat up their jello. So far it is a good living arrangement, or at least eating arrangement which is 9/10 of the battle. The most bizarre thing about them is that they go to sleep very early, I come back to my room at 10:45pm and lights are off, doors shut! Personally I’m impressed by their grown-up like sleeping habits (they then wake up at like 7!). Also, it keeps me from staying up too late. This morning I even woke up early enough to make muffins before my 11am class. It’s different than what I am used to, but nice.

Also being back to school I am on Swine Flu high alert! I have a total of 5 hand sanitizer dispensers, 2 big and 3 travel size. I have warned my roommates that if they get sick I will probably become (more) nutso – clorax wiping everything, maybe including their face, and when I’m not clorax wiping them I’ll try not to look at them for fear of transmission by eyesight. I think they thought I was mostly kidding. I’m not exactly sure how kidding I was. Hopefully we won’t have to find out. I just have to hold out until the vaccine.

4. I’m (most likely) going to write an Honors Thesis!

I have discussed this is in earlier blog but I thought I would elaborate a bit. So my Honors Thesis idea is to analyze how indicators of economic downturns (such as the unemployment rate and the poverty level) affect the decision to participate in food stamps. This may seem fairly obvious: more people are poor, so more people are eligible, so more people will participate! Which is probably true, however, I am going to try to control for income and eligibility status, so that I can see how economic downturns affect the cost of going on welfare. For example, information costs might decrease since there are more people on welfare that can share information about eligibility requirements etc. Anyways this is not very interesting, but good practice for writing my Honors Thesis Proposal. It’s the first time I have ever had to write a Research Proposal and I am not exactly sure how to go about it, so mostly I am fumbling my way along, writing a page or two, then writing another page or two that says the same thing, only differently, adding random paragraphs in random places, and hoping that if I write around the subject enough I’ll magically arrive at the subject. I don’t think I am there yet. The plan for this weekend is then, as such: Math (well Math is a given, it needs to be in my every breath if I hope to do well in the course) and Honors Thesis Proposal.

Until next time, stay swine-fluless.

Love, Jessica

… And some photos for fun.

My mother prepared our garden animals for Jewish High Holidays.

Eddie phone home… wherever that is.

Going to the Zoo.

In my last blog I talked just about non-related stuff, and my blogs before that I talked about just work stuff, so in this blog I thought I would try to talk about an amalgam of stuff. This may mean that it is a bit disjointed but I guess that comes with the territory.

But first, work stuff. So I have worked now for four weeks! It seems a bit amazing and is not exactly what I expected. Remember when I was reading that paper a million times and freaking out because I couldn’t even pick out the main point? Well that didn’t really matter. When I had talked to my professor before I started work it sounded as if I would be redoing the empirical analysis for one of his paper’s with more recent data. Apparently I entirely misinterpreted him. No, I instead am working on getting data ready so that he can redo the empirical analysis. Which is actually fine. I’m working with the PSID which is the “Panel Study Income Data” or something. I’m creating a do-file for STATA which extracts the variables that my professor needs. To some up the work I’ve been doing – I’ve become very familiar with “Find and Replace.” I’m finishing up this first project and soon I’ll moving on to do some new unknown work which might be more (or less) interesting. But enough about this, I am bored enough with my work and I can’t imagine that a literary accounting of it improves it much.

Vis-à-vis my own research project, I think I’ve come up with an interesting idea. Right now I’m looking into researching the effect of a recession and unemployment on take-up rates of welfare. So far, I haven’t gotten my hands dirty with data or anything, I’m just reading a lot about welfare stigma. Hopefully, I will be able to fledge this out into a honors thesis! But I really need to do some more preliminary research first.

Ok on to fun things! Last weekend my friends (Rachel, Eddie, Phil) and I went to the Zoo! We had been talking about going to the zoo for a really long time, but this is the first time we got a chance. Rachel was already in the city so Phil, Eddie and I met her there. There may, or may not, have been some navigating issues (“Is this the exit I am supposed to take?” (looking at the green exit signs) “No, not yet” We drive past the exit “… Erm… that was the exit”). We also had fun getting acquainted with the Great Highway and the fact that once you get on, you can’t really get off. But nevertheless we made it!

