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!
Monday, February 6, 2012
Saturday, February 4, 2012
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
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.
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.
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.
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