Horrible Day

I was having a bad day yesterday. They happen.

The class I am teaching is going really well. There are some things I would want to change the next time I teach it. There are stupid comments I've made that I would love to have back. But, these are small things and I assume everyone who has ever taught has these issues every time they teach.

The stress of the class is coming from the athletes. I am outright terrified of failing them. I hem and I haw about accepting their tardiness and lack of effort. It has had me bunched up knots and yesterday I cracked.

But the point is the silly status message I posted on Facebook:

Richard is having a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day. He thinks he'll move to Australia.

And the number of comments and wall posts I've gotten are more than I've ever received. There is something that resonates about that simple childhood story. A guy from high school said I needed a purple yo-yo. A friend from college said she hates lima beans too. In bits and chunks we all remember the book and somehow that connects us.

It is strangely touching.

I am thinking of adding a shelf of children's books to my office collection.

Moving on up

Even though I took possession of the keys after closing on Friday, I hadn't moved into the new condo until Monday. For those who will one day purchase property: make sure you plan ahead by calling the power, water and gas companies to turn on these services the day you close! I could get in, but I couldn't turn on a light, put anything in the refrigerator, or take a hot shower. As a result, much of the weekend was spent just moving boxes from one residence to another.

Everything was up and running by Monday afternoon, so last night (after buying a huge ass TV, then watching the Packers game at the bar down the street) I settle in for my first night as a homeowner.

I'm cheap, so I avoid turning on the AC at all costs. I figure, I live in Texas, I should just get used to sweat. Really though, at night it cools down to a reasonable temperature in the 70's. With a ceiling fan, you are in decent shape.

I opened up one of the floor to ceiling windows downstairs in the living room, laid out one sheet and used another sheet as a blanket. I had a lot on my mind and wasn't surprised by a lack of sleep.

I was surprised at 4 in the morning when the fucking sprinklers turned on and I was shot in the face by a torrent of water. Cooling? Yes. Invited? No. I scrambled to shut the window and tried again up stairs in the actual bedroom that does not yet have bed (Thursday, I'm told).

My idea of have the TV anywhere near the windows also goes out the window as one night I am bound to get drunk and forget to shut it before going to bed. That would be a massive FAIL in the morning.

I didn't think this REALLY happened

here is an email exchange during the first week of teaching:

To my TA:

I am the mother of one of the students in the AGEC class, xxxxxxx. My work email is on xxxxxx profile at the university and you have sent the email to me instead of xxxxxx. But while I have your attention, I would like for you to know that I have spent every evening on the phone with xxxxxx because of the lack of teaching in the classroom for this subject. xxxxxx is so STRESSED out he is doubting himself. xxxxxx can not simply read and do something when it comes to a "math" based subject. He is DYSLEXIC! Because of the class xxxxx is doubting himself and the fact that if he should be at College Station. xxxxxx left the Galveston campus with a 3.03 GPA, he is very intelligent and a very responsible person but just learns in a very different way. The Aggie Pride and Respect in diminishing very rapidly in my eyes, I thought everyone up there cared about their fellow student and classmate. I work with seven former Aggie and they tell me all these wonderful things about when they were at College Station, I have yet to see it with my own eyes and hear it with my own ears. I would rather you did not say anything to xxxxx about me sending you this email, but I am sure you will. Please answer this question for me, when is the teaching in class prior to a homework subject going to begin? I know that you or any other professor or TA is not there to hold his hand but you are there to teach. Am I not right?

My TA's response:

I cannot control who the messages go out to. I send an email to administration and they send it out to those who are registered for the course. If yours is the address they have on file for XXXXXXX, I'm afraid you will continue to get emails for the course. I would suggest that you either block these or contact the University.
If your son has a learning disability he should speak to the professor so as to get any special allowances he is due. I know nothing of such policies. I am only the TA.
As far as the homework goes. Yes, Professor Dunn assigns homework before he teaches the subject. This is simply to encourage students to read and think about the subject before he teaches it so that they're more receptive to each lecture. This does cause the homework to be more difficult for students and emphasizes reading. However, the grading is basically credit/no credit. If they made a valid attempt to answer all questions they receive full credit. If your student is struggling with the problems that is normal. There is no reason to stress out about them. If he tries, he will get credit.
I hope this alleviates your concerns,

But this just got her going....

