I read this in a New York Times article about how the narrowing longevity gap between men and women is a much better deal for men. I found this quote particularly hilarious.

Recent studies have shown that among husbands and wives who both work, the woman still does the much larger share of the housework. As one Connecticut woman in her 70’s was heard to retort recently when her husband asked if they were ready to move to an assisted-living facility, “You’ve had assisted living for 40 years.”

Listening to:

Borrowed Heaven - The Corrs
08 – Even If

It’s been a while since I’ve indulged in my love for my Behavioral Economics professor’s quotes, so here’s a little something.

About procrastination:

If you’re at all a normally-built human being, you’ve experienced that.

It’s not just little experiments with little undergrads, it happens with real people too.

Choosing between $15 today and $X in 10 years’ time:

Prof: Do you have an intuition for what amount for X would make you indifferent between the two?
Student 1: A thousand dollars? Maybe more…
Prof: Ok, we need to talk.
…
Prof: Does anyone else have an intuitive sense of what X should be?
Student 2: A geometric sequence with 10 terms…
Prof: That’s not what I call an intuition that your heart tells you.

Why you should never walk in late for lectures:

Student 3: Can I ask a question about the math?
Student 3: [Proceeds to ask question about the functional form he sees on the board]
Prof: That’s because you missed the first 40 minutes of class.

On the stigma of collecting welfare:

You have to go to the welfare office. It’s humiliating, and you’re surrounded by bizarre people.

Some psychologists and economists devised a 3 question “IQ Test.”
He shows us the questions and tries to make us mentally take the test.

Pay attention now, because if you miss this, you could be really traumatized.

Not surprisingly, some people answer more questions correctly than others.

33 percent of people could get none of the questions right. I want to sell those people loaded mutual funds with high fees.

Half of MIT students surveyed got all 3 questions correct, while only 20% for Harvard students surveyed did the same.

By this measure, MIT is better than Harvard by more than a factor of 100%.

Ok, I think that’s enough for today. *Yawn* It’s bedtime for Amy.

Remember high school Prom? Well, it’s come back to torture me, this time in the ever-so-slightly altered guise of the college “Senior Ball.” Firstly, I find it incredibly amusing that our theme is the name of a song about a one night stand, that masquarades as a love song. I remember thinking in high school that it would make an amusing Prom theme, and now all my hopes and dreams have come true, just four years too late.

Then, there’s the whole tables issue. Who would have thought it would be so difficult to get a table of ten individuals, where at least half of whom were seniors? But it’s become glaringly obvious that this is not a trivial matter. Thus, I conclude that I must either 1) have no friends in the class of 2006, or 2) have no reasonable, non-loser friends in my own class, because all the ‘06ers I know think they’re too cool to go to some formal that’s not in a palace. *sigh*

By the way, it’s not easy to find a nice, semi-comfortable pair of silver shoes with more than a 3 inch heel. And please, I beg you to hold off on the stripper shoes comments. If I receive one more link (from a supposedly helpful friend) pointing to an “exotic dancer accessories store,” I think my head just might explode.

Listening to:

Borrowed Heaven - The Corrs
07 – Humdrum

So a long weekend has passed without much ado, really. I went to hang out with Hank yesterday and we watched The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and Leslie’s completely right. The weird split screens gave me a headache. Thankfully, they stopped after a while, but strangely, I still didn’t find that the movie improved much afterwards. It was just amazing that the 1999 version lifted some scenes directly, but did it so much better that the original paled in comparison. But as Leslie reminds me, we wouldn’t have the new version if the old one hadn’t been made. So I must still thank Steve McQueen even though for someone who was supposedly in his mid-thirties, he had some serious skin issues. That’s right kids, don’t be a chain smoker! It makes you turn out to be less hot than Pierce Brosnan.

But the funny thing about the whole experience was that afterwards, when Hank and I were having ice cream in Davis Square, I ran into these two girls (independently) who used to live in German House with me, and I hadn’t seen Laura or Adora for ages. Apparently Davis is where all the former DHers hang out. How does that happen?

Oh, so here’s the other funny thing. I was invited to talk to freshmen about choosing their major, but someone thought it would be a brilliant idea to have me represent the Biology department. Firstly, I have this tendency to sound really bitter about the whole choosing a major thing. Frankly, sometimes I just think that I don’t really believe in majors. Secondly, I like to dissuade freshmen from choosing the default EECS major, but I was standing at the same table as all the EECS majors, so that didn’t go over too well. While I wasn’t scaring away the freshmen or annoying the Course 6ers, I did get a chance to eat some yummy waffles and ice cream though.

Listening to:

Smash – Offspring
07 – Come Out and Play

Last night, it was a good friend’s 21st birthday. Everyone who knows this boy knows that he’d touched about two drops of alcohol in his entire life. So, it was our friendly responsibility to get him reasonably drunk on this special occasion. Our plans somehow went from going out, to having a small get-together in my room.

