New minor?

It became clear that I wasn't going to be able to take the classes that I wanted to for the GIS minor. So I have pretty much decided to change my minor to Geography instead. I'm still going to take several GIS-specific classes though, as they are eligible electives. This way I can also be more likely to graduate in June instead of after the summer term.

I will be registering for winter quarter classes on November 7. As of now, I'm going to take my last economics class (EC 457 American Economic History: The 20th Century), GEOG 345U (Resource Management), and GEOG 488 (GIS 1) along with an associated lab. This will give me a 5 day a week schedule, which is the first time I've had to do this. The following may be my weekly schedule.

• EC 457 - MWF 12:45-1:50
• GEOG 345 - TuTh 4:00-5:50
• GEOG 488 - TuTh 6:00-7:50
• GEOG 488 Lab - F 2:00-3:50

I'm also working on getting an internship, so this term could be much busier for me than normal. One of them that I'm looking at is under the AmeriCorps umbrella. If I get/accept that one it means an 11-month commitment, but with pay! I would get about $1000/mo in stipends and a $5500 education grant (to pay for continuing education or for paying off existing loans) at the end. The monetary rewards are very tempting. The experience would be invaluable in finding a job afterwards. We'll see how this all shakes out.

If this all works out like I hope, the spring term will probably consist of GEOG 492 (GIS 2), GEOG 210 (Physical Geography), and my senior capstone, which I hope will be Grantwriting for Indigenous Sustainability (I want this one for multiple reasons). And that's it! If all goes as planned, I will then be graduating. It's hard to believe that I'm getting so close to earning a 4-year degree!

How I spent my summer vacation - another long movie list

So this post is originally from the summer of 2011. Occassionally I try to add to it and finish it. I doubt it will ever see the light of day if I keep this up, so here it is in unfinished form. Sorry.


I've been watching movies like they are going out of style. Since my last movie update I've seen at least 30 movies and watched all the episodes of two 2-season TV shows, plus assorted current TV episodes. I iz couch potato. So once again, here is a list of what I've been watching, roughly in the order I watched them.

• Catch Me If You Can - I was reading an interesting article on con man Frank Abagnale, Jr.and there was mention of a 2002 movie that more or less told his story, at least as much as a Hollywood movie will, and I decided to watch it. DiCaprio isn't my favorite actor, but he did a really good job with this role. Tom Hanks and Christopher Walken help out a lot too. It's a fun movie that is easy to watch.
• Dead Man - I can't say enough about this 1995 Jim Jarmusch-directed movie. I'm pretty picky when it comes to westerns, but I've never seen one quite like this one. The director calls it an "acid western" and that fits pretty well. It was shot in black & white and has some pretty authentic Indian depictions in it. The cast was awesome - Johnny Depp, Crispin Glover, Gary Farmer, Billy Bob Thorton, Iggy Pop, John Hurt, Lance Henriksen, Robert Mitchum (in his last role), and all the others did an amazing job in this weird, surrealistic western. I now rank this movie in my top five favorite westerns.
• Misfits (current BBC series) - A bunch of annoying 20-somethings in a suburb of London are sentenced to community service and are caught in a storm that gives them superpowers. This show is silly and ridiculous. But it's funny and really well written. I'm looking forward to season 3.
• No Country For Old Men - I wanted to like this 2007 Coen brothers film more than I did. It seems that most everybody else thought it was great. Visually it was appealing and the acting was good. The story was intriguing but the ending was disappointing and had no closure.
• The Blue Max - I mainly watched this one for the WWI flying sequences. Those were pretty good. Otherwise, this 1966 film was mostly not that great.
• Wall-E - I sometimes have a hard time wanting to watch recent movies that are wildly popular. Most of the time they don't live up to the hype. So I resisted watching this 2008 animated Pixar science fiction film for quite a while. Too bad. It's a really great movie and actually deserves most of the praise it got.
• C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America - This is a little different. A pseudo-documentary that takes place on an alternate reality where the South won the Civil War.
• Better Off Ted An ABC television series that I had totally ignored. I quickly became a fan. Too bad they canceled it so soon.
• Spirited Away A really amazing Japanese animated movie. I was not sure I would like this film. It would probably appeal to 8-10 year olds as well, but there is probably something good there for any age. The animation is beautiful, the story is solid, and the message is positive. Not at all sugary-sweet, but still very moralistic in an un-overt (I may just be making up words now) way.
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Kind of disappointing, but not terrible. Nothing beats the original.
• The Dark Knight I gave up on the Batman franchise a long time ago. I really want to love Batman. I decided to give this one a chance. I was surprised at some of the performances. This is probably the best Batman movie so far.
• Valkyrie I hate Tom Cruise. But he's still a pretty good actor in the right role (if he sticks to action movies). This movie sounded kind of dumb, but I had lots of time on my hands. All in all, not bad for some tarted-up Hollywood take on a bit of obscure WWII history.
• Brutal Beauty I am torn on this one. I'm not sure if it's well made or not. Its about women's roller derby, the local Rose City Rollers specifically. I know or at least recognize, most of the women in this film. I think it probably gives a pretty good prospective of the sport from their point of view.
• Repo Man A classic that just doesn't hold up that well for me. Call me a pariah.
• Pans Labyrinth Super cool and different Spanish horror/fantasy film. Beautiful feel and look. Not anything like American horror films.
• Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park This is one of the worst movies ever. I had never seen it before, but had heard of its awesome terribleness. It's even worse than I thought it would be. The off-screen story of this waste of celluloid is kind of funny too.
• Bad Teacher Stupid. But kind of funny. But funny in a way that makes me mad if I think about it. Not worth seeing. Even though Carmen Diaz is pretty hot in it.
• The Big Lebowski This is supposed to be one of the greatest cult films of all time. I don't see it. Maybe I'm at just the wrong age. It seems like a bunch of pretentious crap to me.
• Trinity and Beyond I was mostly interested in seeing all of the footage of nuclear explosions. There are a lot of them. The story is pretty fascinating as well.
• Princess Mononoke Another classic animated film that is usually high on cult film lovers lists. I like it, but I liked Spirited Away better (the same guy did them). Certainly worth watching though.
• The Manchurian Candidate The original one. Great performances and a timely and topical story at the time. I won't even bother watching the recent remake.
• Minority Report Another solid Tom Cruise movie. I hadn't seen this one in a while and gave it another go. Good plot based on a Philip K. Dick science fiction short story and interesting "neo-noir" visuals.
• Battle Royale You probably shouldn't watch this Japanese movie. High school students are made to battle to the death on an island. Just graphic enough to be disturbing. I "enjoyed" this film, but that doesn't mean you will.
• Prophecy
• A Scanner Darkly
• They Live
• Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace
• Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones
• Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith
• Star Wars (Episode 4: A New Hope)
• Galaxy Quest
• Star Wars Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back
• Splice
• The Third Man
• Let the Right One In
• Initial D
• Star Wars Episode 6: Return of the Jedi

Long time no post - again

I can't believe it's been two months since I last posted anything here. Sorry. Here's one.