This does not alleviates my concerns. The teaching methods in this subject seems to be done backwards. Why are you and the Professor stress xxxxxx and possibly other students out, that is uncalled for. Teach the topic first, do the homework for reinforcement and then answer any questions they may have after the homework is done. Not assign homework and then do the topic, how is that conducive to learning? I understand that you or any other professors are not there to hold a student's hand. But, you are not there to create an environment that is not conducive to learning, you are there to create an environment comfortable for a student to want to learn and to be excited about learning and this is not the case. I am attending XXX and I have never had a professor or TA that has created an environment like what is going on up there now. xxxxxx has not spoke with the professor or you because he is to nervous to come speak with ya'll, why is that. I just do not understand the theory in your's or the professor's teaching methods. When you create havoc prior to an homework assignment the student is not going to learn anything. Some student need more from a professor than just read the material and then do the homework, they need to be shown examples about the topic with the book as a reference source!

This is when the TA gave up [ed. he should have never tried] and forwarded everything to me. Can you believe it. After two classes (1 homework assignment!) this hits me. I emailed back explaining my pedagogical perspective and was relieved to get this:

No worries at this point. XXXXXXX has dropped your class and will take AG Economics some other time. I still do not agree with your teaching methods especially with a student that has a learning disability like Dyslexia, as XXXX does. There is no way he was able to begin to do the homework and make an attempt on it because he was lost without explanation of the information. I am getting the impression that you are not willing to work with learning disabled students. Have a nice semester. Oh, by the way you do have students in your class that do not plan on being an "economist." XXXXXXX goal is to become a Texas Parks and Wildlife Game Warden!

There are so many possible responses to this encounter. I am getting old. I recognize this because my immediate reaction was to actually try and understand this woman. Her child has a disability. She may have raised him as a single mother, struggling to get a mostly broken education system to provide her son the necessary tools to succeed later in life. I suppose if you've had to do this for 20 years, her reaction is borderline instinctive.

But, my understanding only goes so far. She never offered a workable alternative. Instead, she wasted time insulting me and providing her own asinine teaching philosophy (great, your son doesn't want to be an economist, but does his English professor teach him how to take care of deer in his Victorian Lit class?) Despite her best intentions, I think she is undermining her son who is too scared to talk to me in person.

I honestly empathize with this woman. But, another part of me just wants to tell her to go fuck herself.

I'm back

There has been so much going on this past month-so much that I could blog about-that I didn't have the time or motivation to post.

But, I have an hour before class and no good ideas on how to repair my fantasy football season (at least I didn't draft Tom Brady). Time to blog.

Since August, I've been to my first football game at Kyle Field, headed back to New York for my 10 year high school reunion, taught my first class, went to my first economics department seminar, met some great folks at the new faculty orientation, bought my first house and spent an afternoon flipping through fabric samples. There's lots to say about all of this, but that will come. Promise...because I take my responsibility of helping you procrastinate very seriously.

McAllen,III

Just finish the dad gum trip to McAllen and move on!

Ok. Ok. I heard ya, already!

The trip back to College Station was much as I expected: a stop at a farm-stand for watermelon; a stop at an ag corporation to network with alums; and a stop just north of Corpus Chirsti for lunch.

The Gulf of Mexico is a wonderful turquoise blue...and cloudier than all get out. Apparently, this is the cost of all the refining that takes place along the Texas coast from Port Author to Corpus. It certainly doesn't have the salty sweet smell of the North Atlantic, but I would have jumped in given the chance.

We ate on the second floor of dockside restaurant and it was cool to watch the brown pelicans and great blue heron and white egrets land on the boats moored in the harbor with a mound of fresh local crab meat sitting in front of me.

The big destination for the afternoon was a rice farm to see harvest. All the images I have of rice farming come from Vietnam War movies. I was informed that the flooded fields of Southeast Asia depend on lots of manual labor. The flooding is actually a weed control measure. But, the rice can't be submerged, so it is germinated separately and then planted when it is tall enough to rise above the water line.

