I'm Climbing Up Those Walls Again

Some thoughts on the last day:

I practice Safe Spading

I was in Walmart today, waiting to buy a cd-holder at a self-checkout station. In front of me was a couple with two little girls and they were buying what looked like beach toys (spades, buckets, etc). After they finished, I stepped up and bought my item. When I reached for my receipt, I found that the family had left theirs behind. A unwarranted scan of the items revealed something rather funny:


Plastic Spade
Plastic Bucket
Beach Towl
Plastic Spade
Plastic Spade
Condoms
Plastic Bucket
Beach Towl


The Ring must be destroyed..... under par!

While playing putt-putt with Kyle, Matt, and Jon a few weeks ago, I thought up a great theme for the sport: Lord of the Rings golf.

Think of it, each hole represents a part of the story, starting with hole #1 in the Shire and hole #18 finds the player putting their balls into the crack of doom. Add some orcs and men of Rohan, and you've got a winner!


Cat Power

Let me introduce you to the family:

Sophie is dad's cat really, but has recently adopted me as her favorite human. She is part Pixie-bob, which means she has a streak of bobcat in her, which accounts for the curly tail, strong purr, occasional warble, and unusual dog-like behavior.

She is not the top cat, and can only pick on Maude (see below).

Alberta (below) is the oldest cat in the house (around 14 years of age). She is very thin, but also terribly fluffy, and enjoys a good lap to sit and purr on. She often disgraces herself by treating our house as a huge litter box, so recently we've had to keep her out half of the day.

Still, Alberta is a very simple cat: lap=happy






Below we have Clouie, the only cat I know with severe personality disorder. She spends a great deal of her time staring at me and creeping me out. Her moods will vary from very docile to extremely agitated, when she will squeak like a mouse and swipe at me before running away.




Below is Maude, who is the victim of the family, and the fattest cat of the bunch. She gets beaten up by all the other cats save Alberta, who remains her ally. Maude takes it out on herself by eating too much. She is our only cat that actively seeks out a good tummy rub in the middle of the day.



As far as Lily is concerned, I'm afraid I couldn't find her to take a picture. She is a small, grey tabby. She was rescued by mom from a life of begging outside the local hospital. As a result, she is the only cat who begs for scraps at the table, and often eats food out of tins when the humans are unsuspecting.

Song for the day: Nada Surf - Blizzard of 77

Let me tell you what I believe in, and maybe you'll understand why I'll be gone in a few days, and why I'm taking it so seriously.

Each generation has several good things it can do for the world. The greatest good that a generation accomplishes will define it.

I believe that our generation has been set on the wrong path - that we are not out there to defeat the greatest evil in this world but instead the most obvious one... the one that scares us more and makes us feel less secure.

The word selfish should have been drilled out of my head by four years of Economics at Clemson. However, I do believe we are a selfish nation, and that has changed very little in the years I have been alive. I don't blame us for being this way... we've earned a lot of money, especially in the past 15 years. Why should we be bothered with the rest of the world when we are too busy discussion life-altering issues like abortion and presidential fellatio? I do not claim to be exempt from this quality.

But now this sleeping giant, this vast goliath of wealth and disinterest, sits up awake and alert and pretending to be focused. A single despicable and horrible act has welded our attention to the scourge of global terrorism. This is a black and white war. We are the good and they are the evil. However, this brings up one question: who was the white player before 9/11? Were we good or were we evil?

However, after one war that made a lot of sense and another war that made almost no sense, people finally began to calm down. Terrorist activity and recruitment has skyrocketed since we began our soon-to-be-renamed "War on Terror."

It is a war worth fighting, but unlike a war it can't be won by shooting people, and it never will truly be over. This is an important part of our lives, but it shouldn't define our generation.

When my grandchildren are being taught about our generation, I don't want us to be only known as generation that stood by while governments "fought the war on terror," a war that could have been much calmer had we been awake. A generation should not be known for retaliation in self-interest. We should be remembered for, as alliteration allows, our generations generosity.

The week of the London bombings there was a meeting known around the world as the G8 conference. Tony Blair, the Prime Minister that much of the world now has a strange love/hate relationship with, declared that addressing poverty in Africa would be the focus of the conference. For a brief, brief moment, American news station, lacking coverage of a shark attack or Michael Jackson case, began to give the conference some light conference. Then, suddenly, bombs went off in London, and global poverty took a back seat to rising paranoia.