My classes are going well this term. Getting up early two days a week is still a drag, but at least I'm mostly enjoying all of my classes. As expected, GEOG 230 (Environment & Society) is pretty easy. So far it hasn't covered any larger concepts that are new to me, but my depth of knowledge of the rest of the world is getting larger. So far we've covered Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa (aka MENA), and are now on South Asia. We will also be covering Southeast Asia, and then Asia. The class is too short (3 hour and 15 minutes each week) to cover much anything else. The instructor is kind of a ditz, but she is knowledgeable enough (and knows when to say she doesn't know something or will have to find out an answer) that it's a relatively interesting class. I did a paper in week 2 on sugar and how it has an effect on the world in terms of things like world trade, knowledge/goods dispersion, slavery, indigenous diaspora and extermination, etc. I'll be doing one more paper on a specific country's immigrant population in Portland. I haven't quite decided the group yet, but I need to get on this one soon. There is no midterm exam for this class. As long as I don't blow off the second paper and the other couple of smaller assignments still to come, I should be able to get an "A" in this class.

My earliest ever class (starts at 8am on Mondays and Wednesdays) is GEOG 380 (Maps & Geographic Information). Its a good thing I'm into maps because this class has a lot of map-related minutiae that would probably bore most people to death. The instructor is pretty smart, but doesn't seem very organized. Ultimately, we students pay the price. We somehow got behind so the schedule needed to be rearranged and compressed. And he forgot that there is no school on the 12th because of Veteran's Day, so that made it even worse. I have to read six chapters for next week. Six! That's ridiculous. Questions on the online weekly quizzes tend to be ambiguous and/or worded in a confusing way. We were warned during the first class that this would be the case, but everyone is still complaining. A lot of people seem to be doing bad on the quizzes. We were told not to worry too much about them and that the instructor grades on a curve. I guess this is good news for me. I've been doing relatively well on the quizzes. The instructions for labs (mine's on Tuesday afternoons) are also sometimes confusing. I also have a thing about grad students basically doing slave labor for professors and this class is no different. Ask me if you really want to know what I think. I am learning a lot though. I'm getting a little bit of experience with Idrisis, a mapping software program, which is kind of fun. There are also no papers and no mid-term exam. The final is going to be each of us working through a single GIS problem. I don't really know what that's going to entail, but I may just end up with an "A" in this class.

My third class is EC 417U, Women in the Economy. I really like this class a lot. More than I thought I would. The stuff I'm learning is eye-opening and enlightening. Being a male, I never really thought much about most of the gender-related issues of economics. The professor rocks! She is smart, funny, gives engaging and interesting lectures, and seems to really enjoy what she's doing. This is one class where I sometimes wish it was longer. My only actual midterm this quarter is in this class. Tomorrow! I've studied a little bit, but most of the strictly economic information hasn't been new to me, so I'm pretty confident. I'll do a little more studying tonight and tomorrow on the bus or between classes. I do have a pretty sizable paper for this class that counts for a large part of our grade. I've done little more than come up with three pages of source material. I have two more weeks to finish this paper. I really hope I don't wait until the last minute...If I do well on that, I think its likely that I'll get an "A" in this class as well. This might be my first straight "A" quarter at PSU. Knock on wood.

One of the biggest changes this term has been not driving my car AT ALL to get to school. That and having to pay for a Trimet pass (goodbye FreeRail Zone!). It takes about 15 or 20 minutes longer (more if I get on the wrong bus and don't notice for a while - oops!) but I'm generally a lot less stressed and have time to read or study before and after school during my commute. Its really not that bad. Except the part about having to get up earlier.

Done for now

Well now, that wasn't so bad. There was a ton of reading and writing for my online climatology class but none of it was particularly difficult. I feel like I learned a lot in this class, so that's good. I ended up with an A, even though I didn't turn in my final book-related assignment. I thought it was due a week later than it really was. I'm not sure how that happened. But I think I did well enough and showed a lot of understanding of what we were doing and the professor took that into consideration. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

I had an almost surreal experience because of what I learned in this class. I think it was the last Friday or Saturday of the term. I was up really late and went outside. There was a lightning storm approaching from the east. I could see exactly what was going on with the clouds and why they were doing what they were doing. I know it doesn't really sound like much, but it was a moment of clarity for me that is hard to describe. Weather is cool and I don't actually know all that much about it, but I'm certain I know more than your average Joe. Yay!

My macroeconomics class went a lot smoother than I expected. It was intense, but was over relatively quickly. I did at least slightly better than the class average overall and ended up with a B. I'm happy with that as this class was fairly difficult. The professor doesn't seem to do any grade inflation and his exams are kind of hard. I like that. I'd rather get a B that I had to really work for than an A that was easy. And as expected, I now have a greater understanding of how the macroeconomy works. Its pretty fascinating and important but I don't really see myself doing much in this field in the future. You never know, but it seems unlikely.

I spent the last week doing basically nothing. But I did spend about 4 hours yesterday driving to various Goodwill outlets around town. I ended up with a pair of jeans, two shirts, a nice towel, and a fitted sheet for my bed (super ugly color, but it will be better than using a flat sheet like I have been) for less than $30. I didn't find everything I wanted, so I'll probably go back to a couple of them again. Plus I was getting tired of shopping. It's not really my favorite thing to do.

I have 4 weeks left to do some stuff. I need to do stuff. Cool stuff preferably. But until then, here's more school stuff about fall term. Stuff.

I'm still planning on working on getting a minor in GIS. I might forgo the actual minor by one class so I can graduate next June, but that's still up in the air and depends a lot on how the next couple of terms go and class availability.

As of right now, I'm signed up for the following classes during the fall term:

• GEOG380U Maps & Geographic Information. This is one of the four required classes for the GIS minor. It is a 5-credit class and has a lab component. This is going to be my earliest class yet and runs from 8am to 9:50am on Monday and Wednesday. The lab is on Tuesday from 3:55pm to 5:25pm. Maps! Yay!!!
• GEOG230 Environment and Society. This is another required 4-credit class for the GIS minor. I will have a break of about 1-1/2 hours between my first class and this one, which runs from 11:30 to 12:35 on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I haven't taken a 200-level class for quite a while. This should be relatively easy. I wish I didn't have to take this. I don't feel like I'm going to learn all that much that's new to me. I hope I'm surprised.
• EC417U Women in the Economy. I was going to take this class earlier, but it didn't work out. I've heard good things about the professor and the class. And I certainly need to have a better prospective of this subject. Women now make up over half of our country's workforce and are still getting the short end of the stick. I think this class will probably make this much more clear, but I'm not really sure what to expect. After this class I will only need one more required economics class (it will probably be EC460 History of Economic Thought, but I'm not totally sure) for my major. Everything else I need to fulfill my credit requirements can be pretty much anything I want. And I'm using them to get the GIS minor. Oh, I still have to do a senior capstone too. Anyways, this class is on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 12:45 to 1:50.

So this is a relatively full week, I go every weekday but Thursday. Monday and Wednesday will be relatively long (from 8am to 2pm). Tuesday is easy. One lab class from 3:55 to 5:25. And a late start on Friday, from 11:30 to 1:50. More commuting, but not nearly as long of days as my fall term last year. But it will probably be different. There will be no more Free Rail Zone anywhere, except for the downtown area streetcar, which I have no use for. Budget cuts. I can get a discounted Trimet pass for $205 for the term. Or I can pay $220-250 for parking. Or $85 for a motorcycle. That's kind of intriguing but I don't relish the thought of being wet during school. My wet weather riding gear is no longer complete. I'll probably end up buying the pass (or maybe a book of individual passes - which might end up being less) and not using my car at all to get to school. I will have to get up a little earlier still and will have a longer commute, but I'm willing to try it and see how it goes.

