switchiness

I've decided to switch over to wordpress, because it has cooler features. To big A and the 2.5 other people who read this, here is the new interblogowebasphere location:

http://andreality.wordpress.com/

The good ol' days

In anticipation of teaching a microeconomics course this summer, I've been scouting out the collection of books that are discarded from the department's reference center for old micro texts to use in the creation of my lecture notes. And some of them are truly old. You can get a sense of just how old by taking a look at some of the practice questions. In C.E. Ferguson's "Microeconomic Theory" from 1972, we have the following gems:

1. Why would an attractive young girl just out of high school become a call girl or prostitute?
2. Why do more unmarried women lose their virginity in wartime than in peacetime?

(Sadly, the book doesn't come with solutions)

Walter Nicholson's 1983 "Intermediate Microeconomics and its Applications" has this to offer:

Each year Sam Mellow grows 200 units of wheat and 100 units of pot for his own consumption and for sale to the outside world. Wheat and pot are the only two items that provide utility to Sam.

"Sam Mellow" ... classic. I'm pretty sure I would be facing a reprimand or two if I put questions like this on a test. Still, I can't help but experience a wistful longing for the days when one could make math questions about prostitution and illicit substances.

why is everyone wasting their time on swine flu?

My sister recently sent me this link to a new zealand news story, filed under "World Breaking News": http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25426069-23109,00.html

Unfortunately they didn't supply a picture of this amazing fruit, but a quick search of the interwebs saved the day:I was expecting something a little less like a moldy pear and more like a kiwi bird. Still, I guess it's sort of newsworthy that someone spent $680 canadian on this thing. This just in... man wastes money on old piece of fruit.

In other news, I love the calculating function on google. I just typed in "1000 NZD in canadian dollars" and it did the conversion for me. It's also handy for mile-km, lbs-kg conversions. And it does math computations too. Is there anything google can't do?

food stuffs

In keeping with my ongoing efforts to be more conscious of what I eat, I decided to substitute kefir for my usual yogurt purchase at the grocery store yesterday.  I was expecting it to taste kind of like yogurt; that was a mistake.  If you’re expecting a substance to taste like yogurt when, in fact, it tastes like yogurt gone terribly, terribly bad, the outcome is rarely good.  

But I exaggerate, it doesn’t taste that bad.  It’s not something I would consume by itself for the pure pleasure of the drink, but mixed with a delicious assortment of berries it’s actually quite palatable.

 

The nutritional greatness of kefir is twofold. First, it has but two ingredients:  organic partly skimmed milk and bacterial cultures.  Compare this to the Activia, source of fiber, fat free strawberry, kiwi and cereals probiotic yogurt:

1. skim milk, concentrated skim milk, fructose, sugar, strawberries, inulin, kiwi puree, corn starch, milk protein concentrate, cream, modified corn starch, rolled oat, white wheat flakes, gelatin, natural and artificial flavours, active bacterial cultures, pectin, malic acid, natural colour, potassium sorbate, calcium lactate, sodium citrate, vitamin A and D. 

Dosly, that delectable je ne sais quoie sour milk taste is a function of a longer fermentation time and the additional fermentation power of yeast.  This means more sugar is consumed during fermentation, and more bacteria are present in the end product.  And apparently the type of bacteria used to make kefir stay in your intestine for extended periods of time (compared to yogurt) and do all sorts of good things for you.

The nutrition facts on the two containers are not in entirely comparable units, but going on the estimate that kefir has approximately the same density as water, here’s what’s what:

	KEFIR	YOGURT
calories	90	140
fat	3.5 g	0.525 g
saturated fat	2g	0.35 g
carbohydrates	8 g	28 g
sugars	6 g	22.75 g
protein	6 g	7 g

what treasures

On Easter Sunday we had dinner at big A's mother's house. While there, A was charged with the task of rummaging through boxes of old belongings to see what he wanted to keep and what could be thrown away. Among the assorted treasures were a collection of old photos. Many of these were of such a nature that sharing them with the blogospheres would likely result in my prompt dismissal from girlfriend status and the finding of my belongings out on the curb, but some of them are just too cute to keep to myself.