We toured the entire zoo, petting and all.  Here were a couple of the highlights:

Baby Gorilla, Hasani. He was SO cute. Since I didn’t get any good pictures of him here is a picture curtsey of Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America.

Thank You Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America)

On July fourth weekend, we went to Rachel’s house and did a bunch of fourth of july-y things, BBQed, made muffins, kited, etc, and watch “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” We didn’t really like the movie, but the point is that the baby gorilla looked a bit like the baby old man. Or at least, I thought so.

Hasani was definitely the star of the zoo, but we still enjoyed the usual treats of lions, tigers, and bears. And some monkeys.

Rachel and a Tiger too.

Sirloin, my polar bear friend, looking at the polar bear in the zoo.

Eddie, Phil and Rachel making scary monkey faces.

But really, baby animals are the best. Maybe it is my maternal instinct trying to make itself known whenever it can, but I really love baby animals. Which is why my new favorite website is zooborns.com. It is the greatest site in the world. There are new babies everyday! You can search by animal or by zoo! There are videos and pictures and it is even an iPhone app.

I guess this is a slightly shorter post than usual. Hopefully I will do fun things the rest of the weekend and have much to report. But for now just enjoy the fabulousness of zooborns.

The Path Not Taken: Sick-less and fancy free.

My adorning fans. Or at least, somewhat adorning fans. I realize that some (most, all?) of you are not that interested in a blow by blow encounter of my adventures into research! Truth be told, I’m not all that interested in my blow by blow encounters (in life or on paper). So in this post I’ll focus on non-work related items.

While I could recount the fun things we have done these past two weekends,

(Go to the beach and play frisbee croquet)

(Give-in and make the blueberry-blackberry galette)

(Go to Marin and fly kites and ride horses)

(And then make delicious dinner/muffins)

I shall instead dwell on something less pleasant. On Wednesday of last week, I was sitting in my room at around 10am, and like a good girl, working, when my roommate (who was supposed to be at work) bursts into the room and announces that she has been throwing up since 4am that morning. As soon as I hear “throw up” and “since 4 am” I try to suppress a highly visible gag and my inclination to inch my chair farther away from her room.  I am only moderately successful. But what then? I have a potentially very contagious thing not mere 4 feet from me that may periodically spew contagious substances. Before I can make up an excuse for leaving her vicinity immediately, I am given one – a quest to find and retrieve the holy grail that is gaterade. I may, or may not, have taken more time then was needed on this quest. I went to one place where there was only Powerade, and decided that as I was charged with finding “Gaterade” my quest most continue (I’m not sure even trained athletes can tell the difference let alone a sick girl)! Once I get back and carefully deposit the gaterade without touching any potentially contaminated surfaces, I go into my room (I have a two room-double) and close my door explaining that “I have work to do.” That afternoon I was even less successful in being a supportive, selfless roommate. Right after lunch I dashed off to the library to do work. When I got back from a meeting, I checked my e-mail and found out that my roommate went to Vaden (the college community health clinic) and since she was so dehydrated and couldn’t keep down liquids she had to get an IV. Later I learn that she walked, to and from Vaden out of lack of other transportation.  While I did have the fortunate excuse of being at a meeting, I couldn’t help feeling a bit guilty.  But mostly, I felt relieved.  Luckily, once she got back, she slept for the next 14 hours and felt much better the next day.  Enough that she was even able to go to work!