Like usual, I have already purchased the textbooks I'm going to need for these classes. Two of them I got used and one I rented, which I haven't done before, but it was still cheaper than buying a used one. I spent a little under $100 for the three of them (the rental was about $45). For some reason, here is a picture of them.

As I was writing this I figured out that I got the wrong edition of the book on the left. The Amazon listing is kind of deceptive. I thought I was getting a 6th edition, but got a 1st. No wonder it was so cheap (about $13). I'll probably look at renting the right one. Another $41 for that. Bah. Stupid Amazon. Or stupid me. I think I'm going to check the on-campus used book store and see what they have.

Summer term almost over

The last month has just flown by. Only one lecture and one exam left in my macro class. I'm doing a little better than the class average as of now. Unless I bomb the final exam on Thursday I'm pretty sure I'll end up with a B in this class. I'm pleasantly surprised at how much I like the 4 week compressed summer class. About 80-100 pages of reading every week, lots of note-taking with graphs, an exam every week. And it's nearly over! I think the same professor (Hiro Ito from Japan) has been teaching this compressed class for quite a few summers and he seems to have it all down pretty well. Today was really the first time I was a little confused during his lecture and I didn't seem to be the only one. The subject, the difference between nominal and real interest rates over time and the meaning of their slopes on a graph, is kind of weird and hard to conceptualize. I started to understand it and I think I have at least retained the point he was making about it. I've felt pretty good about my level of comprehension during this class. Although we generally do it a little bit every lecture, I wish we had more time to talk about current events. That's about my only complaint.

My other summer class, Climatology, has been super interesting. Even though I learned a LOT about the subject, I barely scratched the surface. This class has had a considerable amount of reading (all online - no textbook!) and a lot of writing assignments. I still have my final paper on the climate-related book I read and the 750 word minimum writing part of the final assignment (I already finished the other part). This class was pretty much of a last minute addition and I'm really glad I decided on this one. I felt that I was missing some very important basic knowledge about out climate and now I have it. I still have one week to turn in the final assignment and two weeks for the book critique. I've done really well in this class and the professor seemed pretty impressed with the writing assignments I submitted. I tried making them a little less dry and boring and it seemed to work. I think I'm getting better at writing, but it still takes me a long time to produce a decent paper. There is almost no way that I'll get anything other than an A in this class. Unless I just don't even turn in anything else. I'd probably still pass though.

Next up...five weeks off until fall term starts! Woo hoo! I think I should try to go camping. And maybe ride my motorcycle.

Tough sunflower

Back in April, a sunflower started growing in the front of the house. I hadn't planted any so it has to be a seed from a plant that grew last year. I did plant a bunch of seeds at the end of May, but not a single one came up. So, the one plant was growing really well, but then got knocked over somehow. It had gotten to almost 4 feet high and had a pretty thick stalk, just like the one's last year. I have no idea how it got broken, but I just left it there and the almost completely severed top half just kept growing. And then a few weeks later some animal chewed it up. I think it might have been the rabbit I see around every once in a while. A couple of days later that part of the plant was just gone. Again I did nothing. I've never even watered anything in the front. Now, a few weeks later, its growing fine again, but has split into four stalks instead of just the single one like it usually is. I'm just amazed and delighted that this plant just keeps on growing.

Ugh. Not this.

My car was sitting in front of my house like always. It got hit. Not seriously, but its very noticeable. It was hit low in front of the rear passenger side wheel. Just what I wanted to deal with. I know this car won't last forever, but this just doesn't sit very well with me. I like the car much less now. I'm going to try to get a couple of estimates this week.

This is the undamaged driver's side.

Trellis time...with pictures!!!

I finally got around to putting up a trellis for my tomatoes. I couldn't use the one I put up last year because it was at the other end of the raised bed, so I just tore it down and used one piece of it for the new one. I'm feeling pretty clever because I reused the wood frames from my old box springs that I tore down a couple of months ago after I got a new (used really, but new to me) mattress and box springs. It's slightly crooked, but I don't care. I'm not a carpenter and as long as it doesn't fall down, it's all good.

I also finally went a got a memory card reader so I can transfer pictures from my camera to my computer, since Kodak thought it would be a good idea to not make their software compatible with Linux. Get with the 21st century, Kodak. There is a reason why you company is not doing so well.

Anyways, here are some pictures of the tomato plants, trellis, and garden that I took today. The first two were actually taken a couple of days ago and the close up is of the one on the right, the Black Seaman. This one is producing a LOT more tomatoes than the Georgia Streak, but who knows what the next month will bring. I'd never even heard of either of these kinds of tomatoes, much less grown them.

As always, click on the pictures if you want to see the larger version. I set the camera on its lowest resolution setting to save room on the memory card, so they aren't too huge.

Here is the not-very-square trellis. I even reused nails from last year's trellis. That one was a lot simpler and consisted of three 2x4's, some 2-1/2 nails, and a roll of skinny wrapping ribbon (like for Christmas presents) that one of my housemates gave me. I attach long heavy branches to the overhead trellis with the ribbon. Last year's trellis had only one overhead crosspiece, while this year's has two. The first version worked alright, but this one should be a little easier to use. 

Here is the rest of the garden. It rained last night and the cilantro/coriander couldn't handle the extra weight of the water. None of them snapped and they are straightening out as they dry. They bolted and started blooming quite a while ago and have a lot of flowers on them. I like to see all the bees and other pollinators come around. I haven't wanted to mow the front yard (clover) for the same reason. The neighbors probably wish we mowed more often.

Its been cold and wet so the basil hasn't been growing very fast. It should take off this month. I made a mistake planting the tomatoes at the south end of the garden. They might be too shady for the basil? We'll see. I wanted twice as much as I had last year, but I was lazier than last year and didn't do much to amend the soil before I started planting. There is this little patch and its planted around and between the tomato plants. I hope I get at least as much as I did last year. We'll see.

Climate class stuff

We are now on Lesson 2. A large part of the assignment, besides all of the reading, is to follow two climate blogs for two weeks and write a 500 word minimum summary/critique/comparison of them. I've read quite a few climate blogs in the past, both consensus and denier sites, so this isn't really new to me. It will be an interesting exercise to critically examine how two different blogs treat the subject. I'm deliberately going to pick one denier blog and one non-denier blog. There are such huge differences in some of these sites. Both sides have their sensationalists, but denialist blogs tend to use logical fallacies and willful ignorance a lot more. There have been a few more science-y denialist sites pop up over the last few years, but they still generally resort to rhetoric and bad science to get their word out. My position has always been to learn as much about the subject as I reasonably can and trust the hardcore science to the climate scientists. If you look past all the rhetoric, so far the vast majority of scientists and peer-reviewed papers/studies are getting it more right the longer they study it. Of course there is uncertainty. No credible scientist has claimed otherwise. But inserting one's personal values and biases into a scientific argument is just wrong.

I wonder how long it will take the world to really start doing what we should be doing, no matter what is causing global climate change. We could and should be the world leader in this. Why aren't we setting an example? I could go on and on about oil/energy companies acting like tobacco companies who denied the link between smoking and cancer. I could say something about the contributions that so many of our politicians get from fossil fuel-based companies. But I won't. This is just supposed to be a nice little post about what I'm learning in school. And I am. Learning that is. Even though some of the material is more just a reminder of what I already know, I am learning about things like the characteristics of the atmosphere, solar insolation, and heat/radiation transfer. These are the things I was looking for. I wish I knew more about clouds. But so do most climate scientists.