To our left we see an early version of li'l big A. Note the conservative gray shirt combo, the fiery red hair and the cute button nose. Evidently this picture was taken long before he instated his "Dress shirts must be plaid or some kind of checkered-like pattern" rule.

Now if you look to the right, you'll see li'l gap-toothed big A all jazzed up in a dashing red ensemble he no doubt picked out himself for this special occasion. We can see that he has really come into his own in the freckle department at this point, and he seems really happy about something; I'm guessing it's the amazing faux forest backdrop he gets for his school picture. Also observe the shorter hair at this age; could this become a trend?

This one's pretty good too, li'l hockey-A decked out in his equipment. Who knew this little guy would grow up to abandon traditional projectile-based sports to become an Ironman-doing, Boston marathon-running, leg-shaving, gel-eating Labatt employee? Not me. Mostly because I wasn't born at the time this picture was taken.

In addition to the pictures there were a few memorable keepsakes. This beloved toy mouse was pretty adorable, and everyone loves a good E.T. keychain.

Enjoy this post while it exists; I'm guessing it has a high likelihood of deletion due to censorship.

***EDIT: I've been informed that the snazzy red shirt combo that childhood-big A has on is velour, and possibly a one-piece.  I thought this should be known.  Also, the mouse is apparently a Womble, Orinoco the Womble to be precise.  He was a little distraught that I failed to acknowledge this. 

birthday times

1. Waking up to birthday presents. My great boyfriend got me this great aero helmet, along with some delicious treats. It's a super present, moreso because it's something I probably wouldn't have bought for myself. And who doesn't love crazy lightning-bolt patterns?
2. Pancakes for breakfast. I'm continually astounded by how delicious pancakes continue to be for me. Yep, astounded. I'll go through periods where I have them just about every other day, and yet I cease to grow tired of them in the least.
   
3. Podiatrist appointment. As my handful of visits to the physiotherapist and prescribed stretches have done little my running injuries, I've decided to seek out other options. The podiatrist seemed competent, seemed to know what might be wrong, and was none too eager to plaster up my feet for a pair of orthotics. It's pretty much all covered by my insurance, so I had no objections.
4. Trip to the market. Perhaps not quite as enjoyable as ingesting food, I do love to shop for it as well. I was in the neighbourhood so I stopped by at sunripe markets. A little on the pricey side, but they have lots of interesting and delicious food items.
5. Research. As much as I would have liked to totally blow off school work for the day, I thought it was best to do get a modicum of work done. I do really like my research at the moment, so this in no way interfered with my birthday enjoyments.
6. Bike ride with Peaker. Got to enjoy the glorious spring sunshine while it lasted. A bit windy in parts, but thoroughly great, as biking usually is.
7. Run with the group. The great part about starting running again is that even short runs are very satisfying. The nice weather continued into the evening, and it was good to be out in shorts and t-shirt.
8. Dinner at alibi's. Had chicken fingers for the first time in approximately forever. They were tasty.
   
9. Tea, cookies, and watching survivor on the couch. A nice, relaxing end to the day with aforementioned great boyfriend.
   

