Disaster. I’m sipping away on a Twinings and reading blogs instead of formally outlining RBC (you don’t want to know what RBC is; neither what to formally outline means; neither do I too much… I mean, I already know, but deep down I wish I didn’t).
We finished lectures a couple of weeks ago, but it looks as if work is only starting now… When you realise how much you are supposed to have learnt by the end of the degree, and how little in fact you know… You might sulk. Or panic. I decided to radically rectify the situation by … surprise! Studying.
My achievements so far: I have reached a point in International Finance and Money where there are sheets with ugly scribblings all around the place (each sheet represents a MODEL), and jokes are being cracked at the poor respectable gentlemen who had the misfortune to devise those models. Or do research on them. E.g.:
- Have you ever met Mundell and Fleming?
- No. But I’d love to. I have a lot to say to them… Both of them.
Or:
“Meese and Rogoff invented a new method of forecasting the exchange rate. Their method involves a rolling regression technique. The method does not work, but: THEY ESTABLISHED A NEW TRADITION IN ECONOMETRIC ESTIMATION OF THE FIT OF MONETARY MODELS” etc etc.
(I should put a disclaimer on economic blasphemy somewhere on this blog. Like: in case of economic blasphemy, I am very sorry, but I cannot do anything about it, my brain is damaged by economic knowledge etc.)
Now I am two days behind my schedule on Macroeconomics. Whenever I try to sketch a Solow model, it comes out looking as if it was chewed and spat out. I killed half a day on Ramsey model; the fact of death of the half of the day can be proved by the absence of fact of enhanced understanding of the model. But I’ll try again. Now I’m doing the Real Business Cycles model (hello, mysterious RBC), which is an extension of Ramsey, and surprisingly it’s much more understandable, which is against any logic. How can an extension of something be clearer than the thing itself? No logic indeed.
But it’s not all about studying, of course (what a lame, feeble, insincere, dubious phrase). We went to Edinburgh twice, first time to meet and then volunteer for Scottish Youth Parliament. Basically, we just looked through some 60 applications for Glasgow Youth Assembly (http://www.civicusyouth.org), and scored them. Which was fun. I loved the travelling to-and-fro bit, very much.
Back to Glasgow though. Glasgow (sensation!) has been hit. Very strongly, by SPRING. Kelvingrove Park from green turned white, yellow, red, blue etc etc etc. These are the colours of people lying all around the park (I mean people’s clothes, of course). I was shocked yesterday by how decent and proper they are in doing so! There are young people playing GAMES and singing SONGS in CIRCLES, and other unthinkable things. Very impressive.
It has been SUNNY for several days (anomaly), seagulls have been noticed attacking fountains and Adam Smith Building (the latter is definitely an anomaly); people are all wearing SUNglasses (anomaly again). We went jogging along the Clyde yesterday, and the view was splendid. As always, the Island flatters the eye with quaintly beautiful colours, bizarre and gentle shapes of clouds.
I discovered a place called Zest selling all sorts of freshly squeezed juices and smoothies. I have added it to the list of Glasgow’s Most Dangerous Places.
I also RE-discovered the glory of Tchai Ovna. I went there in October, and it was dreadful. It was cold, damp, and horrible. It had to be re-discovered. On Monday, Rishab and I went to Tchai Ovna to listen to the sitar. We listened to the sitar, drank some Arctic Spice tea, and lost the time dimension completely (or rather, time dimension lost US). This place could be tagged as: lush, eccentric, eclectic, Ravi Shankar, odd, nirvana, home, grandma (in the best sense of the word), mushroom-shaped-lavatory-light-switcher, random, cosy, this-plaid-is-exactly-like-the-one-I-have-back-home (so ‘home’ twice), dream-like, 100-teas (I counted), camels (? why? why not?), hippie, low-fi, fog-mist-smoke, Connection.
I had this strange feeling; when I was 13, I would LOVE to find myself in a place like that. Probably, I was dreaming, I was looking for this place; but I never found it. Reason? Because I was NOT READY for it. If I had found it (which is impossible, but IF), I wouldn’t believe; it would be TOO good, too REAL, too LIFE-LIKE; I wasn’t ready. So I’ve found it now, when I’m READY, but no longer that KEEN on… Ironic, isn’t it. But somehow very comforting, and very wise.
And now as I’m writing this, I think it might be a very, very Alice-in-Wonderland place, as well. There even might be some blue caterpillars. Need to check next time.
I am more and more impressed by Offshore. I went to write my Economics of Finance essay (two pages on the Bubble: was it a Bubble or not? Tricky, tricky…), and I wrote it in TWO HOURS (the assignment on Human Capital, also 2-page-long, I was chewing and rechewing for TWO DAYS). Was it just coffee? Or was it the atmosphere? Or was I too tired already of writing assignments? Anyway, we celebrated April Fool’s Day in Offshore, too. Rishab was reading something dreadful like Cost-Benefit Analysis, I was reading Portfolio Balance Model and laughing at the pictures. A friend of mine called Mayur was fooling me via sms from India. I got fooled. Rishab didn’t.
And: I managed to struggle through with a submission for the anthology, following our Creative Writing Workshop. I thought I’d die. I didn’t know what to submit; I had nothing to submit, really, after 15 years of scribbling. Things were flying around the room, etc.; finally I submitted SOMETHING; actually, there is very little selection, almost none, so some of it will be published anyway… And I als0 typed up very quickly some pieces from Russian into English for a girl called Laura, who has this project which sounds excellent; she collects writing from different people under the theme ‘MUSIC’, and then puts them in booklets; I vaguely imagine how it will eventually look, but I love the idea.
We saw English Patient yesterday. I felt so sad, I can’t describe. It threw me into the state of absolute, infinite, irreversible sadness. I feel as if I can’t tear my eyes from the image of the plane crashing into the sands, with a beautiful dead woman on the passenger seat. I think I will borrow it again from the Library in secret, and see it again. Ssshhh.
1 Comment
Tuesday, 17 April 2007 at 7:03 am
Nice blog!