Therefore, I employed the services of one of my favorite alcoholics, who proceeded to come prepared, by which I mean he showed up having already consumed probably a full liter of pure alcohol beforehand. Said alcoholic did his job in getting everyone drunk, including himself, and I was reminded once more of why I don’t drink and never should.

So, with respect to my overall goal of improving myself by resisting temptation… I don’t know how much progress I’ve made, really. I managed to resist the chocolate ice cream cake, only to yield to much more poisonous substances.

Listening to:

Fumbling Towards Ecstasy – Sarah McLachlan
01 – Possession

Note to self: Do not accidentally post email address on Orkut profile to be accessible to scary people who won’t even try to make their messages vaguely readable. Just why?

waana b a my friend hum………………
coz i love 2 cre8 more n more friends
so what u think abt it
plz……. replay 2 me i m waiting 4 ur ans….
i add u in my orkut-friend list
so if u being my friend then acpt ok…

So, on Friday, I was reminded that I don’t particularly enjoy it when random strangers touch me rather inappropriately in public. Thankfully, Hank makes an impressively good bodyguard and my sense of violation was kept relatively low.

On an unrelated note, my lovely high school keeps sending me these letters asking me to donate, trying to give us the guilt trip saying, “Only 3% of our class donated last year…” I wonder if it ever occurred to them that probably only 3% of the members of my high school graduating class happened to be anywhere near positive net worth last year. Coincidence?

Now, studies show that people start thinking very fondly about their high school years about 5 years after the fact. At that point, enough time has passed to forget about all the bad experiences, but it’s recent enough that the pleasant memories are still quickly recallable. So why not hit us up about a week after the 5 year reunion? As Paul said, most of us will probably be finishing that first year of work and thus yearning for a return down memory lane to the carefree days of youth, right? We’ll be emotionally vulnerable, and therefore, incredibly easy targets.

Instead, they choose to harass me now when I’m up in to my ears in midterms and hate everything that has to do with being a student. Geez, bad timing people.

All right, eventually I will stop posting random quotes from class, but this entire dialogue between my two Bioengineering professors was just too good to keep to just myself and 30 other people.

As Harvey was giving a lecture about monoclonal antibodies, supposedly one of his areas of expertise:

Harvey: Are pregnancy tests made with monoclonal antibodies?
Linda: Yes they are. Against HCG.^*
Harvey: Oh, maybe you know more about this than I do.
Linda: That’s probably because you’ve never used one before and don’t know how it works.

Harvey: Wait, so what you do is go to your local drugstore under an alias and say, “I need one of these tests for my girlfriend”?
Linda: (cutting him off) Well, I don’t have to do that. But I can do that because that’s ok here in Massachusetts.

And a little later, while Harvey is in the middle of a slide on flourescence assisted cell sorting:

Linda: Kill Bill Vol. 2
Harvey: What?
Linda: In Kill Bill, they show you how to use a pregnancy test!

But I’m seriously going to go study for my exam in that derivatives class now. Really!

* HCG, human chorionic gonadotropin, is a hormone made during pregnancy.

Listening to:

Horrorscope – Eve 6
05 – Here’s to the Night

Sometimes I wonder why I go to review sessions. But not today. Today I know that I gained something from my two hours: lots of hilarious quotes.

A great way to start off:

A lot of you probably don’t go to class. I don’t blame you.

If some of you decide you want to cheat during the exam, send an email to the smartest person in the class, not some tool.

After scribbling obscure equations on the board in very small handwriting:

TA: Can you see that?
Student: Yup.
TA: (standing right in front of the board) You have pretty good vision if you can see this. I can barely see it from here.

Student: You’re going to post the solutions, right?
TA: Yeah, maybe. But sometimes I break promises.
Student: Me too.

After TA’s screensaver pops up, revealing a photo of a (hot blonde) woman sitting on a bed, looking into a mirror:

(Chuckles from students)
TA: Don’t laugh, that’s my wife.

Later, realizing that his screensaver was a distraction:

TA: (to nearby student) Can you just periodically touch my laptop? I’ll surreptitiously add a point to your midterm.
Student: Sure, as long as it’s just your laptop.
TA: Damn straight, it’s just my laptop!

After trying to explain one term of an equation for 15 minutes:

TA: This is actually a pretty important concept to know and I have a feeling that I kind of screwed up on that explanation.
Student who asked question: Yup.

Ok, after all that, I’m not sure I know any more about derivatives than I did at 6:59PM, but I am infinitely amused. On another note, Starbucks’ Green Tea Latte is made with matcha and has lots of caffeine in it. I’m still shaking from the cup I had at 3PM. Definitely not good. Maybe I should avoid Starbucks from now on…