I got 100% on both my written assignment and the short essay answers quiz. I'm pretty sure I'll end up with a reasonably easy A in this class. I don't think it will intrude too much on the macro class I'll be starting in two weeks.

Goodness! Look how late it is. I need to stop doing this and transition into getting up early over the next two weeks. Good night.

Climatology!

My online class, EC311U Climatology, has been going for just over a week now. There is a lot of reading and PowerPoint lectures, and many short writing assignments. All of the reading is online, except for the one book I had to buy (I found a used hardback at Powell's for less than $11).

Lesson one writing included a 250 word minimum personal introduction and our current state of "climate literacy". The written assignments were the results of online data examination from various sources concerning temperature and precipitation in the US, the Pacific Northwest, Oregon, and Portland. There was also a 100 word assignment and three 150 word assignments, the last of which I want to try to get done later today. The writing is due by Saturday, but I want to get started on the next lesson and be well into the third one by the time my second summer class starts. That way I can slack off a bit in this class while I'm in the other one. At least that's the plan. There will be an online short essay test at the end of this week. I think we have a total of 4 tests.

We have already covered a lot of material about general climate change, climate models, Earth/Sun relationships, and the composition and structure of the atmosphere that has been very informative. I'm already filling in gaps of my own that I have been wondering about for a long time. Lesson two will cover more on Sun/Earth relationships, energy and radiation, and global temperature patterns. There is a lot to read, but only two writing assignments - one 500 word minimum on climate blogs and one 300 word minimum on the book we are reading. I've chosen to read Science as a Contact Sport and it has been very interesting and readable so far. I'm about 1/3 of the way through it. All of the writing assignments have a great deal of reading associated with them. I'm also finding it difficult to keep my writing near the minimum requirement. Going over is OK, but only to a certain point. It takes a bit of skill and effort to strip away as much filler as you can but still coherently convey the required information.

Here's to learning more about our climate!

***I also got my macroeconomics book in the mail today so I can start reading some of that in preparation for the first week of that class (July 23). Sorry, Mom, but I'll be pretty busy most of the time you are here. Classes 4 days a week and an exam every week for a month plus my online class.

Very little. No surprise.

I mowed the back yard today. I'm till sore from weed pulling. Still. I planted some really old basil seeds. Who knows if any of them will sprout. I finally put my .22 back together. That's about it. Another lazy day.

GIS Minor - link

For your viewing and informational pleasure. Will open in a new window.

http://www.pdx.edu/geography/sites/www.pdx.edu.geography/files/MinorinGIS.pdf

Summer classes start soon

Already! Only one week between finals week and the start of the first of my summer term classes at PSU. It lasts eight weeks (three weeks shorter than a normal term) and is completely online, including all texts/articles. There is an extra small fee for it being online (that has never made any sense to me. It's cheaper too do an online class by far. Why do we pay more?) but textbooks can be expensive so I'm OK with it.

The class is GEOG 311U Climatology. There is a prerequisite of GEOG 201, which I don't have but was able to register for the class anyway, with permission from an Extended Services administrator (I'd rather not even explain what that means). This class has nothing to do with the geography minor I'm trying to get, but it does fulfill the last of the three cluster classes that I needed for my bachelor's degree. I was originally intending to go with the Sustainability cluster, but the two classes I already finished (Environmental Ethics and Environment & History) also applied to two other clusters. The other clusters were Freedom, Privacy, and Technology AND Global Environmental Change, the latter being the cluster I have settled on. Having three clusters to choose from left me a lot more freedom to choose the last class I needed (your cluster can be changed at any time). I looked at the classes available online over the summer and decided this one sounded the most interesting to me. Several others were hard to pass up. The first month will be easy. The last month will be much harder because my second class starts then.

Here is the decidedly vague description of the class from the catalog - A study fo the physical processes which comprise the climatic system, from the global scale to the local scale. Particular attention is given to the nature of climatic variability, its causes, and its implications for human activity.

Class starts on Friday morning at 9am.

Sore

I did very little today. I obviously overdid it yesterday pulling weeds. My legs were sore all day today. What a drag. I did manage to get to my appointment with the geography department at PSU. It was probably a waste of time and I didn't really learn anything new. None the less, my irrationality allows me to feel a little better about going for the minor. I also made a coffee appointment for Friday morning with my friend Karen who I haven't seen for a long time. I watched more Game of Thrones and Deadwood episodes.

Spring term grades

Final grades were posted late today. I'm a little surprised.

• EC350 (Economics of Developing Countries) - I got an A. This was the only class that I was pretty sure I would get an A. I think the professor used a grade curve too. If this is the case then a lot of people probably did a lot worse on the final than I did. Or maybe there were a lot of A's. I liked this class mostly and did managed to learn a lot about the subject. I'm glad I took this class instead of the heterodox economics class.
• EC430 (Resource and Environmental Economics) - I'm flabbergasted that I got an A in this class. How did that happen? I did not have fun in this class.  
• HST339U (Environment & History) - I did not do well on the final. I'm not really a fan of essay style exam questions and that's mostly what both the midterm and the final exams were. I have a hard time producing quality writing when I'm under a short time constraint. But I didn't think I would get a B- . That's a bee minus. Almost a C. My worst grade yet. 

My PSU GPA now stands at 3.55 while my cumulative for both PCC and PSU is 3.72, but really who cares? 

I'm just glad the term is over. I wasn't feeling motivated at all. I'm kind of excited now that I'm going to be taking a couple of summer classes. Kind of weird.

Weeds

I slept in again today. No surprise there. I pulled weeds in the back yard for three hours. I got about half of what was still there. There are at least 5 kinds of invasive species back there and they grow like crazy. That's the only thing productive I did today. I watched three episodes of Game of Thrones and one Deadwood episode. Both of these shows are brutal but have really good actors and story lines. My housemates have Netflix and I often benefit from it. My ankle is a bit sore so I didn't ride at all today.

Today

I went to the PSU campus this morning. There was hardly anyone there. I found out that I have to take at least 6 credits to get any financial aid. The three times I went by the information desk no one was there. I still haven't found out where the Geography office is, but I do have an appointment for next Monday morning to talk to someone. I decided to eat lunch at the food carts near Pioneer Square. I got Korean Curry Rice with potatoes, carrots, chicken, and onions. Cheap and filling. It's a mix of rainy and sunny today. Mostly rainy though, so I only rode my bicycle for a couple of miles at the most. I watched a couple of episodes of Time Team America (the Britsh version is better).

Cha-cha-cha-changes

Why do I always seem to do this to myself. After finding out that I only qualify for financial aid for the summer term if I take 6 or more credits, I decided to take two classes over the summer. I already mentioned EC312, which I am now registered for. I also am trying to get registered for GEOG311U (Climatology) which is an online class that starts Monday and last for two months (all online summer classes are two months). I have to get approved for an exception to be able to register. I sent off an email to the Geology Dept. asking for approval but haven't heard anything yet. I hope I hear something soon. If I can't get in, I may have to ask approval for an exception for either G351U (Oceanography) or G430U (Life of the Past). I think they want to make sure only upperclassmen are registering for these classes and the online registration process can't accommodate this. At least I hope that's all it is. I hate stressing out about classes right before they are supposed to start.

