I just completed two years at Wellesley. I can’t believe how fast the time has gone by.
There are certain things that you always remember no matter what. One of them is my first Thanksgiving. I had arrived in NY during early September in 1978 to do my graduate work at Hunter College. I knew the exact area where I wanted to do my work, so I had written to Prof David Beveridge there and he had accepted me into his group. So, right from the get go, I was part of his group. He invited the group to his house in Westport. It was barely two months after I arrived here. Deeply homesick and highly suspicious of the so-called vegetarian choices, I joined others for a ride to CT. Prof Beveridge and his wife had cooked up a storm and had plenty of vegetarian choices. We had a good time walking outside the house. Coming from a small basement apartment in Queens, the backyard looked so beautiful and vast! We had a great time, lots of stories and good food. The Turkey (picture on the left is from Wikipedia) looked foreign to me at that time and I took a seat far away from it. I may have nibbled on some of the food, but what I remember is living that evening on delicious apples!
I always say how thankful I am to Prof Beveridge. He is the reason why I came to this country and he has been a true mentor all along. He is the reason why we moved to Wesleyan, which, we consider to be the best move we made. We are still connected to them and meet up for dinners.
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EDUCAUSE is one conference that I have attended for the last several years. I was not happy that this year’s conference was was scheduled to start on Election Day. I went to our home in CT on Tuesday night and watched the results with my wife, who was pretty nervous, while I was not. As I tweeted that night, In NATE SILVER we trust. It was amazing how close his predictions were to the real results. After listening to the concession speech by Mitt Romney, I went to bed around 1:30 PM. I listened to the fantastic acceptance speech by President Obama only later. The reason I had to go to bed was that I needed to leave home by 3:30 AM to catch my flight to Denver, so I can get there on time to attend a good chunk of the conference. I arrived in Denver to 70 degree weather, while leaving the east coast where it was cold and snowy. The electoral college weighted map of the USA (a cartogram where the scaling is based on different criteria, in this case the electoral college votes) from Mark Newman is on your left. For those of us who are election stats junkies, these kinds of representations are real fun.
I enjoyed the conference very well. Connecting with other colleagues and some vendors was very useful, but the presentations were below par, with the exception of the general sessions. While talking to the colleagues, I felt very good about the various things we are doing at Wellesley.
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Can’t wait for next Tuesday. I want all the election commercials to be over. They are mostly lies and misinterpretations and sometimes outright silly, childish and stupid. Whereas the election season helps the the mass media and several local economies in the battleground states, the scale of it (about a billion dollars for presidential election alone) is repulsive. I don’t see this improving. In other words, I don’t see this election bubble bursting any point soon. I will be watching the results on Tuesday night and catching a 5:30 AM flight to Denver to attend the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference. Depending on how close the election is, I may or may not get any sleep Tuesday night. I wonder if any economist has bothered to calculate the productivity loss during the presidential election year.
On the other hand, we know that a ballpark estimate for the cost of Hurricane, SuperStorm or FrankenStorm Sandy (The picture on the left is from: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2012/h2012_Sandy.html) is $20-$60 Billion. It was amazing to watch it unfold on TV. Here is a case where the science is really making a difference – well, up to a point. Knowing about it ahead of time, modeling its path etc. have come a long way and predictions about Sandy were extremely good. This of course helped with the evacuations, cancellations of NY City Subway etc. etc. However, there was nothing anyone could do to reduce or stop the devastation that Sandy caused. The sheer power of nature unfolded right before our eyes and ears and even the politicians took a pause. In NJ, at least for a short moment, it appeared that the NJ Governor, a Republican, and the President came together. Of course, the skeptics see some hidden agenda here.
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I just completed two years at Wellesley. I can’t believe how fast the time has gone by.