Even though I completely avoided any human contact with her, hand sanitized constantly and periodically clorax bleach wiped various common (and uncommon) surfaces (door knobs, refrigerator, my desk (?)), I was in constant terror the rest of the week of recieving this plague. Every night, I would go to bed wondering if I would wake up in the middle of the night sick, barely able to contain myself before I got to the bathroom.  Therefore, before I went to bed at night, I configured my trashcan close to my bed and a water pitcher within spewing distance. This terror, and suspicion, consumed me so much that I felt ill. I had constant indigestion, and faint tones of nausea. Luckily (or something) I had experience with these pseudo-symptoms earlier this year when many of the Branner (the dorm I lived in) residents came down with a terrible stomach flu. As my mother says “You don’t know you have the flu until you start throwing up” so despite my indigestion, I had to force myself to eat meals. But day by day went by, and despite my terror induced nausea, I remained throw-up free. And once I passed into the safety zone of +3 days after the sickness invaded my home, I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders and ate a large 4^th of July feast without fear that it would come up sometime soon after.

So what is the point of this pathetic tale, other than the fact that I am a terrible roommate and a tad (or more than a tad) psychotic? Well, surprisingly enough it fits into this blog’s reoccurring theme of my general lack of direction.

Sometimes, I am unsure of whether “Economics” is the right fit for me. I sort of meandered my way into the department and while I have really enjoyed the classes I have taken, I still don’t know if this is what I want to do with my life. What will I do with an economics degree? Go to grad school? Become a consultant? An i-banker? Sub-prime mortgage seller? It’s all a bit unclear.

On the contrary, I have always have an ambition to become a doctor. On Scrubs they make it look so fun! When I worked in my Mom’s lab as a measly office worker, I would often go visit my mom and we’d look at slides together. She would show me slides that had cancer (rather of people with cancer), and other terrible diseases and it was super fun! I can see myself as a doctor, white coat and all. I can’t really “see” myself as an i-banker.

So why didn’t I take all of the pre-med classes? Get ready for med school so that I could start and apply this summer? Erm… I’m not sure.   I didn’t start my first quarter with a load of chem and physics classes, and then, later on it seemed like too much of a hurdle. But recently I have always wondered if I went down the wrong path.

In an economic fashion, I think I can now reject that hypothesis. If I can barely stay in the same room as my sick roommate let alone wipe her brow and hold her hair while she is throwing up, I think I am not cut out for a doctor’s life. Now, I could be like my mother (who is a pathologist) and shun human contact (only microscope contact) with live patients, but I believe that with my ability to manufacture fake symptoms I will not be able to physically survive Medical School.

While I can’t accept the hypothesis that I should become an economist, at least I can reject one of the many alternatives.

Cooking: Figuratively and Literally.

Research Update:
Coming into this week, I was excited about starting work! First I had to meet with my professor, and then I could get started doing some real research!  However, that whole getting started bit has been impeded by the fact that I haven’t gotten a chance to meet with my professor.  He is off on various family vacations/conferences (so much for that so called “tons of face time”). Therefore, since I can’t fully get started on my professor’s research, I was left to find something to occupy myself with.  There were some things to do: I read the infamous paper a couple times, looked up things I didn’t really know, and read documentation about the data files I was going to work with.  But once I was done with that (or at least, sick of that), I was at a loss of what to do next.  So I decided to start my crusade against my individual research project.  Why a crusade, you might ask? Why not a jaunt or a not so ready for battle word? Well, this project comes with a bit of baggage.  If it is interesting/substantial enough then I can use it for an honors thesis.  And if not… then I’m 95% confident that a honors thesis is not going to happen.  And so I am stuck with trying to think of some “great (or not so great) idea” to do research on.  But how hard could this really be?  I mean I could always go for the standard “fix the economy” research project.  Nevertheless, take it from me, it’s really hard to come up with a great or not so great idea that’s feasible for an honors thesis. As my major adviser aptly put, “undergraduates can’t really do economics research” (because we just don’t know enough economics (and by economics, I mean math)).   So now I am left with the prospect of doing something I can’t really do.  At least, well.  But nevertheless, even if it may be impossible, apparently it is essential… for just about anything. The professor that gave a talk this week for the Summer Economic/Public Police Research Assistant Program (SE/PPRAP?) (who is incidentally the head of honors) told us that it would be impossible to get a job in the current economy, unless, we did an honors thesis, in which case, getting a job would be a “piece of cake.”   Since I am all for pieces of cake, I’m left with the prospect of finding something original to research.