This plan for the summer is very different than what I was originally thinking about. It should help with either not having to take an extra term next fall or maybe even not having to take a summer class next year. It remains to be seen and my meeting next week with a Geology department advisor will hopefully shed a little more light on this.

I went ahead and changed my fall classes also. So much for the "perfect" schedule I had in store for myself. I dropped EC312, since I'm taking it over the summer. I'm a little disappointed because I wanted to take it from the professor who teaches it in the fall. I also dropped my senior capstone. I still have plenty of time to get this done and I may change my mind about the area of study if I like the GIS stuff. I am still interested in grant-writing though. We'll see. I'm keeping EC417U (Women and the Economy), mostly because it fits in with the two new classes I registered for. Plus the professor is supposed to be good.

I registered for GEOG230 (Environment and Society: Global Perspectives) and GEOG380U (Maps and Geographic Information) and the lab that goes with it. I'm not very happy about the 8am start time. Or the hour and a half break between first and second classes on Monday and Wednesday. The early start time is definitely worse though. At least it's only twice a week. And since the one class is only a 200-level class, I'm expecting it to be relatively easy.

My possible summer schedule:

• GEOG311U: online, 6/25-8/17
• EC312: MTWTh, 9:15-11:35, 7/23-8/19

My possible fall schedule

• GEOG380U: MW, 8:00-9:50
• GEOG380U lab; T only, 3:55-5:25
• GEOG230: MWF, 11:30-12:35
• EC417U: MWF, 12:45-1:50

Dear Diary...

I'm going to try to post something every day about what I did that day. This is more of an experiment for me than anything else. Who knows how long this will last.

• I woke up early and then went back to bed for a couple more hours. I generally don't do this. Once I'm up that's usually it.
• I talked to Katrina for a few minutes. 
• I did my laundry (one medium load this week). 
• I went for a ride on my bike. The short version - only 6.5 miles.
• I've watched at least three documentaries including The Vice Guide to Liberia (Vice does some really intriguing "travel guides". This is one of them), In God We Trust? (interesting, sad, doesn't solve anything), and Bulgarian Dirty Bombs (another Vice piece but very short). I'm about halfway through What's the problem with nudity? which is a very interesting BBC video about being naked and the human naked (furless/hairless) condition.
• I washed dishes. Twice. This is how boring my day was. I'm telling you about stuff like this.
• I made my own syrup. It wasn't that great, but I was craving pancakes and needed something. 

So I count this as a day spent doing next to nothing. Hopefully tomorrow will be a little more...something else. 

Possible future school schedule

I still haven't talked to anyone in the Geography department about this yet. I've been waiting for finals week to get over. I will try to get this done early next week. Anyway, I'm trying to see what my schedule might be if I decide to get the minor in Geology: Geographic Information Systems (GIS). There is a total of 29 credits for the minor, with 4 required classes and 3 electives from a list of 12 choices. The required classes are GEOG 210 Physical Geography or GEOG 230 Environment and Society (I'll be taking this one);GEOG 380 Maps and Geographic Information; GEOG 488 GIS I - Introduction; and GEOG 492 GIS II - Advanced. There are 4 of the electives that I'm interested in, but I only need 3 of them. I'm pretty sure I'll take GEOG 485 Map Design and Production and GEOG 495 Maps, Models, and GIS. I'm not sure which of these last two I should take - either GEOG 484 Cartographic Applications of GIS or GEOG 489 Building a GIS Database with GPS.

If I decide to go forward with this I will may have to take classes over both this summer and next. And I may have to take one final class in the fall of 2013. I'm pretty sure I'm going to take EC 312 Macroeconomics over this summer no matter what I decide. The class is only 4 weeks long (July 23 - August 19) but meets 4 times a week (MTWTh) from 9:15 - 11:35. That's a pretty compact schedule, but it's only one class. And that still gives me a month off before and 3 weeks after to be lazy and enjoy the summer.

So, the next 18 months might look something like this:

• Summer 2012 - EC 312
• Fall 2012 - GEOG 230, GEOG 380, EC 460
• Winter 2013 - GEOG 485, GEOG 488, 400-level EC (may not need this?) or cluster class (lots of choices)
• Spring 2013 - GEOG 484 or 489; GEOG 492, GEOG 495
• Summer 2013 - Senior capstone
• Fall 2013 - if earlier 400-level EC is required (see Winter 2013), then I will take the cluster class here

I should graduate with either 182 or 186 credits (180 min. required) with a major in economics and a minor in GIS.

Lazy gardener

I finally bought some more fish fertilizer and have used it a couple of times. It's been so wet that I don't really want to add more moisture.

I planted Sweet Basil this year again. I put in about twice as much as I did last year. I'm looking forward to homemade pesto again. I also planted some more bunching onions. I might get one or two heads of broccoli if I'm lucky. I decided to stick with two tomato plants instead of three. I was basically too lazy to find the kind I wanted and don't really have the room for 3 with the other stuff I'm growing. The tomato plants I do have are doing pretty well. I took the cloches off about a week ago. I probably should have left them on longer, but I was getting impatient. They are near 3 feet tall now, but the Georgia Streak is about 6 inches taller and much fuller than the Black Seaman. As soon as we start to get more consistent sun they should really take off. We've already passed our normal yearly average of rain. The weather has been noticeably wetter the past few years. The cilantro is yummy and is starting to grow up instead of out. I have a lot fewer spinach plants this year and they are doing great. I had way too many for just me last year.

A minor?

I should have considered this a lot earlier. I'm not sure why I didn't.

I think I might go for a minor in Geography as well as majoring in economics. The minor will specifically focus on Geospatial Information Systems (GIS). This is some really cool mapping technology and techniques that may help me get a job after I graduate. I love maps and have for a long time. I think I may really like this program. I need to talk to an advisor in the Geography department, but I wouldn't even take my first class towards it until the winter term. I would have to take one extra term in the fall to get the minor, so that's not very exciting. But it should (hopefully) be worth the extra time and money (technically debt).

This minor consists of 29 credits (7 classes), none of which are classes that I've already taken.

So close

I'm nearly done with the term. I took two of my finals yesterday (Monday). One was at 10:15am and the other wasn't until 5:30pm so I had to make two trips to campus. The classes were Econ of Developing Countries and Environment & History. I think I'll end up with B's in both of these classes.

My final for Environmental and Natural Resource Econ is a take-home test. Less pressure, but pretty long. It is due tomorrow (Wed.) at 4pm. One last trip to drop it off at the Econ Dept office. I have one last multiple part question to answer, but I don't really understand what we are supposed to do. I've emailed the professor and am waiting for an answer. I already pointed out 4 questions that were messed up and the quiz was changed. As I've pointed out before, I'm not very impressed with his teaching abilities. I'll probably end up with a B in this class as well. I haven't felt very motivated this term. I need to work on that next year.

I changed my mind. Again.

I'm not taking EC460 this fall. I'll probably take it the following term. Instead, I decided to register for a senior capstone project. I went for one that should teach me how to write grant proposals for non-profits. I want to get my capstone done earlier rather than later. I suppose I probably still have time to change my mind again. I hope not, but who knows.

Registering for fall classes!!!

This snuck up on me. Registration for fall term for seniors starts in the morning. Later than now (1:13am). Here is what I'm going to sign up for.

EC 312 - Intermediate Macroeconomics. One of my required classes. I knew I could take this class any term and wasn't really in a big hurry to get it done. The professor that will be teaching it in the fall is one I heard was pretty good. I heard she was leaving and was disappointed that I wouldn't be able to take a class from her, but she's on the fall schedule, so maybe I heard wrong or something. This class is on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 11:30 to 12:35. This will be my earliest class.