In developed countries, we use herbicides first, plant the rice in dry fields, and then slowly increase the water level as the rice grows. To harvest the rice, the field is drained and then they wait for a rainless period. That's when the combines go to work. And these mo-fo's are big.
Each combine has a huge cylinder in front called the header, that cuts the crop and then sends it through the thresher, where the grain is separated from the stalk. As the header spins, insects and rodents that were living in the fields become exposed...and thus dinner for these guys:
They are cattle egret and they just follow along the side of the combine waiting for meals. I saw two mice swallowed in one gulp, but mostly they are looking for grasshoppers and stick bugs. Up close, they look like:
The coolest part was I got to see the whole process from inside the combine:
And after the combine is full, the grain is shot into a dump truck:
Pretty cool, really.

Then we went to Dairy Queen for a Blizzard. The End.

Something new

So far, the blog has been a running review of my life in Texas. I suspect more interesting stories will develop as I begin teaching, but I hope it will be more than that.

To that end, I found this article in the Wisconsin State Journal about the history of the Arboretum and it's current challenges really interesting.

http://www.madison.com/wsj/topstories/299958

McAllen, II

I know, it's been over a week since my last post. I'm turning into Spearot. Really though, most anyone who reads this thing lives in Madison and they could enjoy the chicanery in real-time.

In the interest of maintaining a semblance of chronology, I want to finish up the trip to South Texas, but congrats to everyone who finally passed their prelims. Did we mention the hard part of graduate school starts now?

The purpose of the trip to McAllen was an on-going project studying Arundo donax. For those not familiar with this most fascinating of plants, it's like sugar cane, but bigger. Much bigger.

It can grow up to 30 feet high and sucks up a ridiculous amount of water. As far as I know, it can't be smoked. For agricultural regions like the Rio Grande Valley, water is a valuable resource and they want this bad mo-fu out. In it's defense, it grows so quickly that some think it will make an amazing bio-fuel.

Anyway, we started the day by driving out to a USDA lab on an old Air Force base. After getting past the dudes with guns (ok, they let us through after verifying our identity), we entered the lab.

First lesson learned: we need to spend less on war and bullshit anti-terrorism campaigns and much more on scientific research.

Our tour necessitated white lab coats and booties. I suppose this protects the labs from other organisms we might track it, but I can't be sure. Nevertheless, I learned loads about A. donax.

Second lesson learned: lunch is more interesting than most research.

Yes, lunch was had at the stockyard, where the cattle auctioned on Thursday mornings. It certainly had ambiance. And the sweetest middle-aged watiress:

Us: "What are the specials?"
Her (as fast as possible): "X, Y, Z. You ready to order now?"

Under duress, I turned to the reliable cheeseburger. This was roundly criticized and I was pushed into ordering my first chicken fried steak. They say everything is bigger in Texas. Since it appears some people live beyond 35, this so-called everything must include arteries. It definitely includes asses.

Deep fried death was followed by a meeting with another health economist at Texas-Pan American and then a stroll around Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. Santa Ana is really a remarkable birding ground, with species you just don't see anywhere else in the country, including this guy: Couch's Kingbird

I also saw a grooved-billed Ani and heard a bunch of other birds, but was mostly distracted by the swarming mosquitoes and deet-laced sweat pouring down my body. I eventually hacked my way back to the parking lot and we headed toward Nuevo Progresso, Mexico for dinner.

This was very exciting since it would be my first time in Mexico. Duck-butter or no duck-butter, that's a pretty big deal. In fact, I've been on 3 continents (North America, Europe, Africa) and this was the farthest south I had ever been. We parked before the bridge and then walked over the Rio Grande across the border.

It is obviously an area that caters to day-tripping American's and thus was similar to parts of Morocco I've seen. Cheeseburger was not on the menu so I again deferred to my colleagues. This resulted in frog legs and quail. The quail was tasty, but the frog legs were way too salty. Bananas Foster's flambeed table side more than made up for it, however.

Our short trip ended with a requisite stop at the duty-free liquor store. And since my driver's license still says Wisconsin, I was entitled to 4 times more booze.

McAllen, I

The night before departing, it became apparent that I needed to do laundry when only 1 pair of clean underwear remained. I was not convinced my traveling companions would be impressed by a request to stop at a Wal-Mart along to way to pick up some drawers.