Roatan

accommodations	The resort we stayed at was very un-resortlike. I’ve never been to a resort of any kind before, but I was expecting some kind of giant hotel-like complex. Instead, everyone had their own little rustic hut. No tv, no phone, no air conditioning, just two small beds, a shower, a bathroom, some shelves, and a couple of night tables. Our hut was right over the shore, and you could see the water between the floorboards. No glass on the windows, just screens with giant wooden blinds. It was perrrfect. The dining room was up the hill a bit, with a spectacular view of the islands. We ate fish pretty much every day, and we made good use of the unlimited supply of hot chocolate between dives. It was great.
dolphins	Anthony’s Key was home to the Roatan Institute for Marine Sciences, featuring a pen full of 15 or so dolphins. We kayaked by it on the first day and the dolphins all came around to check us out. Subsequently we signed up for a “dolphin encounter” and “dolphin swim”, which we narrowly fit in between dives #2 and #3 one day. During the encounter the trainer showed off one of the dolphins to us. We got to rub his belly, touch his teeth etc., and he demonstrated his swimming/jumping/flipping skills. The swim was even better. We donned fins, mask and snorkel and got to swim freely with all of the dolphins. At one point I found a desiccated palm frond in the water and was playing fetch with one of them. Then I started to swim with the frond right in front of his nose, and the dolphin played along, swimming just fast enough to stay behind it. He quickly grew tired of this, however, and snatched the thing out of my hand, swimming alongside me with the stick just out of my grasp. He dove down to the bottom, maybe 15 ft, dropped it there and swam away. I’d figured he grew weary of playing with me, so I went down to retrieve it. Just as I was about to grab it the dolphin swoops back in and steals it back. It was really cool. So clever and sneaky.
diving	I got my open water certification down there, so it was my first time diving with the fishies, and it was spectacular. The water was clear and mostly warm, even at depth. There was a huge variety of coral and fish, along with a handful of sea turtles, some eels, lobster and crab, and other assorted creatures. The guy at the bottom was my favourite kind of fish: they’re wedge-shaped and a bit dopey-looking when they swim. Even though with my preliminary certification I wasn’t supposed to go below 60 ft, the dive master was pretty lax about it, and my deepest dive was 108ft. He also had no compunction about letting me swim through caves and tunnels, and do a night dive – other forbidden things for beginners.
coming home	With big A having left for Vegas the week before my trip, it was a big 2 weeks apart for us. I think this was the first instance ever where I was actually eager to return to London. At any other point in my life I would have taken the opportunity to stay in Toronto for the weekend with my brother and sister-in-law. But instead, I anxiously hopped on the first bus back to London, counting down the minutes the whole way. It’s amazing how one person can make a place feel so much more like home. And, being the sweet, loving, awesome boyfriend that he is, he had flowers and delicious fancy cheese waiting for me when I got back. What more could I ask for?

first outdoor ride

With sunshine and a high of 15 on Friday, it was the perfect day for a return to outdoor riding. It was a very timely return too; with these serial stress fractures keeping me from running, I was just about to go crazy from not being outside. Aaanyway, it was pretty great (windy, but great). I wore my new contacts, and I have to say I do enjoy being able to see detail outside again. Also the inaugural ride for my fancy new MEC-bought bib shorts. I was a little skeptical about them, but they won over my approval with their extreme comfortableness.

I overdressed a bit for the occasion, and it wasn't long before I had to stop and peel off my leg warmers and gloves. Foolish Andrea also didn't put sunscreen on under her longsleeve, resulting in some great rolled-up-sleeve tanlines:

I'm so disappointed in my cellphone

I've never noticed this before, but today when I was typing in my sister-in-law's name "Justyna", my cell phone's predicting feature anticipated the word (and I use the term loosely) "L8r". I was beginning to think it was really starting to get to know me, learning all sorts of made-up words like "unpossible" and "gamblo". Alas, I don't think I can ever be truly be fond of a device that thinks I would use the term "L8r".

maybe when the price decreases 50%

Why have I not heard of these before? You get free 3G wireless to download books and magazines, and apparently you can use wikipedia on it as well. It's like a little notebook too, you can write on the pages, take notes etc. And who doesn't like having books read to you in a creepy computer voice?

cookies for everyone

Sometimes (like at my optometrist's today) when I tell people I'm doing my Ph.D., year 7 of 9 in my gluttonously excessive post-secondary academic career. their response is some admixture of pity, sympathy, and hopefulness. Like "Oh, that's too bad, but at least you're almost done." I'm always happy to correct them with assurances that I love being a grad student. It's a bit stressful at times due to its highly self-guided nature, and I have occasional doubts about my aptitude for it, but most of the time it's pretty great. And there are certain little things that remind me of how great it really is.

For instance, I have a row of magazine boxes above my desk containing old papers; they had various journal names and years on the fronts so I re-labeled them with nonsensical things: "Gremlin-related materials", "Secret Documents", "Items pertaining to the moon", and my personal favourite, "Enemies Lists". Somehow I find the notion of having multiple enemies lists to be very hilarious.