EC 417U - Women in the Economy. This should be a fairly easy class. It's a cluster class (that's what the U means), but not mine. The cluster classes are geared towards non-economics majors as well as majors so they tend to be much less technical. I took this class because the teacher seems to have a good reputation and it's right after my first class - MWF from 12:45 to 1:50.

EC 460 - History of Economic Thought. This is a required class for econ majors. Actually, you pick one class from a list of four. This one sounded the most interesting and it will have the same popular professor who taught the class from last term that got cancelled. There will probably be a lot of work in this class.

Hopefully the texts won't be too expensive.

Maybe I won't change my mind between now and then. And maybe I won't.

I will need to do my senior capstone this coming school year. I need to look into this soon.

UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Apparently I'm not considered a senior yet. Registration is next Wednesday for juniors. 

Slow garden

It's been almost a month since I planted onions, broccoli, spinach and cilantro. The weather has been kind of cold and it's taking a while for things to take off. The cilantro and the broccoli were old seeds that I got from someone else. The cilantro is doing good but there are only 4 broccoli plants. I need to either buy new seeds or put in something else that I already have seeds for. I bought the spinach seeds last year and it seems to be doing fine. The seeds I got from one of my onions last year started kind of slow and had a low germination rate. I'm probably going to plant more of them though. They were purple onions and I liked them the best. Last week one of my housemate's father brought me a couple of heirloom tomato plants, Georgia Streak and Black Seaman. I planted them last Friday even though I was worried about the forecast of cold nights ahead. I did put cloches on them and will leave them there for at least a couple of weeks. I still want to do one sauce tomato and would like to try San Marzano this time. I might check nearby nurseries this weekend. It has been warmer than expected, and night time temperatures are getting close to being at least 50F, but I'm not going to get ahead of myself. And I'm planting twice as much basil as I did last year. More pesto! I wish pine nuts weren't so expensive. I kind of want to try walnuts instead. Apparently they are a passable substitute and are a lot cheaper. I need to get more fish fertilizer. I'm nearly out.

Ugh!

Two weeks into the ten week term and I have to change one of my classes. The first class of the second week in Marxist Political Economy was cancelled because the professor was sick. Fine. So I show up Thursday morning to find out that the entire class has been cancelled. Professor Hall had broken his leg just before the term started and was coming to class in a wheelchair. Apparently, there was an infection in his leg that was getting worse so the entire class was cancelled. Great. Now what? They (the econ dept.) were pushing Heterodox Microeconomics, which sounded interesting so I signed up for it. I emailed the instructor who emailed me back that I probably shouldn't jump in after two weeks because I had already missed a bunch of mathematical theory. Swell. Back to the econ department. I didn't really have a lot of choices so I went with Economics of Developing Countries. This should be a relatively easy class, but I don't care much for all the added expenses associated with this class. I found a used textbook for $77 (which should be here next week) so I don't have to keep checking out the one in the PSU library (which has a time limit of one hour, then you have to wait a half hour in case someone else wants to check it out - what a pain in the ass). Hopefully, I will  be able to use the books I already bought for the Marx class next year. I also had to pay an extra $20 for this stupid online stuff that basically only saves the professor time. I also have to take my laptop to class every time even though I may not need it. All because I'm trying to save money by not having text service on my phone. This is not a very good way to start out a class. AND I had to read a bunch of stuff just to get caught up. I've been stressing out over this class for the last week. Bitch, bitch, bitch.

I do understand that PSU had no control over this situation and I feel sorry for Prof. Hall, but I just lost 20% of class time and I still have to pay for the entire thing. I don't think this is right. Every person in the class that was cancelled should have had their tuition discounted if they picked up a new class. I'm starting to get frustrated with PSU. They keep raising tuition and the econ department is losing all of it's best professors. Especially those who have experience or knowledge in the energy field. Just a couple of years ago energy was a big focus of the department and its not now. Very disappointing. And now, if political conservatives have their way, I'll be paying even more interest on my loans.

On top of that, I have been sick (just a cold, but it still bites) since Tuesday. It seems to be a yearly thing for me. Luckily, it usually is only once a year.

At least the weather is nice today!

First day of classes

I had my first class of the spring term today. It's my once a week evening class, Environment & History. I think this class should be both interesting and relatively easy (it's a 300-level class). It starts at 5:30pm and is scheduled until 9:10, but our instructor said it won't last much more than 3 hours each time. I think I'll be fine with the shorter class in this particular case.

This class is basically a history of man's interaction with nature and the environment, focusing mostly on the last 200-500 years. There will be two exams, a mid-term and a final, and two 1000-1200 words papers on two of the four books we are going to be reading. The first paper (and first book we read), which everyone must do, will be on the global history of malaria. The second is our choice on the remaining three books. The books aren't really very long and they all seem well written and easy to read. The papers seem ridiculously short, but that will make me be more specific, which seems hard to do sometimes. Still, this should be a pretty easy class. Attendance is mandatory. Missing a single class will drop your grade by half a letter. I guess that seems reasonable for a class that only meets once a week.

My next two classes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10am to 2pm. The later class is Marxist Political Economy [insert fascist, marxist, socialist, or communist joke here]. There are three books for this class, two of them are quite dense and long. Even though I've been wanting to read Marx's most famous work, Capital, Volume 1, for a couple of years, I'm not really looking forward to it. I'm pretty sure most of it will be dry and boring. And long (1000 pages). Like a lot of the "classics" are. Hopefully, there won't be too much writing in this class.

My morning class is not what I expected to be taking this term. I saw the syllabus for the class I was thinking of taking and it was almost exactly the same as the Green Power Econ class I just took. It would have been a waste of time taking that class from him. I may still take it from the other instructor? We'll see when the time comes. I ended up signing up for Environmental and Natural Resources Economics. I wanted to take this class eventually, but the teacher is the same one I had for Intermediate Microeconomics and I didn't really care much for. But this is the only class that was left that worked, schedule-wise, for me and the other two classes I am taking. Hopefully he's gotten a little more organised since I had him last fall. I'm trying to stay positive about this class. I expect one writing assignment in this class, as that seems to have become a requirement for every class, even classes like math.

I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to do for lunch on these two days since there is only 10 minutes between classes. Maybe it will be alright to eat in at least one of them. If not I can live with that. We'll see.

Garden stuff

I finally got around to planting some stuff in my garden. I took off about half of the straw to make it easier to make rows for planting (I probably used too much in the first place). I went out this morning in the rain and planted broccoli, spinach, two kinds of onions, and cilantro.

Basil, tomatoes, etc. will get planted in the next month or so. I think I'll grow more basil this year because I ran out of pesto way too soon last time. I might try different types of tomato plant this time, rather than having them both be Roma. Maybe a different "sauce" tomato like San Marzano and another variety that is a little more flavorful. We'll see what is available at the nursery when I get ready to plant. I keep threatening to grow garlic, but don't want to pay for bulbs because I'm a cheapskate. I wish I could grow pine nuts for making pesto. They are SO expensive. I might try walnuts in half of my pesto this year.

