Q: What do you call a Doctor who makes B's and C's in all their classes?

So I've come to the realization, finally, that economics is all about assumptions. Literally, each branch of economics has it's own assumptions that other branches think are wrong, and that's why their branch is "superior." It's really no different with my life outside of school.  I assume my officemates will help me if I get stuck, I assume Spencer will help me when I get stressed, and I assume that I will be able to finish all my homework before it's due. Yea....., I assume a little too much.

I'm not saying all that stuff isn't true, but it's gotten to the point where I feel SUPER lazy because I just assume I can get it done later on down the road. In fact, sometimes I feel like everyone around me is better prepared and works harder, and that I'm just a bum. Oh well. I don't care.

Let me rephrase that, I care about the program, I don't care what other people think about me. If I want to sit in my office and watch an episode of American Pickers while eating a cupcake, I'm going to do it. If I want to watch a movie one night instead of working on group homework that isn't due for another week, that should be fine too. Some people in my program have forgotten what it's like to be human beings with social and entertainment needs. Some people are just go, go, go, all the time, and never realize there are more important things in life then finishing your homework a week and a half early, which honestly, I don't know how they do it.

My mom told me a story once about school, and I'll always remember it; I also think it applies to this situation as well:

Q: What do you call a Doctor who makes B's and C's in all their classes?
A: Doctor

That's going to be my motto from now till I get that piece of paper that says you have to call me Dr. Wooten. I don't care if I failed a test. I don't care if I don't get my homework done till the day before. All that matters at the end of the semester is that I have a 3.0 average. All that matters at the end of this year is that I pass those three core exams. All that matters at the end of the next 3 years is that I come up with a kick-ass research idea. Bust your butt all you want, but at the end of these 4 years, we'll both be called doctors. 

So it's been a While... Part Deux

Yea, so much for that idea of  updating my blog at least once a week =/ Sorry about that. I had the best intentions of doing that, but life just got in the way. If you're reading this because you want to know how my life is going, then, I would suggest talking to me on the phone, or even Facebook, because I would probably like to talk to you as well. I've come to the realization that if it wasn't for Facebook, I wouldn't know about 95% of my "friends." My closest friends, however, I do chat with on a regular basis, so I still know about them, but the rest... I wish I could talk to more.

If I've learned one thing about Grad School, it's how to balance life. Yea, I've learned about Hamiltonians, positive definite matrices, gamma family of distributions, and consumer theory, but those haven't really impacted my day-to-day life. What I've really learned is how to balance my time with school, personal time, friends, and relationships. That's been the biggest challenge for me since moving to Washington. I've always been go, go, go and find time for myself in-between everything else. Only now am I physically saying "No" to work in place of personal time with friends. It's made my life SOOOOOO much better. If you ever feel like you don't have time for friends, then you really do need to just stop everything you're doing and take a break. Trust me, you'll come back to your work more motivated, more productive, and in an overall better mood. I guarantee it.

The Start of Another Night

 

So, tonight is another night of all-night studying, which has become a routine the past few weeks. I think we've all gotten to the point where we read stuff, and we feel like we know this, and we're not sure what's left to learn. Then we look at old tests and wonder why we never learned anything. 

Stats test was yesterday, and to say the least, it was BAD. That's just my analysis, it varies from door to door. Tomorrow is micro and macro, which I feel relatively confident about, but a lot of that has to do with my good grade on my last micro test. We'll see.

Back to the books.

Curious to know what we're working on:

Arrow Debreu Equilibrium

General Equilibrium Theory

Cournot Competition

Stackelberg Competition 

Externalities

Curious about my music selection for the night?
Elvis Presley - Maybelline

Fuzzy Math at Wendy's

So the funny thing about this photo is that they put someone actually paid attention in class. If you're relatively familiar with statistics, you know that 256 should seem a little low. Well, by MY MATH, and someone who did pay attention in math class,

There are 9 different items you can put on a hamburger (mayo, mustard, ketchup, lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions, cheese, and bacon), there are also 3 different size burgers (1, 2, or 3 patties)

That comes out to roughly 1,088,640 assuming you don't do anything crazy like no buns, double buns, ranch, etc.

It seems like Wendy's just did a simple on/off probability, but failed to consider all the different combinations that could be possible.

So It's Been a While...

Yes, it's been a while. A long, long while. A lot has happened, and a lot more hasn't happened. I promise to attempt to update this on a more regular basis. I'll try to mix it up with the following topics, we'll see if this works:

• Random Happenings - You wouldn't believe some of the crazy stuff that happens to me on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes it's not that interesting, but sometimes it's REALLY weird.
• Real-World Econ - So, I am in an econ PhD program, so my life REVOLVES around grad school and economics, which is primarily why I haven't updated this semester. Don't worry though, I'll pick things that are actually interesting
• Cool Findings - So if I try a new recipe or find a comic/site that I like, I'll post it on here so that everyone can see.

To Start:

So, it snows here A LOT! And I like it. I've only seen Texas Snow, which according to certain Northern friends back home, isn't real snow. I now know what they mean. It's really pretty, even though it's almost solid white. Also, it gets VERY cold. I'm actually starting to get annoyed with all the people back home complaining about it being cold. Trust me, people, you don't know what it's like:

 

As far as school goes, we're about done with our first semester, and it was ridiculously hard. Only two more weeks and I get a whole month off to prepare for our summer quals. I may be the only person in our group working on quals during the break, but I've been told that's one of the BEST ways to prepare for them. 

If anyone out there is actually curious about being in an econ grad school, you should DEFINITELY check out the Greg Mankiw blog. It helped me tons:

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/

If you're IN grad school, there's a good letter to first year students about surviving. It's mainly for econ students, but I think it's pretty applicable to a lot of people in their first year of grad school:

http://law.vanderbilt.edu/academics/academic-programs/phd-program-in-law--economics/student-resources/download.aspx?id=3285