A recent incident really highlighted the awesomeness of grad school though. Every Tuesday at 2:40 pm we have a little coffee and snack get-together in the faculty lounge. The first week of every month we have cake to celebrate birthdays, and the rest of the time it's just cookies. Now, the big controversy in the department was the fact that the grad students would eat all of the cookies before anyone else got there. To rectify this, the graduate director offered to give $20 to teams of two people who would sign up to be in charge of cookies for that week, going to the grocery store and purchasing extra cookies for the department. So today along with our usual assortment of cookies we had tiny cinnamon buns and two-bite brownies.

If a shortage of cookies is the worst crisis my workplace has to deal with, I think I'm going to be okay.

why do you hate fun?

I do like it when academicians have a sense of humour.


But I guess some peer-reviewers didn't find it that funny.

preferences

An annoyance that ranks highly on both the intensity and frequency of occurrence spectrums is when, upon learning that I'm studying economics, people ask me about the financial crisis. Sometimes they just want to know what I think about it; at other, more annoying times there are comments to the effect that I should be able to fix it. Now, I'm relatively new to the subject, having done my undergrad in math, so I understand when people immediately associate "economics" with "finance". Certainly they are related/overlapping, but the one is not subsumed in the other. As far as economists go, I'm probably below-average in my interest with finance, global financial news, and in fact any topic pertaining to or containing the word or some derivative of the word "finance". Anything macro - having to do with regions, countries, global, overarching, aggregate, big things - I try to stay away from. My interest lies in the micro, behavioural side of things. Why people make the choices that they do, their decision-making processes, how individual behaviours influence larger outcomes - things of that nature.

From one annoyance to another, there's a pet peeve of mine whose inception coincided with this interest in economics. It's likely that the most conspicuous way that studying economics has changed my general day-to-day way of perceiving the world has to do with accepting other peoples' preferences. I first noticed this during a car ride with my sister-in-law when, upon exiting a little strip-mall plaza type arrangement, she complained about the blight which such establishments were upon the earth, how they impeded traffic, causing congestion, accidents, encouraging people to drive rather than walk etc. Now, I agreed with her 100% in her essential points; I too thought they were terrible manifestations of equally terrible capitalist shortcomings. But I found myself objecting to her categorical rejection of them, to her belief that the government or some other institutional entity should step in and hand down a law that prohibited the building of such structures. If they were so bad, if everyone hated them so much, wouldn't they just stop using them? There certainly wasn't anything unique about the stores in the ones we passed; typically they contain some form of nail/hair/spa type thing, a convenience store, maybe an electronics store or an adult video establishment. There's a trade-off involved, as there is with most things - on the one hand they may be conveniently located so that it's easy to stop in there while going to and from other places; on the other, they have all the aforementioned flaws. To say outright that you know the way this trade-off balances out, considering all the people who benefit from it, all the people who suffer from it, what sort of alternatives would arise in their absence - it's just impossible to know.

A similar debate ensued after a comment about the sheer volume of pay-day-loan, cash-mart, and similar services. Once again, I agreed with her that they were terrible in nature, greedily taking advantage of people's short-sightedness and impatience, especially people who were particularly ill-equipped to suffer the monetary loss that inevitably comes with the use of these services. But once again I couldn't help but adopt the agnostic standpoint - maybe some people really do discount the future so much that these services are worthwhile for them. Maybe they do get so much satisfaction out of immediate consumption that it's a viable trade-off for them. How can we make any statement about how people will be made better or worse off in the absence of these loans?

Which brings me to a general class of comments of which I've become poignantly aware. These are comments of the kind "I would never spend money on ______.", or "That product/service is not worth its price." I fall prey to this kind of thing too, and I usually feel a slight pang of self-loathing when I do; consequently I've become conditioned to stop myself when I feel compelled to say something to this effect. Unfortunately I have an office-mate with unusually astute powers of observation, who happens to remark every time I enter the office with so much as a new pair of socks. I can sit down and begin writing in a recently-purchased $10 bound notebook - a transaction that I find perfectly acceptable as I derive a great deal of satisfaction from having my writing safely secured in pleasant-looking notebooks - and I hear in a disapproving tone a comment like "Is that a new notebook? Those are expensive; I just write in my cheap $2 notebook." As though that was the most socially objectionable $8 someone could spend. And I usually find myself instinctively defending this apparently overly-extravagant purchase, until I catch myself and enter into a rant very much similar to the current exposition.