Despite my various adversities, I have decided to toil on!  (Besides, without work for my professor, my only other option for occupying my time is watching “Dexter” and “The Tudors” all day.  While I love Dexter, and am partial to continue on with The Tudors, I need something else to do).  So I have taken charge and have created a “reading list” of various articles that are within my areas of interest: the increasing gender inequality in academic performance favoring girls, and the switch to females dominating the college enrollments and the effects on female labor supply.

Alright, so they both boil down to the same thing: gender inequalities in education, which is fine, I guess.  But, even though it is my main interest, I’m getting tired of it.  I mean “Gender Inequality” is the sort of thing I have always been interested in.  I feel like I should try something new!  So along with a drudgery of articles on US gender inequalities in education, I’ve started to take a look at some articles about woman’s education in developing countries.  The problem with that is that I don’t really know anything about developing countries.  It seems like a far stretch for me to come up with an original research project about education in Bangladesh.

This whole “research” thing is exhausting.  I was going to go back to my recipe metaphor and say something about how nice it is just to follow recipes with step and step instructions and not worry about innovating anything, but then I remembered how much I hate following recipes.  When I cook a pasta sauce I never look at a recipe!  And it feels great! For baked goods it is mostly unavoidable, but even there I like to add my own pizazz, add a little lemon juice here, substitute a bit of oats there, sprinkle in some chocolate chips everywhere (my adaptation of cooks illustrated blueberry muffin recipe).
So why is econ research so daunting?  I guess I don’t feel like I don’t know the rules, or just, know enough.  And where to start?  Familiar territory? Unfamiliar territory?  Never-even-heard-of-territory? (this is where the research I am doing for my professor lies).

Until I am undaunted (or I get substantial work from Professor dude), the only thing I want to do is cook.  Not metaphorically cooking. But real cooking.  Today I went to trader joes, and I had to physically restrain myself to only get the things I had come for (walnuts, cereal, and soy milk).  Since I am not living in apartment style housing and am on a meal plan, cooking is a) inconvenient and b) expensive.  Even so, I think it is only a short time until the big carton of blueberries (5.29$) at trader joes leads me to temptation – in the form of blueberry/blackberry galettes.  Temptation never tasted so blueberry-y.

An Arch Nemisis, A New Friend, and a 50% understood Paper. Not necessarily in that order.

For the past two weeks I have been in Ann Arbor, relishing in idleness and various baking projects.  But as of yesterday, it was time to get to work! So, I flew my way back to California and settled into my new room at Stanford.  Officially, I was supposed to start work Monday.  But since the professor that I will be working with is not in town and available to meet until later this week, I didn’t start work.  What I did start on Monday was the paper that I am going to be mirroring my research on.  In truth, I think I was supposed to have read this paper a long time ago and I may or may not have told my professor in an e-mail that I had already read it. However, since I wasn’t going to meet with him until later, it didn’t seem like too big of a deal.  It would be read by the time I met with him, and that’s all that mattered, right?

Monday:

And so I work up this morning with vigor in my step, got out my pen and highlighter and went to work on “Consumption Inequality and Partial Insurance.” Any vigor in step or out of step rapidly turned to confusion.  I think I understood about 50% of the paper… maybe?  As well, at around page 25 out of 30, I realized that what I thought the whole question, research, hypothesis was about, was not about that.  You see, as I falsely explained in my previous post, I thought the question was about the emerging gap between income inequality and consumption inequality and by that I took that to mean the divergence in the distribution of income and the distribution of consumption in the US.  As far as I have gathered from my limited understanding, that is not what it is about.  I am not quite sure what it is about, but I think I can reject my previous hypothesis.  Now the whole, “its no big deal that I read the paper just before talking to my professor” seems like maybe a big deal.  I previously thought reading would be the only hurdle, but apparently there is also a much more formidable “understanding” hurdle.  My best hope is that the “understanding” is not necessarily essential.  Maybe, I’ll get a step by step recipe of what I will have to do with the data.  I mean, when I make a recipe of cookies, I don’t really understand what exactly is going on chemically and what not, and it doesn’t really matter.  Maybe it will be similar with this project!  How very unacademic of me, I know.  But coming out of two weeks where the epitome of my academic undergoings were to optimize the moods of my Sims in Sim3, I think I get a bit of a break.  Tomorrow I plan to take another go at the paper (or let the paper have another go at me as the case maybe).