I suspected that something would go awry with the washing machine.

I was not disappointed: the darn thing would crap out half-way through the wash cycle. Thankfully, Rich Woodward came to the rescue, letting me do a load at his place. He also cooked dinner and provided beer. He's my hero.

As I was packing in the morning, I decided that I did not have a sufficient number of casual shirts for the journey. This necessitated a quick diversion to Wal-Mart at 6am. I thought a TAMU polo would be a nice addition for trips like this. And they certainly had a wide selection...all sized for wide people. I settled for generic orange.

The ride down was as close to heaven as a man can get. First stop was a Czech butcher shop for kolaches, a sausage stuffed pastry.

By 930, we were stopping in Shulenberg for chocolate merengue pie, fresh out of the oven.

How does this possibly get better? Oh, I'll tell you how: BEER.

We stopped in Shiner for a brief look at the Spoetzl Brewery, home of Shiner Bock. Tours weren't running until 11, so I just enjoy a tasting...or 3.

Mathis was the location for BBQ lunch and we finally landed in McAllen at 4.

Our hotel has a neat amenity: a complementary happy hour. More precisely, all you can drink for 2 hours at a cost of zero. Several bourbon and cokes later, we went to dinner and definitely had the best Mexican food I've ever had.

Today was the work day...more about that later.

Productivity

Richard, I'd like you to meet productivity. Productivity, meet Richard.

I thought I would start this week off with a change...waking up before 10.

Truth be told, I usually wake up before 1o. Heck, I usually wake up before 6. Last week, I just succumbed to every mopey impulse to roll over and go back to sleep.

But not today. No sir. I forced myself out of bed before 7 and that, my septuagenarian friends, was the secret to productivity.

I breezed through my Solow powerpoints before lunch. I deposited money into my checking account. I went out for lunch in 100 degree heat. And by 5, I was done revising my job market paper to be sent off for publication. Once that thing is off my desk, I will be a much happier person...at least until the rejection letter comes.

What? California doesn't have a budget yet, you say? No problem, I'll have it done by 7.

What? Israel and Palestine don't have a peace agreement? No problem, that's what the 7-8 hour is for.

What? Our President can't add past 18 because he runs out of fingers and toes and always forgets the little ones? No problem, I have plenty of time to make up flashcards.

Oh wait, you need to drill concrete under my office. And you are going to make how much noise? Gotcha.

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

Shitty Sports Day

These things happen, but today was the shittiest of sports days.

First, Matt Kenseth started 10th at the Brickyard. Unfortunately, Goodyear does not make a tire than can handle the track, so NASCAR had to jump in with cautions every 10 to 12 laps to make sure tires wouldn't explode. They weren't fast enough and Kenseth annihilated the back right of his car when his right rear tire went off like a bomb.

It's his own fault, though: he felt it going two laps earlier, but held off pitting until the scheduled caution. Oopsie! This gets filed under: "when you have the craps, don't try to fart."

While the Brickyard was ruined, the Cubs were down 5-0 to Florida and the Crew were up 4-1 on the Astros at home. So the day wasn't a total loss. Yet.

A 7 run 5th inning put an end to Milwaukee's chances and the god-damned fucking Cubs (hereafter GDF Cubs) came back to win 9-6. And there goes the tie for first.

The next 4 days will either be a wonderful ride to the division lead or a swift kick to my privates as the GDF Cubs are up to Miller for a 4 game series. In Sabathia we trust.

That was something

Yesterday afternoon was spent at Ed Rister's house eating BBQ from a place called Snow's in Lexington, supposedly the best in Texas.

Along with spelling his name wrong in an earlier post, I also totally mussed the background for the BBQ. One of his research assistants is finishing his Masters at TAMU and entering the Ph.D. program at Oklahoma State. The whole event was a big send-off/good-natured roast with all the faculty that advised him. Imagine that happening at Wisconsin. That's what I thought.

Big bonus: Ed's wife made up a plate to take home and is waiting in the fridge as I type.

Yesterday, was also the first day in BCS that I wasn't in the office. It was well-deserved, but not without guilt. I still wrote up a lecture at home.

