shaky start

The fall quarter at UCLA started on Thursday. That same day, I received an e-mail from John Riley saying essentially that the math boot camp exam diagnosed me as a complete failure in real analysis and recommended that I get some more practice (by staying in the math class). So in addition to taking macro, micro, and econometrics, I have a math class that meets for one hour each week. Needless to say, I was depressed by this. Moreover, I was disappointed in myself. The diagnostic quiz was really easy because it was based entirely on stuff covered during the math boot camp. I just neglected to study optimization in choice over time and lo and behold, one question amounting to 1/3 of the exam was on that. The class really isn't bad though. It has a really relaxed atmosphere and I enjoy Professor Riley's teaching methods. It's also good practice in proofs and such for the more math-intensive economics classes.

So far I've only had proper lectures in micro and macro since the Thursday class of metrics was a syllabus day, and it's cancelled for the current week. In micro we're learning about rational preference and its properties, which is the topic of our first problem set due in a week. This is actually my first graduate school problem set and I'm very excited.

In macro we talked about the history of macroeconomics and how classical economics was destroyed by the Great Depression and how Keynes came up and how his fellowship of Keynesian economists dominated macro until the oil crisis of the 70's, etc. It really impressed on me how important macroeconomics is. Also, this is my first macroeconomics class since my freshman year of college so.. we'll see where my interests lie a year from now.

Yesterday Sam, Allen, Jennie and I went to Koreatown to eat at a restaurant that specialized in tofu soup. Amazing stuff. It's too bad none of us brought a camera because there was so much food impressively served to us. We got the works: unlimited kimchi, a fried fish (which i ate whole except for the head (and including the bones) because I thought that's what you do with fried food but I guess not), a good amount of rice, pickles, some other stuff I don't remember because I'm cooking-illiterate, and a raw egg to put in our boiling tofu soup. The leftover juice from the rice was also scooped out and served to us towards the end of the meal to neutralize the spicy taste of the chili sauce-ridden tofu soup. All for $9 plus tax and tip.

Afterwards, we hit up a nearby Korean supermarket where I bought kimchi, chili sauce, tofu, noodles, and pork loins because I'm trying to learn from Sam how to make kimchi soup. I made some today for lunch, and I'm pretty sure I failed.

So there. I updated my blog. Oh, and it's been a while since I set up my room.. and I still have no pictures. I first need to clean this place up.