I will also probably plant sunflowers in the front of the house again. I was pulling weeds there a few days ago and I think there is already one growing (probably came from one of the plants from last year). Hopefully they will do better than last year. If I get moles there again this year, I won't try to drown them out like I did last year. That really screwed up the flowers and stunted their growth. I'm tempted to pull out the "bushes" that are growing there for more room, but that might be a pain in the butt that I really don't want to deal with.

Grades posted

Final grades for the winter term were finally posted yesterday. I did about as good as I thought I would, maybe slightly better.

Behavioral Economics: B+  
The group final paper could have been better and was the largest part (35%) of the grade for this class. I kind of dropped the ball by waiting for my team mates to do a little more. A little bit more effort probably would have resulted in an A in this class.

Economics of Green Power: A-  
I must have gotten a better grade on the final paper than I expected.

Energy Economics: A-   
Since I got an A- on the midterm, my final exam grade would have also been an A-.

Or maybe not

Sigh....I talked to one of my econ professors about the possibility of getting a minor in business. He thought it would could actually be detrimental in the eyes of many employers. I guess I need to rethink this again.

I dropped the intro to business class, but the class I was in and wanted to try to get back into was full. Of course someone grabbed the open spot I left behind. I emailed the professor of that class and have yet to hear back from him. I guess I need some kind of backup plan in case I can't get into his class. I'm pretty sure I will be able to, especially seeing how many students drop out of classes in the beginning.

Because registration has been open for over a month, there are very few options available to me that aren't already full. Sometimes I hate school. Like right now.

Class change for spring term

I made a decison to change one of my classes next term. I should have thought it through better when I first registered, but oh well.

I dropped Environmental Economics. This class is offered every term, so there's no rush on taking it. It is being taught by the same professor that I didn't care for that much. And the textbooks were the same, which kind of said that I might be hearing a lot of the same stuff over again. I would like to take this class eventually, but I think I want to take it from a different professor.

As well as majoring in economics, I have been thinking about getting a minor in business. I signed up for the first of 6 classes that I would need to take, BUS101 Intro to Business and World Affairs. Since it's only a 100-level class it should be relatively easy. I'm hoping it will give me a better idea if I want to go ahead and try for the minor. It should look good on a resume and will be very valuable if I end up going into business for myself. I found a used textbook for $41 and ordered it last night. The class is limited to 60 people. I'm on the wait list, but I'm confident that I will get in because a lot of people drop classes in the first week. Although it shouldn't matter, this wouldn't have been the case if I had considered this earlier. The remaining five classes for the minor all sound very interesting and are 300-level classes.

I'm also considering taking one class over the summer, but I HAVE to find a summer job if I want to do that. I should have one even if I don't take a class. I'm hoping the spring term will require less work than this term has. Then I'll have the time to start looking around for job possibilities while I'm still in school.

The End is Nigh

I should be working on my two final paper. But, true to form, I'm procrastinating. One is more or less done, although I'll probably still make minor changes to it throughout the night. Cause that's how I roll. It's due in class (last one!) tomorrow morning. This is for my Economics of Green Power class. My paper is on residential conservation/efficiency measures and using energy service companies (ESCOs) to finance retrofits and upgrades. Exciting, huh? I'll bet you can hardly control yourself. I was surprised at how much farther we can go with relatively little effort in these areas. They are a big reason our country's net energy use has gone flat even though we have more people and way more electronic devices. I think I'll get a solid B in this class. Possibly an A, but I kind of doubt it. I suppose it depends if he grades on a curve and if he does, how the others are doing compared to me. We will see.

My other paper (group project) is the one I mentioned before. It needs a lot of work still. I've spent a ton of time on this already and will be glad when it's done. Our group is apparently meeting tomorrow at 2 to get it wrapped up. We have until 11pm Friday night to post our paper. I've been dreading writing up coherent summaries of what we found, where we went wrong, recommendations, etc. I'm pretty confident we will address a lot of this tomorrow. And I'll have a couple of hours to kill between my last class (ends at 11:20) and when we meet. I haven't even finished addressing the last few issues with my own section of the paper - background/literature review. I was lulled into over-satisfaction by the praise the professor gave it during his recorded video critique (this guy is a gadget and tech freak). Tomorrow is also the last time this class will meet. I will still have a referee report due on another student's final paper, but it's not due until the last day of finals week. I might get an A in this class. I've done pretty well in most of the areas of grading (there are a bunch and they are a little complicated and somewhat arbitrary - more ADD stuff from this guy) and I am above average in almost all the areas, some by quite a bit. This professor does grade on a curve. But I don't know what kind of distribution he uses so I may only rate a B. Not that I would be disappointed with a B. This class has been challenging, confusing, stressful, and rewarding. I loved/hated it.

Our last regular class for Energy Economics was today. Our final exam is on Tuesday morning. I found this class very interesting and informative. Because of my great interest in the subject, I found it relatively easy to absorb the material. It didn't hurt that I really like the professor. I wish he taught more classes than the two I already had with him. We spent the last two class periods going over what will be on the final. I've been through this before and pretty much know what to expect. His classes are one of the few that I don't stress out about finals. At least not very much. That doesn't mean I won't have to study for the test. I'll have all weekend and Monday to do that. I think there is a pretty good chance of an A if I do well on the final. But my midterm was an A- so I'll have to get at least that on the final. Professor Katz also grades on a curve. I think the grad students get graded separately though, so I won't have to compete with them for my grade.

Latest school update

Behavioral economics is hard! I'm spending the bulk of my studying time working on stuff from this class. We have read 17+ peer-reviewed papers so far and most of them are 30-50 pages long. We usually read 2-3 a week and then post our reactions to them online. We've only covered a very small part of the different areas of this subject. I'm on a team with two other classmates and we have been working on our empirical paper (this will basically be our final) and the experimental setup. I've had to learn how to use Amazon's Mechanical Turk and how to make surveys at another site, Qualtrics. This is in order to collect data from actual anonymous human subjects. What a headache that was. The actual process was fairly simple, but learning what the process is has been a nightmare. I finally cracked it this afternoon. Yay for me! Now if I can just get my team mates to do a little more work (I've done the majority of what we have done so far) then I will be much happier. We have a good start, but we have a lot of work left to do. Even though this class has been very hard (probably the hardest class I've had so far) and very stressful, I have learned a LOT. It's a fascinating field that helps make more sense of economics and shows that standard economic models that assume our complete rationality are woefully lacking in explanatory power in many ways.

My two other classes are going reasonably well. I got an A- on my Energy Econ midterm. I have a lot of confidence for the final in this class. I did pretty well on my Green Power midterm, but that was only because so many people did a horrible job on the second part (including me. Apparently I'm not the only one who had a hard time understanding what he wanted) that the professor let us take it home over the weekend and redo that part. My final is a 5-page paper (double-spaced!!!) that should be relatively easy (I hope!) to write. I have a rough outline so far and have two+ weeks to finish it. Hopefully I won't procrastinate too much.

Yesterday morning I registered for classes for the coming spring term. It's frustrating that a lot of the classes I want to take are either at the same time or overlap so I can't take them. I was thinking about a weird schedule so I didn't have to take a teacher who I don't care that much for, but I decided it wouldn't have been worth it. I went ahead and signed up for that same professor. I'm sure I'll learn plenty, but I just don't care much for his teaching style. He's kind of full of himself. My new schedule is listed below.

