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.

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