Let me tell you what I believe. If you want moral absolutism, I'll give it to you: It is wrong to ignore a world that suffers the way it does. I know that it is easy to do, because they are far away and poor, and mostly black. They don't look like us, they don't talk like us, all they seem do is fight and have more children and spread hunger and disease. There are many in this country that would prefer to let these people drop off the face of the planet (believe me, I've met them).

However, when you rip away culture and skin and money, we are all brothers and sisters on this planet. National borders should not limit our concern for others.

Rather than reading news of another terror hydra head being split, wouldn't it be great if we did something really neat like save a few thousand children from malnutrition? What if we halved the infant mortality rate of Sub-Saharan Africa in 10 years? If you're concerned about abortion/child's rights, think about all the babies in the world that die between birth and their first birthday. Don't they earn any sort of priority? Would it surprise you that it doesn't take that much to keep a child alive for that first year?

Think about AIDS and how it is just ravaging a continent. Think about the fact that over a billion people live on less than $1 a day, PPP adjusted (purchasing power). Think about the millions of things that are wrong in this world that don't receive attention.

I'm not asking for anyone's attention or care. I've done that in previous blogs, but this time I'm just explaining my actions, not asking for an opinion to the contrary or sympathy. Without any sound structure, logic, or proper grounding, this is truly a rant off the top of my head.

I yearn for a day where someone asks me what my field is and the answer "Development" doesn't draw question marks out of their eyes. I yearn for a day where instead of gas prices, people start talking about genocide at the water cooler. I want a life where people are no longer so scared of the world, and instead are prepared to study and help it.

This is biggest fight I think we should fight, and it's a shame that the best place to learn how to fight it is overseas, and not here. We've lived in a world of terrorism for a long time, and we will continue to.

It is a fight we mustn’t forget about, but we have a chance to do something really and truly revolutionary, and we are the first generation that has the time, resources, and smarts to do something about it.

Song for the day: Rilo Kiley - So Long

By nature, I am and always will be a difficult person. My earliest memory is of a time I was particularly difficult:

My mother's mother (known to me as Nana, not Grandma) used to live on a farm with my step-grandfather, Peter. I had done something wrong--thrown a tantrum or done something that was 'bad' for a 3-4 year old to do. I fled with my face full of anger. What lingers in my mind is the image of my descent down the stairs. I stopped and looked at Nana, who was waiting for me at the bottom. I started crying again, realizing what a bother I had been.

-----

There is another time that comes to mind... while I'm talking about being bratty. I was in the UK (I believe) with my parents. We were in a department store, and I saw a toy I really wanted. I expressed my desire and it was denied. The street outside the store was very busy, and my parents expected me to follow. I lost them for a split second, and then saw them go into a nearby store, thinking I was in tow. I decided to show them not to mess with a little redhead, and went back into the department store by the toy. They eventually found me, and I started bawling as the pulled me away.
-----

I don't know if either of these examples are dreams are faint memories. I hope that my memories from today never get as faint as those do. In Biology, we learned that the older the get, the less REM sleep you get (= less dreaming). I hope my dreams are never replaced with long ago memories.

It's safe to say my stubbornness stayed with me, although sometimes I can allow myself to be the calm party. However, this is something I usually left behind when I entered an academic setting, and I hope it won't surface as much in Oxford as it did when I was out at class at Clemson.

In the meantime, I apologize for all the times I've been... difficult. Either it's just my nature, or I was low on sugar at the time. The best way to get me to shut up when I'm being difficult is to give me a Mars bar, as it'll up my sugar, or at the very least, occupy my mouth so I can no longer speak.

Or you can smile:

Song for today: Smashing Pumpkins - Disarm

Describe a time when you were a real brat.

At the Baskin Robins drive-thru (purely by accident) I ordered a large Cappuccino last night. After boasting that the half-life of caffeine in my system was half an hour, I inhaled it. Of course, much, much later that night I was up, wide awake, thinking about going over instead of sleeping. When I finally did fall asleep, I was assaulted by a variety of nightmares, none of which made sleep any easier. To top it all of, Sophie, one of our cats, knocked my door down and woke me up early this morning.

Someone asked me today how packing was going. I should get on top of that considering I haven't much time left. As I type this, I am burning the final copy of Whitney and Carter's wedding video. That marks the fourth and final dvd project I've completed this summer (we all know which one I'm the most proud of).

I've been trying to think of some sort of final get-together with those I can scrounge up, and my thoughts somehow always end up on putt-putt. I guess I'll leave on the wings of a miniature golf victory.

