The dismal science.
Tuesdays and Thursdays I wake up early, put on a couple pairs of tights, and walk up the street to take the bus downtown to the two (2) econ classes I'm taking as prerequisites in case I somehow actually manage to get into graduate school.
What makes me feel hella old in this situation is not the undergrads wearing leggings as pants, looking at Reddit macros and updating their Twitters in class [although the continued mainstreamization of the internet -- my internet! -- is very weird; last time I was an undergrad we didn't even have wifi ], it's when the professor says something like, "You'll need a clicker for taking quizzes in this class." What the hell is a clicker! I am Rip van Winkle!
It turns out a clicker is like a remote control you can use to send in your answers to a quiz, or a question the professor puts up on the projector. Thank goodness I have a younger brother to explain these things to me. It also turns out they let you pretend you're on a game show! And/or attending Starfleet Academy. Choose your own nerdy daydream.
My micro professor is So! Good! My macro professor is .... so so not. Also I should have taken these before I became such a socialist. Oh, really? The unregulated free market is the ideal system? Might I refer you to... 2007 and 2008?
But anyway. They're pretty fun so far. And my textbooks are written by Paul Krugman, which is awesome.
Afterwards, I walk up through the downtown corridor to work, past the tiny pocket of the area that resembles an actual city in it's offerings. (Vietnamese! Falafel!) There are many good things about Atlanta, but living in a non-pedestrian city continues to be the worstttt. Since I started working downtown, I spend a lot of time stomping around thinking things like New Yorkers would never stand for this! City people would understand why it's barbaric not to have a drugstore within a 15 minute walk of my office, or any decent coffee or lunch options. I am perpetually and hilariously being thwarted in my perfect storm of urban snobbery, coffee snobbery, and Northeasterner time entitlement: if I want coffee in the morning, there's not a single coffee shop on the entire college campus (not even a Starbucks!); the one amazing coffee place in the area involves walking a mile out of my way, which I juuuust have time to do before class if I can do a fast in and out, but it takes FOREVVVER why are people in the south so slow and chatty oh my god. And I can't get there a little earlier, because there's only one bus an hour, even during rush hour. MY INCREDIBLY FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS, let me show you them.
==
Moving on: We have an apartment in Paris!!! Unsurprisingly, it is super hard to rent an apartment from another country, especially for just a few months, especially in a super touristy, expensive city. The search has not been pretty. But we got a super deal on an awesome looking place: it's very small, but almost three times bigger than the other stuff I was finding at similar prices. I like my boyfriend, and I'm so glad I'll be able to continue doing so, since we won't be spending three months living in a 150 square foot studio.
It's in the 15th arrondissement, really great for his commute out of the city to HEC, but still reasonably close to the center of the city. And it's a sixth floor walk up, which will be fun, ha. (Also it's near Le Cordon Bleu, so I'll be able to pretend I'm Julia Child, a la her super delightful autobiography My Life in France.) This is what it looks like! So French! Man, I hope it doesn't fall through!
I found it through the super awesome website airbnb, which is kind of a mix between Couchsurfing and those home swap sites. It lets people rent out their houses/rooms/whatever, and there's a review system so you know they're above board, and the site acts as a go-between, so you don't get scammed out of money if anything goes wrong. I want to use it a ton when I travel now: cheaper than hotels, but nicer than hostels! If you think you might use it, you can get a $25 credit by signing up through this link.
So, hooray. I've developed the truly awful habit of taking anything happy or exciting and immediately turning it into something to be anxious about, so hopefully having this squared away will tone that down a lot.
Two completely random facts for you:
- In French, the word for anthrax is the same as the word for charcoal. (charbon!)
- Sunday was Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday; Tuesday was Elizabeth Bishop's. How can they possibly have been born two days apart? Don't they seem like they're from different centuries? Don't you wish our 40th President had been Elizabeth B??
Other things, for posterity: it's February, I'm obsessed with americanos and Ursula LeGuin, I have no unanswered emails in my inbox, for the first time in a year(!!!). I ordered a light therapy lamp, which I probably should have done five years ago, and in a cruelly ironic twist it's a week late getting here because of snowstorms. At this week's Super Bowl party, I realized in the middle of a conversation that no one there knew what Truck Day was, or Pitchers & Catchers, and it made me maybe more homesick for Boston than anything yet.
