Deutsch.

If dinosaurs spoke a language, it would be German.

(Stolen from someone, but so damn true.)

Economics of Procrastination.

I've realized that procrastination makes perfectly rational economic sense. After all, we always discount the future.

Edit: Sadly, there is a flaw in my logic because we're maximizing utility, not leisure. Since utility is a function of consumption and labor, that means the optimal values of labor is not likely to be zero except in very very extreme circumstances that do not exist in real life. Darn.

Kurse

German Bab -- This class singularly responsible for my much improved sleeping habits. Not only do I have 9 am class every single day, but I have 8 am section on Monday mornings. Yay for sleeping early! More than half the class is grad/business/law students, many of whom can already read German, and somehow it didn't quite register with my brain until now that an intensive language course would be intense. Despite feeling stupid most of the time, I still really enjoy it.

Freshman Seminar: The Book from Gutenburg to the Internet -- A seminar. With Darnton. Fucking fantastic. It seems like a lot more work (readings, presentations, 20 pg research paper) than my last seminar, though I'm sure it will be worth it.

Econ 1011b - Does no one in the econ department speak English? One professor is Eastern European, and I can't decide whether he's a big Belorussian teddy bear or ex-KGD operative. The other is French, daffy in a particularly Parisian way. I can imagine him running around l'école Normale Superiore gesticulating wildly and shouting, "Les économiques! Les économiques!" His accent is so thick that I actually understand him better if I think about what he says in French rather than English. Apparently, they also don't really talk to each other because they have no idea what the other one is doing. Grrr. My TF is....just no. All he does is copy the lecture notes or the textbook on the blackboard. I still haven't quite figured out why I'm taking this class - as a badge of honor?

MCB 80 - I hope this class is easy. I hope this class is easy. I hope this class is easy. I hope this class is easy. Yet something tells me neurobiology will not be easy.

Gosh are we full of ourselves.

From The Harvard Crimson, February 8, 2008. "Clinton, McCain Carry Primaries." Front page, lead story.

Super Tuesday was not kind to Harvard graduates.

The presidential ambitions of former Mass. Gov. and dual Harvard degree holder Mitt Romney were hanging by a thread early this morning after his chief rival for the Republican nomination, Senator John McCain of Arizona, racked up big wins in nominating contests on both coasts.

In the race for the Democratic nomination, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York edged Illinois Senator and Law School alumnus Barack Obama in the crucial northeastern states of New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, while also capturing the biggest prize of all: California.

(Meta)physics

"Fate is less a force of nature than a Rube Goldberg device, an endless chain of tricky coincidences whose final result is utterly beyond prediction."