Tuesday:

And tomorrow came with another look at this paper.  Thankfully, understanding increased to about 75%, and with this increase in understanding I think I can safely (or at least not hazardously) say that the paper IS, in fact, about the distribution of income and consumption in the United States.  I think. It is probably a bad sign that even after reading this paper two times I cannot confidently say what it is about.  The problem is that I am missing some sort of connection: What does the persistence of income shocks (permanent or temporary) have to do with income inequality and consumption inequality?  Hopefully I can figure it out before I meet with my professor so I don’t seem painfully dim.  This may require another go at the paper and maybe even some extra-curricular reading! (my fav!)

But in less technical, less “very few people other than me will have any idea of what I am talking about” news, we had our first Summer Econ/Public Policy Research Luncheon (grilled chicken sandwiches and roasted vegetable salad) today! It was fun! There were quite a lot of faces that I recognized and there appears to be about 25-30 people in the program.  I started talking to a guy who apparently has been in the majority of my math and econ classes.  On further investigation, I found out that he is doing the same sort of thing as me:  He is a math/econ double major and doing a stats coterm.  Well, except for the whole “math major” bit.  We got to compare classes, gossip about teachers, and speculate on autumn course schedules.  I now have a econ major friend! I can already hear my mother saying something like “see! It’s not so hard to get to know people!” She is forever telling me to “make friends” in my huge lecture classes.  I am more for the “try not to look at anyone else in the class and maybe they won’t notice you are there” strategy.  It works fairly well for avoiding awkward discussions but does mean that I didn’t know the name of this kid, Will, who had been in more than 8 of my courses.  But now I do, and I may have been recruited into taking a grad level econ course with him next fall. We shall see, we shall see.

But back to the luncheon! It also appears that my arch econ major nemesis, S.H. appears to be in the program working with my preferred adviser, Professor C. H!   (S. if you are reading this, read “arch rival” and really I only say such things because I envy your econ and math prowess). Now, I love Professor L.P., I had a class with him last year, he is funny (all be it a very dry sense of humor), he has a really cool accent, and as previously mentioned, he has really cool name, but the only issue is that I don’t have an innate interest in/understand his research.  Professor C.H., on the other hand, works in the economics of education.  I find her research really interesting, so I was hoping I could work with her this summer.  Unfortunately, I was told that she was “too busy” to have an undergraduate researcher so I didn’t really pursue trying to work with her.  But lo and behold, my arch nemesis(rival), S. has an in.  Truth be told, C.H. is terribly busy, and one of the advantages of working with Professor L.P. is that I will be able to get a lot of face time with him (I hope), and since I am so exceedingly wonderful, smart, hardworking, and well, wonderful, I could get a wonderful recommendation from him.

And what would this recommendation be for? Graduate school? Job? Boosting my Ego?
Erm… I don’t know.  Presumably time will tell. And if not time, maybe a small bird. Or a big one.  I don’t know.

Summer, An Ex-ante look.

Today I am going to start a blog.  It is called “Jessica is staying in Stanford all summer doing Econ Research blog.”  It is called this, you see, because I am in fact going to be staying at Stanford all summer doing Econ research. This blog would have been more pathetic in the context of last summer because last summer everyone I knew everyone I knew had “I’m doing very exciting things in foreign countries + adventure” blogs.  And last summer, my blog would have been called “Jessica is staying in Ann Arbor all summer doing boring office work” blog, which would have been even more pathetic.  Pathetic or not, I was intimidated by everyone’s exciting blogs so I decided to keep silent on my adventures into fast-speed scanning.  But this year, there is no competition! (well except for my sister’s chocolate blog)  Everyone is back at Stanford and they all (mostly) have boring summer plans.   Their misery is my gain.