As putt-put is an extreme sport, it is fitting that the song for the day is: Mogwai -Superheroes of BMX

Some last minute things:

The Spider Dance

I had to go out early one morning to help my grandmother with some errands. Kyle and Matt were visiting, but both were asleep. When I opened our front door to leave, I noticed that a very large spider had spun a web in front of the door. I was in a hurry, so I just ducked under it on my way out while making a mental note to take it down on my way back.

When I returned a few hours later I, of course, walked right into it, and proceeded to perform what is known as the Holy-Shit-I-just-walked-into-a-spider-web-and-I-don't-know-if-the-spider-is-on-me-but-I'm-going-to-flail-and-scream-like-a-little-girl-until-it's-off dance. While the neighbors must have gotten a good laugh, Kyle and Matt were still fast asleep, so luck was on my side.

Punnography

While IMing with a friend online, I came up with this slice of genius:

***karoonus - i gotta go help make dinner, i'll be back on in a bit :-) ... firing up the grill, so pray for me

***karoonus - i'm grill-challenged

A Matt In A Box - hah, that's ok, I'm grilliterate


Weight-room nostalgia

The crappy local modern rock station is usually playing in CCU's weight room, which provides little assistance to the difficulty of flexing and grunting appropriately. However, a mid-90s classic by Korn came on today. As "Blind" began, everyone (including yours truly) took a break and waited for a moment, then all began lifting again the moment the song got heavy. After that I screamed and dropped the weights I was holding on a kitten.

But seriously, the music can be very important for some people. One day when I was in there crunching walnuts in between my biceps, an African-American fellow next to me stop lifting when a whiney classic rock song came on and complained (loudly, but strangely to no one in particular) that he couldn't and wouldn't lift to such nonsense.


Meeting the cast of Six Feet Under

Our home in Beverley is across the street from *gulp* a funeral director's. I always made fun of this fact, noting that there was always a light on in that place. The first time a hearse drove out of there, I nearly had a heart attack. However we've never had to complain about boisterous neighbors, I'm still taking extra precautions, as a zombie outbreak would not spell good news for our location.

However, my parents have managed to make contact with the family running and living in the place. Apparently they are all quite nice, and the son and daughter living there are both my age, and might make reasonable friends during my impending two month stay there. I am upset though, because I'll no longer be able to make fun of the house across the street.

Today's song: Alkaline Trio - Smoke

My three weeks of relative isolation have ended. I think the time alone has done me some good, despite the obvious tendency to get lonely (alleviated from time to time by turning all the radios in the house on to NPR).

There have been few exceptions such as a fun visit from Kyle and Matt and the occasional movie-outing/Soul Calibur 2 fight with Jon, but for the most part I've felt no excitement connecting me to this place. The lack of the constant barrage of (much appreciated) friendship at Clemson will make it a little easier to get on that plane.


I've got a good bit of reading to do; some official correspondence from Oxford has revealed a 'need to know' reading list:

Economic Theory:

H. Gravelle and R. Rees, Microeconomics
H. R. Varian, Intermediate Microeconomics
R. Dornbusch and S. Fischer, Open Economy Macroeconomics
P. Krugman and M. Obstfeld, International Economics

Math and Statistics:

A.C. Chiang, Fundamental Methods for Mathematical Economics
Harold J. Larson, An Introduction to Probability Theory and Statistical Inference

Development Economics:

D. Ray, Development Economics
A. Sen and J. Dreze, Hunger and Public Action
A. Sen. 1999, Development as Freedom
W. Easterley, The Elusive Quest for Growth
G. M. Meier & J. E. Stiglitz, Frontiers of Development Economics: The Future as Perspective
J. Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents
Commission for Africa (Full Report)
World Bank, World Development Report
UNDP, Human Development Report

Quantitative Methods:

"By the end of the course, you will be covering material at the level of"

W. H. Greene, Econometric Analysis

"Listed are four books that would allow you to build up to this level of complexity, given below in order of difficulty"

D. N. Gujarati , Basic Econometrics
J. Kmenta, Elements of Econometrics
J.J. Johnston & J. DiNardo, Econometric Methods
C. Mukherjee, H. White, and M. Wuyts, Econometrics & Data Analysis for Developing Countries


Luckily I'm familiar with a lot of the basic econ stuff, although it looks like I've got a fair bit of development reading to do. This is not worrying - it's what I enjoy! I've got two months to tackle this stuff.

Oh, and today's song:

The Bad Plus - Flim (Aphex Twin jazz cover)

and another picture of the lovely Ms. Johansson