Planning this intro class is becoming difficult. It is supposed to cover both micro and macro and trade with applications to agricultural economics. Besides the obvious difficulty of not knowing anything about agricultural economics, I dislike cramming macro and micro together.

Micro has obvious theoretical foundations that you simplify, but macro can get downright wrong really quickly. So, what's the point of teaching things which have to be untaught later? Worse, what if people walk away never unlearning.

Of course, I should be happy they learn anything, right or wrong.

But, I don't really teach for what the students learn. I actually enjoy being up there; they just happen to be the audience. And I prefer a good script.

The challenge is really being coherent: how do I tie everything I do back to just a production function, a budget constraint and an indifference curve. Obviously, most of undergraduate macro gets tossed by this criterion. Thus far, they have seen a Robinson Crusoe economy and the two period savings problem. I am just about to do the Solow model. I think everything else will have to be trade--money and inflation be damned.

Give me something. Anything.

I knew this was going to happen sooner rather than later.

It took 23 days, which is better than I had anticipated.

I'm going stir crazy.

Part of it is lack of sleep, or rather, good sleep. I am incredibly thankful to Douglass Shaw for letting me rent his place while I was searching for a permanent residence, but I desperately need to get to closing and move into my condo. I need a real bed. I am currently sleeping on a single mattress that shifts over the course of the night as I twist and turn looking for some position that approximates comfortable.

After watching the Cards-Brewers game Monday night, I tried to get into bed and fell out because the damn thing is so narrow. I ended up just sleeping on the floor.

OK, fine. This probably had more to do with the beer consumption than the size of the mattress, but I am fairly certain I would have maintained my balance on a Queen.

I wake up exhausted and go through the day exhausted. I exhibit zero productivity, but fake it at the office until 5 or 6. I grudgingly make dinner and pass out around 8. Of course, I don't make it through till morning and I'm up again at 12. You obviously know what happens from here, waking up and falling asleep in 15 minute intervals until morning rolls back around. Lather, rinse, repeat.

But lack of sleep is only part of it. There is nothing to do but wake up and go to the office. That is getting depressing. I am actually looking forward to teaching just to do something different. And that my friends, is clearly the crazy talking.

I need to find something to do. Some activity, ideally involving other people. I feel like I've put myself in a holding pattern until I move into my own place since I have a trip to McAllen, then Madison and then New York coming up: 16 if the next 33 days aren't in BCS (Bryan-College Station). But I need to act. Sooner rather than later.

You're shitting me, right?

Really though, this weather is just ridiculous.

Fri
Jul 25

Mostly Cloudy

96°
72°

Sat
Jul 26

Partly Cloudy

98°
72°

Sun
Jul 27

Partly Cloudy

98°
73°

Mon
Jul 28

Mostly Sunny

98°
73°

Tue
Jul 29

Partly Cloudy

98°
73°

Wed
Jul 30

Partly Cloudy

98°
73°

Too fast for me

Offices in the Blocker Building where I work are set up as suites. They are all variations on a theme, but here is a description of mine:

When you enter off the hallway, there is an office for a student worker or a secretary and then three adjoining offices. The front office is shared by three graduate students and then two back offices are for professors.

I sense that these were originally classrooms, with offices later squeezed in because the side walls do not extend out to the windows. Instead, the windows fully extend across the west wall. As a result, where the walls meet the windows, my office is only separated from Wade Griffin's office by a thin sheet of aluminum. This obviously means sound carries through. So, when he is in the office, I generally don't have music playing.

If music isn't playing, there really isn't much need to close the doors. This fact has led to a couple of graduate students coming in to chat. Wednesday of last week, I was talking with a grad student about his interest in health economics and some of his research ideas. He seemed mostly concerned about efficiency issues so I directed him to the Rand Health Insurance Experiment and the papers written by Newhouse, Manning, Keeler, et al.

And while I'm explaining the basic results to the graduate student, Ed Reister knocks on the door, introduces himself and asks if we've met before.

In fact, he was one of the professors at dinner when I interviewed here.

The market is a whirlwind for both sides, so I wouldn't begrudge anybody who didn't remember me. I begin to explain that we had met at that dinner. Before I can finish, he throws out a few staccato Yes's and then invites me to dinner at his place Friday night. As my social planner is fairly barren, I agree. Just as quickly as he entered, he's is out of my office, his voice trailing off about send an email with directions.

