I was looking forward to this coming weekend, when I realized that we have a HW and a quiz on Monday, plus an exam and a 20 page paper due on Tuesday. Now it looks like the weekend will be spent getting intimate with my macro and micro books. Ah, the joys of grad school. So is this blog helping with recruitment? How many potential graduate students out there are looking forward to weekends spent studying? Well, sorry folks, but that's just how it is sometimes. Now that we have 14 hours of class a week, and I'm spending at least 20 hours a week on homework, that really leaves little time for anything else. I guess the super smart kids can get through this work in less time, but, unfortunately, I'm not one of them. (I think I used to be- I miss those days) In addition to those 34 hours, most people in the Master's program spend 10 to 20 hours doing their TA work - either helping with research, or writing and grading tests and homework. Altogether, it really is a full time job. One thing that I've found a bit difficult is that all the classes in this second semester are very heavy on theory. In other words: more math. As nerdy as this sounds, I really miss having a professor spend part of the lecture talking about current affairs, or reading handouts from the Wall Street Journal. I was even tempted to start a class discussion on this article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7046195.stm [1]) in the BBC, about how the US lost a case with the WTO regarding cotton subsidies. Apparently, in this country that insists on the value of free trade, we do not practice what we preach. But what I found to be more interesting than the article itself was the fact that it received almost no attention whatsoever in the US news. The optimist in me wants to believe that this isn't because our news agencies are afraid to publish anything that paints the US in a bad light, but it's hard to come up with another reason for why the ruling received such little attention.
I know this is rather short, but I actually have to get a ton of work done as of yesterday. If anyone has any comments or suggestions, send me an email to kaifilion at gmail.com. I'll try to get comments going at some point, as well. Hope you're enjoying your weekend...