This is the kind of thing you really can't comment on. If someone is indifferent between a $2 notebook and a $10 notebook, that is a matter of preference and taste; if they find the value of the difference in quality to exceed the cost, that is also a matter of preference. For every thing that person A finds wasteful and not worthwhile in the purchase decisions of person B, it's highly probable that there is something in the spending of person A that person B finds totally useless. Someone who frowns upon the extra $8 in notebook spending every few months may also devote hundreds of dollars a year to haircuts and other hair treatments; I moderately dislike having others cut my hair, and since I mostly just throw it up into a ponytail anyway, I cut it myself. The point is, people spend money on what makes them happy, or at least that's the way it usually goes. You can't argue with that, unless you want to say that they get happiness from the wrong things, and that's just crazy-talk. Maybe serial killers get happiness from the wrong things, I would allow for that. And there are probably a few other examples. But if my $10 notebook makes me happy, or if a new pair of shoes makes you happy, then I think that's pretty innocuous. Materialism and wasteful consumer spending aside, most of us should probably just let preferences be preferences.

tattoo times

I finally dislodged one of those items that had become perpetually situated at the bottom of my mental to-do list. Other pesky, distracting things, associated with adjectives like "important", "necessary", and "not frivolous", always seem to assume higher priority. I've wanted to get a second tattoo after witnessing the magnificent outcome of the first one, but never got around to deciding on a bodily location or design. Came across this one on the interwebs and it won out over my previous alternatives (although I must admit the math lip one is fairly cool, in a really nerdy kind of way) :

adam smith

it's about time

After perusing the weekly Loblaws flyer this morning I have been informed that Toronto area Loblaws stores are now charging 5¢ for plastic bags, and giving away free grocery baskets. Plastic shopping bags are pretty much the scourge of the earth, and other places - like Bangladesh, Nepal, China, Australia, San Franscisco - have already started to ban them entirely. Outright prohibition is a fine idea, but probably not essential. Even a very small tax on the use of plastic bags will cause people to change their behaviour. Because really, it's not very difficult to purchase a few reusable grocery bags or baskets and bring them with you when you go shopping. (That being said, I've accumulated a fairly sizeable stockpile of said bags as a result of buying new ones on days when I forget to bring them... but then again, you can never have too many reusable bags. They're also more awesome because they can hold approximately a million items.)

When Ireland introduced a tax on plastic bags in 2002, within a year their use had decreased by 90%. Similar results occurred when the Ottawa IKEA began charging 5 cents a bag. My mom shops at no frills where they charge you 5¢ a bag, and she always brings her own - for economic/self-interest reasons, not because of environmental concerns. A plastic bag tax makes consumers pay for the hidden costs associated with their use - the litter from the disposal, the pollution and petroleum use incurred from their production, the harm to animals and wildlife, etc.

The campus bookstore at western now uses bioplastic bags, made from renewable plant-based sources like corn and vegetable oil instead of petroleum. They're more biodegradable, but, much like the case with biofuels, they are not a panacea. They rely on plant life (mostly corn) that is usually grown in a very energy-intensive way. It's a step in the right direction, but not something we should feel too comfortable about.



A quick google search for "plastic bags" brought up some interesting things.

1. A nice selection of mostly propoganda from various plastics industries.
   
2. In India, autopsies of mysterious cow deaths found 50-60 plastic bags in their stomachs. So much plastic accumulated that they were unable to digest and absorb the food that they consumed. Granted, maybe there's an element of stupidity involved on the cows' side, but stupid animals need the most love.
3. Canadians take home 55 million shopping bags every week. Globally, half a trillion plastic bags are produced each year. HALF A TRILLION. That is an insanely huge number.

In conclusion, I think a tax/ban on plastic shopping bags would be pretty much the greatest thing since the smoking ban.

Probably not as good as the original

I like how they have to indicate that it is an adult movie, as though the title failed to make that abundantly clear.

The non-beer portion of the alcohol consumed on new year's eve. That empty bottle of vodka in the front was most of the reason I was unable to function for a good 24 hrs after I fell asleep. Also largely responsible for my newfound aversion to all things even remotely damaging to my liver.