Ed Reister, the most unlikely whirling Dervish I've met.

Two days later, after getting lost several times, I find his house south of town. He has invited three other younger faculty members and a graduate student that he advises. Dinner is really relaxing. They indulge my talk of Madison and rejoin with stories of their graduate school days in East Lansing. One of the other faculty members did his graduate work at Ohio State, so it is quite a nice Big Ten showing.

Again, lots of talk about things to do in College Station and across Texas. And just as suddenly as I was invited to dinner, Ed is asking if I've ever been to McAllen.

McAllen is about 5 miles north of the Mexican border and about 40 miles from South Padre Island. It is also one of the premier birding locations in the world. I keep trying to figure out when and how I will make it down there.

And just like that, he invited me to head down to McAllen with him at the end of the month. He even had his secretary set up my hotel reservation. Pretty neat, huh?

Well, I planned on sending a nice thank you email on following Monday to Ed and his wife. Before I got the chance, he had already sent one to me. It was an invite to a BBQ that they are holding for recent graduate who is taking a position at Oklahoma State. Apparently it is being catered by the best BBQ join in Texas (Sorry Melissa, not the Salt Lick).

The point is, the hospitality of my colleagues is simply too fast for me to keep up.

Potluck

Back in Wisconsin, the news that I was moving to Texas was greeted in either of two ways: excitement or revulsion.

To some, Texas is another country. Cowboys and bar-be-que and wide open spaces. For many a shivering Northerner, it also promises lots of heat.

To others, Texas is another country. Rednecks and pick-up trucks and people that vote for George Bush. For many a skiing Northerner, it also promises lots of sweating.

But, I was excited to move.

I would consider Madison my first real home. It was the first place I chose to live. At several points, when life or graduate school or both looked bleak, it was the place I chose to stay.

It was also a place where I finally grew up, an immeasurably fun, but often painful process. It was a place of lessons learned.

And as my last year at UW progressed, I increasingly came to feel that as the place of lessons learned, it was impossible for Madison to be the place of lessons practiced. Regardless of where I eventually landed, it would exciting to start over, hopefully with a lot more wisdom.

That's not to say all landing spots are equal. Chicago. Minneapolis. Boulder. New Orleans. Portland. Heck, even Austin.

Objectively, this place sucks. It is suburban sprawl personified. There are no real neighborhoods. There are defined areas that vary by housing type and the wealth of residents, but you'd never apply the terms: artsy, yuppie, blue-collar, alternative, gritty, gay, etc. Instead you have: rich or poor; old or new; black or white; and because this is a college town, student or non-student. It is essentially Long Island without any of the quaint downtowns like Huntington, Northport or Port Jefferson. For Sconnies, I live in a very large version of Middleton.

What has been pleasantly surprising, however, is how friendly my colleagues are. Knowing I was new to town, Rich Woodward invited me to his house last night for the monthly Brazos Progressives potluck to meet some people outside the department. After the sun went down, it was bearable to sit outside and trade stories of previous places lived and things to do in Aggieland. It's a start, you know.

Someone even brought a six pack of Leine's.

Introducing

I live in Texas now.

I just went to contract on a condo, so it's official and there's no going back--at least no going back without forfeiting a load of cash.

I can't say that I've seen much of Texas, and just looking at a map, there's plenty to see.

I live, temporarily, in Bryan. I purchase everything I need at the Wal-mart.

I work, for the foreseeable future, in College Station.

And that's about all I know: Wal-mart and my office building.

This is my life:

I used to live in Madison. I had many friends and we did many fun things. I could not have used Microsoft Paint to diagram my life in Madison.

Thus far, moving to Texas has been a step down.

With all this added time before the semester starts, I have decided to have a blog.

I originally planned to use this time playing more video games, but I injured my thumb in a freak Wii accident.

I could take up an outside activity, but sweating- your-ass-off-for-no-good-reason has yet to make the roster of Olympic events.

Also, I am afraid to get caught looking at porn on my office computer.

This leaves blogging, at least until I get an internet connection at home.

That's right folks. I live in Texas. Really.