• HST339U - Environment & History - Monday 5:30-9:10pm - This is one of my sustainability cluster classes. I like history. I like the environment. I should like this class (?). My first single day class at PSU and my first 'night' class at PSU. Commuting may not be easier, but the MAX should be less crowed and I shouldn't have to walk as far from my car. We'll see. I need 4 books for this class, which should cost less than $80 total.
• EC332 - Economics of Environmental Issues - Tuesday and Thursday 10-11:50am - This is the above mentioned professor. I don't know what the text(s) will be for this class. Most likely it will be another book he wrote and we will have to buy the latest edition of it. I'm a bit turned off by that. 
• EC345U - Marxist Political Economy - Tuesday and Thursday 12-1:50pm - This class should be interesting. I've heard a lot of different opinions about Marx. I've heard this class is very balanced and very informative. More of a history and critique than most economics classes. I heard the teacher is pretty good too. We'll see. 3 books for this class (abt. $50 total)

These classes are all 300-level rather than all 400-level like I'm taking now. Apparently that doesn't always mean what you might think, but I'm hoping for a slightly more relaxed pace for this term. The cost of textbooks will be more than this term, but still not too bad. Probably because none of them is an actual 'textbook'.

I spent a lot of time in the last couple of weeks agonizing over whether or not to do graduate studies. I'm pretty sure now that I'm not going to do that yet. First, I don't want to have to take all the advanced math classes. Second, I really don't want an additional $25-40,000 in debt when I graduate. Third, I want to get back to work. Fourth, I don't know how well I will handle the much greater workload that graduate students seem to have. My age is showing. Anywho, these all seem to point to no graduate studies for me. At least in the semi-near future. Unless I get struck by lightning and become a genius.

Monday

This morning I got off the Max at PSU and headed towards my 9am behavioral econ class. As I'm walking I see two fellow classmates walking towards me. No class today. The prof was sick. Now I have time to go print copies of the next four papers for this class. . Fortunately, the current crop of research papers are quite a bit shorter than most of the previous ones we read. I just found out that each student gets a 500 page paper allowance for use at the various computer/printing labs around campus. And this early, there was hardly anyone in the main floor computer lab at Millar Library, right across the park blocks from my next class. Fantastic! I already went through one ink cartridge on my housemates' printer. This is a lot easier, but I have to plan ahead a little. It's not really enough pages though, at least for this term. If I had printed everything I've needed to so far, I'd already be 300+ pages into my allowance. I think I printed about 75 pages today.

Then, there was the mid-term for my econ of green power class. I don't think I did well. I'm really not doing well with the way the questions are structured on the homework and exams. There was a question early on that I struggled with and am confident I got wrong. Getting this correct multiple answers was key to a large part of the rest of the test. Get that one wrong and most of the following questions were likely to be wrong. It seemed like a sadistic way to show students how stupid they are, at least to the professor. A somewhat related fact - one of our required texts was written by the professor. Hmm. I'm dreading seeing my grade. It's likely to be one of the worst midterm results I've had yet. The take home essay questions we got after completing our exam are a lot different. I have no issue with them. I'll do just fine on those.

No one broke into my car last week! My free parking is probably temporary and definitely "semi-legal", but still free right now! My knee pain has greatly diminished! I'm still learning new things! It was windy, but warm and sunny! I'm poor, but I really have very few legitimate reasons to complain. Onward! Time to study!

Music for studying

I've been enjoying early classical and baroque music lately. At SHOUTcast, which I love! It seems to help with studying and reading. I really am getting old.

Abacus FM - Vivaldi

Oww! That hurts!

I finally gave in. I went to the chiropractor that several of my friends have been suggesting for years.

My knee started hurting for no reason. I put up with it for three weeks. It was NOT getting any better, was making it hard to sleep, and it was getting very painful to work the clutch in my car. By the time I would go to bed my whole leg hurt. I recently remembered that I had a health savings account from back when I worked at Action. At that time it had about $600 in it. Through the process of a $2.50/month fee, it now had about $325 left. I won't spend much time saying how angry this made me. Thieving banks. I still had enough to get at least a little bit of actual health care for MY money. I called the office and made an appointment for the next day. So far it has made a huge difference. I'm in much less pain than I was before. I made another appointment for Tuesday. Hopefully it won't take too many more visits. I now have a large degree of confidence in this particular chiropractor. I was also pleased to hear, after telling him the history of all my injuries and broken bones (nearly all of them were motorcycle related - go figure), that I'm in relatively good shape. Yay! He said my knee problems were not actually a knee problem. It was a culmination of years of small injuries and my body compensating for those injuries. They finally reached a point where it was just too much for too long. I'd like to have him do some work on my upper body too, but I probably won't have any money left in my account by the time this current issue is taken care of. It's likely that I'll just wait until something else happens. That's how I usually like to deal with my own health issues. Preventative measures? I wish.

I want to try and use this experience as an incentive to start riding my bike again. The weather has been unusually nice for a while. I have to wait until this knee/leg thing is taken care of though.

I don't want to get any older.

Shame on me - school update

Nearly two months have passed since my last post here. Sorry. I've been pretty busy with school.

I'm going five days a week during the morning, but I'm home for lunch every day, so that's pretty nice. It's a very different experience than going two days a week for the entire day. I like this better in a lot of ways. I don't care much for the commute though. Except for most Fridays, the Max is already nearly full by the time it gets to my stop at the eastern edge of the Free Rail Zone (all public transportation is free - includes the entire core downtown area). By the time we get to the final stop at PSU it's usually a tight fit. A LOT of people can fit in a MAX car. But the opposite is true when leaving. PSU is now the first stop and you can always get a good seat.

There is a LOT of work and reading associated with my behavioral econ class. This class is probably one of the most challenging classes I've taken so far. It's kind of a fringe topic in economics, but has gotten a lot more interest in the last 10 years or so. The class is basically a psychology class that looks at economic behavior. I'm currently on a team with two other students and we are in the beginning stages of constructing an empirical experiment and will eventually produce a "scholarly" paper on the process. This class is pushing past my existing boundaries in several ways. I'm enjoying that part a lot. And there was no expensive textbook to buy for this class. Yay!

My energy econ class is pretty much what I expected, but has a bit more diverse student body than the last class I took with my favorite professor. It's not just economics majors which can result in some interesting interactions. 80-some odd year old Professor Katz is old-school, fair, points out his own biases (which are usually pretty tempered with truth), and doesn't put up for very long with stupidity and close-mindedness from his students. He may tell you to shut up, but he will try to make sure it's not personal and will only do so when needed. He's unbelievably smart and is nearly encyclopaedic when it comes to canonical energy and regulatory economics. The reading is relatively easy and the textbook wasn't very expensive. This class is like the last I took with Katz, in that there are only two tests that determine our entire grade. Our first one is in a couple of weeks (Feb 21) and the final is on Mar 20. Two shots is all you get and the exams will be based entirely on lectures.

Economics of Green Power is even more diverse in the student body makeup. It hasn't been very hard at all so far. Our first midterm is Monday morning and then we have a take-home portion that is due Friday. There have been several graded assignments so far. I could have done better. Some of the questions were worded in vague and somewhat confusing ways. I have a few other complaints about the instructor, but I won't dwell on them. For the most part he is OK and I understand why he is the way he is. Anyway, I'm learning a lot about the different ways to economically deal with pollution and there economic effects, the differences in and importance of equity and efficiency, mitigation treaty evolution, etc. Later we will be covering subjects like green jobs, sustainability, policy, etc. and their economic effects. This isn't an exciting class, but it is giving me a valuable deeper understanding of these important issues.