Though I am not sure what I am competing for.  Readers? Views? Comments? Laughs? Pathetic points? Hats? I do like hats. But I guess the probleme du blog is that I am not exactly sure what is le point.  Whether it is an unfulfilled need for me to have people read me, know me? Some way for me to unburden myself of thoughts and whimsy rhetoric? Or is it a need to follow in the footsteps of those who have gone before me into BlogLand?  I am sure it is a bit of a jumble of all three, but for definition sake, the purpose of this blog will be to share the story of my summer.  Luckily, I already picked the title accordingly; though since I just chosen the definition from the title, luck had nothing to do with it.

To start the “story of my summer,” I will begin with last summer. As I have already alluded to, last summer I had the most boring job in the world.  No, really.  I was part of a hospital’s Laboratory Office which meant that I had the following responsibilities: scanning reports, printing reports, faxing reports, eating reports, etc.  I have tried to figure out the best way to dress this up for my CV and the best I could come up with was: “Performed mailing, scanning, printing, and faxing tasks.  Learned how to efficiently use my time in a self-monitored work place.”  Because it was so boring, I could only work 5 hours a day, four days a week if I didn’t want my head to approach “explosion extremely likely” on the head explosion scale.  So this summer, I decided that while I loved being home with my family, I had to get a real job that required brain cells.  Luckily the Econ Department at Stanford has this sweet deal where I can apply to work as a research assistant for a Professor the summer, work for them 20 hours a week, do my own research 20 hours a week, and get paid fairly well for doing so.  The “doing my own research” sounded very exciting when I was applying for a job.  I could pick something I was interested in, research it this summer, and then I could painlessly do an honors thesis.  But the whole “finding something I am interested in” has remained elusive.  Presumably with time, I’ll think of something?  The affect of a same sex teacher on boys performance in school?  Erm… that’s all I’ve got so far.
But before we move on, let me address some FAQ
Whenever I tell someone I am going to be doing research in econ over the summer, I get two reactions. 1) People do research in economics??? What sorts of things could you possibly be researching?????
2) Are you going to figure out what is wrong with the economy? Or more snarkily put: Going to fix the economy, eh??
I try my best not to bang these people over the head with my purse or whatever I happen to be holding.  Yes, there is research into economics. No I am not going to fix the economy. (Though, I admit, I’m not quite sure what I will be researching) There are a lot of much more qualified economists working on “fixing the economy.”  And the entire economy is a bit over my head.

While I don’t know what I will be independently researching I have a vague idea of what I’ll be working on for my professor, Luigi Pistaferri.  I met with Professor Pistaferri earlier this spring and he explained to me that I was going to be furthering some research from a previous paper he wrote.  Apparently, I’ll be analyzing the difference between consumption inequality and income inequality, plus something in there with intertemporal substitutions and shocks.  I think it is a problem that I don’t even know how to explain the question I am researching.  I plan to, before work starts, read my professor’s paper that deals with the same question, but I just haven’t gotten around to it… yet.  The idea is that I will do the same analysis he did for the 1980’s and early 1990’s for more recent data and see if his hypothesis still holds (whatever that hypothesis may be…).  If I finish with that, I will be charged with creating a counterfactual of what disabled people would have had to pay for medical care without SSI Medicare, for a project on the Moral Hazard of disability Medicare.  Now, I have no idea whether this is going to be substantially more interesting than faxing, printing, scanning but when I was choosing Professors and projects to work with I figured I would only find out whether it was interesting or not until I started doing it, so I might as well pick a professor with a cool name and hope it all works out for the best.

The fun part is, we shall see how all this folly plays out.  I don’t know yet, you don’t know yet, (It’s a mystery!) it is all very exciting.
I was thinking that blogs are a bit like autobiographies without the ex-post knowledge.  Which makes them more interesting?  Or at least less intentionally forshawdowy, which always drives me mad.

So here we go.