There are two paths you can go by

Got my First. Phew.

In principle, I could now complete a Masters in one year at Vic, enter directly into a PhD program at any New Zealand university, or start grad school from scratch in the USA (after passing the GRE, of course). Note that I'm not saying any of these is a good idea. They're just what the rules would allow me to do.

The alternative is to take up a permanent position at a well-respected New Zealand economic institution, continue my education informally, be productive, get paid, and take some control of my life.

There's still time to change the road you're on

Today was the last day I will ever have to spend studying for Honours. The last day of pacing the house alone, trying to force myself to work. The last day of reading and writing, reading and writing, until my brain feels like a revolving door for information.

The econometrics exam is in 12 hours. The fact that I have to sit an exam is dwarfed in my mind by the fact that it's my last exam. When I consider it, I'm fairly unconcerned - mostly because this particular exam is without precedent, so I have no idea what to be specifically worried about.

Lots of people talking, few of them know

Prof Metrics gave us Problem Set 2 in the last class before the break - that is to say, 11 days ago. One question in the problem set requires use of a dataset which would normally be posted on Blackboard. Last week I checked Blackboard a few times, but the dataset wasn't there. Today I got around to emailing Prof Metrics about it.

My real question is, was this a test? Did Prof Metrics deliberately refrain from posting the dataset, in order to force us to email him, and thus ascertain when we started the problem set? I wouldn't be surprised - we were all at least a week late handing in Problem Set 1, so he would have some incentive to find out how we think we're organising our time.

Working from seven to eleven every night

Writing my referee report required having a very large number of article PDFs open at the same time. I think I broke Exposé...

Looks like... 51 windows, including the two not minimised? Must try to reproduce.

Edit: Actually it's probably more than 51. iPhoto and Activity Monitor should be visible too; I assume they're both un-minimised and sitting behind iTunes. There may be an arbitrary number of other windows in the same situation.

AAAAAAAAH-aaaaaaah!

When it comes down to it, I guess the letter grades are fairly distinct from the letters in the course titles. The extra character after the grade helps :-P

I must say that I was not expecting this result in any way. Not for Growth. Not for Macro. I'm a bit stunned.

Lonely, lonely, lonely time

Coming to Kelburn for my first exam this morning made me feel homesick. It's a long time since I was here.

Remember THESE?

I had one in celebration after the Growth exam was over. The exam wasn't as bad as I thought - there were two questions I could do, so I did them. (We got to choose two of nine, so the odds were in our favour.) One was closely related to one of the essays I handed in yesterday. The other involved some mathematical unpacking of the Solow growth model. Both went pretty well, although my hand was really sore afterwards.

Then I sat down on a sofa and did the Metrics assignment, which I've just finished. So the worst is over, I think.

News that must get through

You know how I thought I missed out on something really good?

Turns out, I was wrong. I've never in my life been so happy to be wrong :-D

Work is over and class starts Monday week. From Wednesday, though, there is the introductory math course, so class sort of really starts on Wednesday. I'm going to spend the entirety of my free time next week upgrading stuff (in excess of 370 MB) over university wireless:

1. New content to my Flickr
2. New version of Firefox
3. New version of iTunes
4. iPhoto upgrade
5. OS upgrade (or two)
6. Safari upgrade (wait, what do I need that for?)
7. Quicktime upgrade
8. MAKE ALL MY ITUNES PURCHASES DRM FREE WOOOOOOOOOOOO

I still can't quite believe that last battle is over.

Many is a word that only leaves you guessing

Today I spent more hours nonstop at my desk than I did on the day the last MATH 206 project was due in 2006.

I did not think that was possible in a summer job.

The beads of time pass slow

Now that the Micro exam is over I intend to post about random stuff as often as I like. This is a good time to start, because I'm waiting for output from a program that won't finish for at least 20 minutes, and it doesn't seem like enough time to actually bother doing anything productive. I do have one more exam, but not until Friday week. That kind of timescale isn't a great motivator.

This afternoon marks the end of the penultimate week of working with my high school student for this year. The program I'm running is for her - it's a little simulation that calculates the experimental probability of success in two attempts, when the theoretical probabilities are 0.6 on the first attempt and 0.4 on the second. Well, it started out as a little simulation. It's now 99,001 little simulations, with sample sizes increasing from 1000 in the first attempt to 100,000 in the last. This is intended to demonstrate how the experimental probability approaches the theoretical probability with increasing sample size. Smaller ranges would do it equally well, but pushing the limits of my computing resources is much more fun.

Today I had the great idea of making lemon, strawberry and apricot muffins for breakfast tomorrow. Sounds tasty, no? It's my own invention (as the White Knight would say). I'm not sure how well the lemon will go with the other flavours. Will they need rind, or will juice be sufficient? Should I add cinnamon as well? That would make the batter dark, and with pink strawberries these would probably be quite pretty with a white fluffy batter. Maybe currants would be a good addition. Planning out tomorrow's breakfast is a good way of ensuring that I remember to get out of bed each morning during the study break.

I really hope this simulation produces output before my student arrives at 3.30.

In the long run there's still time

Last day of class for Micro. The tutorial made more sense than usual. The lecture didn't. The students are starting to talk to each other, like a group of helpless people will when they realise their doom is both imminent and unavoidable. They're all saying the same thing: "How are you finding 314? It's got very mathematical hasn't it? I don't even understand a word he's saying any more... hey can I email you if I get stuck? Shall we meet up in study break? There must be some way we can get through this stuff..."

Me, I have glimpses of comprehension here and there, but I'm not sure if I'm even looking in the right direction when it comes to seeing the big picture of what we're working on.

This morning I went to see Jack about the test, because I couldn't figure out where I'd lost all those marks, or why. Turns out most of them went on question 1, all as a result of the same small misconception early on. Darn. At least it was something I really didn't know, not a silly mechanical error.

Having spent the past week writing as if avoiding finishing the International essay would prevent the trimester from ending, I've just finally printed the damn thing out. There's no avoiding it now: it's the end of the trimester. Next come exams, my fantastic summer job, and the end of everything I've come to love about university. Next comes nothing but a lot of hard work.