What makes me feel hella old in this situation is not the undergrads wearing leggings as pants, looking at Reddit macros and updating their Twitters in class [although the continued mainstreamization of the internet -- my internet! -- is very weird; last time I was an undergrad we didn't even have wifi ], it's when the professor says something like, "You'll need a clicker for taking quizzes in this class." What the hell is a clicker! I am Rip van Winkle!
It turns out a clicker is like a remote control you can use to send in your answers to a quiz, or a question the professor puts up on the projector. Thank goodness I have a younger brother to explain these things to me. It also turns out they let you pretend you're on a game show! And/or attending Starfleet Academy. Choose your own nerdy daydream.
My micro professor is So! Good! My macro professor is .... so so not. Also I should have taken these before I became such a socialist. Oh, really? The unregulated free market is the ideal system? Might I refer you to... 2007 and 2008?
But anyway. They're pretty fun so far. And my textbooks are written by Paul Krugman, which is awesome.
Afterwards, I walk up through the downtown corridor to work, past the tiny pocket of the area that resembles an actual city in it's offerings. (Vietnamese! Falafel!) There are many good things about Atlanta, but living in a non-pedestrian city continues to be the worstttt. Since I started working downtown, I spend a lot of time stomping around thinking things like New Yorkers would never stand for this! City people would understand why it's barbaric not to have a drugstore within a 15 minute walk of my office, or any decent coffee or lunch options. I am perpetually and hilariously being thwarted in my perfect storm of urban snobbery, coffee snobbery, and Northeasterner time entitlement: if I want coffee in the morning, there's not a single coffee shop on the entire college campus (not even a Starbucks!); the one amazing coffee place in the area involves walking a mile out of my way, which I juuuust have time to do before class if I can do a fast in and out, but it takes FOREVVVER why are people in the south so slow and chatty oh my god. And I can't get there a little earlier, because there's only one bus an hour, even during rush hour. MY INCREDIBLY FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS, let me show you them.
==
Moving on: We have an apartment in Paris!!! Unsurprisingly, it is super hard to rent an apartment from another country, especially for just a few months, especially in a super touristy, expensive city. The search has not been pretty. But we got a super deal on an awesome looking place: it's very small, but almost three times bigger than the other stuff I was finding at similar prices. I like my boyfriend, and I'm so glad I'll be able to continue doing so, since we won't be spending three months living in a 150 square foot studio.
It's in the 15th arrondissement, really great for his commute out of the city to HEC, but still reasonably close to the center of the city. And it's a sixth floor walk up, which will be fun, ha. (Also it's near Le Cordon Bleu, so I'll be able to pretend I'm Julia Child, a la her super delightful autobiography My Life in France.) This is what it looks like! So French! Man, I hope it doesn't fall through!
I found it through the super awesome website airbnb, which is kind of a mix between Couchsurfing and those home swap sites. It lets people rent out their houses/rooms/whatever, and there's a review system so you know they're above board, and the site acts as a go-between, so you don't get scammed out of money if anything goes wrong. I want to use it a ton when I travel now: cheaper than hotels, but nicer than hostels! If you think you might use it, you can get a $25 credit by signing up through this link.
So, hooray. I've developed the truly awful habit of taking anything happy or exciting and immediately turning it into something to be anxious about, so hopefully having this squared away will tone that down a lot.
Two completely random facts for you:
- In French, the word for anthrax is the same as the word for charcoal. (charbon!)
- Sunday was Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday; Tuesday was Elizabeth Bishop's. How can they possibly have been born two days apart? Don't they seem like they're from different centuries? Don't you wish our 40th President had been Elizabeth B??
Other things, for posterity: it's February, I'm obsessed with americanos and Ursula LeGuin, I have no unanswered emails in my inbox, for the first time in a year(!!!). I ordered a light therapy lamp, which I probably should have done five years ago, and in a cruelly ironic twist it's a week late getting here because of snowstorms. At this week's Super Bowl party, I realized in the middle of a conversation that no one there knew what Truck Day was, or Pitchers & Catchers, and it made me maybe more homesick for Boston than anything yet.