To my friends (if I have any left), I apologize for dropping off the face of the earth. You see, let me just note that I find it unacceptable for professors to assign problem sets to be due once every 5 days, especially when said problem sets take 20 hours each to finish. Also, anyone who tells me that Microeconomics is “like a humanities” obviously has no idea what my class is like.

On a more positive note, Olga brought me back a super-cute compact from Russia, and it has a puppy on the cover! And I finished my homework before midnight today. Life is good.

Don’t you love the quotes? I know I do. That’s why I spend half of all classtime chuckling to myself. Here are some more. Please leave comments, preferrably ones saying that you like it because I enjoy feeling like I’m making a contribution to humanity.

We’re talking about potential income from working full time, not just what we consider “full time” in the labor market. That means that every moment you don’t spend sleeping, you’re working. I know some assistant professors who do this, actually.

Sometimes you will have to work with problems with infinite time horizons even though empirical evidence suggests that people die and don’t live forever.

And this last quote from a friend frustrated by her macroecon class. As a warning, this probably won’t be funny to you unless you’re a huge nerd.

K: The class is really boring.
K: The professor is soooo solow.
K: Oops! I meant slow.

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Lately, I’ve encountered some serious signs that I’m not as young as I used to be.

• When I first went into the PhD office, someone told me, “Oh, I saw you around, but I thought you were an EMBA or something.”
• Last night, or rather this morning, I went to sleep at 5:30. When I woke up at 9:30 this morning, I thought I was going to die.
• Today at dinner, when I ordered a drink, I totally didn’t get carded in any way.

All these events have led me to conclude that I really need to wear flip-flops in public while singing along to JoJo, lest my button down shirts lead people to believe that I’m one of those 40 year-old Asian women who have just aged well.

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Guess what I did Friday night! Yup, I worked on problem sets for 4+ hours. Doesn’t that sound like your idea of fun? Afterwards, I began to really appreciate the design of the PhD Lounge. When I first saw the place, I thought it was so barren and sad, but now I think it rather cleaver. Where else but in a small windowless room outfitted with only a few tables and chairs and one high-efficiency coffeemaker could a group of young people concentrate on math homework on a Friday night in Manhattan? These people must be brilliant!

Although, to compensate for a sad Friday, we did go on an outting to Coney Island and the beach on Saturday. Here, enjoy this look of disbelief as I got strapped in to this amusement park ride. Next time, I’m totally not going on a ride that just flips me upside down for seemingly forever.

Now that the school year has begun, I have fresh fodder for my blog in the form of funny quotes from Econ professors. Amusingly enough, it seems that I’m destined to have quotable professors who just happen to share the same name. Look at the material I managed to get just from day one! Too bad neither of them respond positively to “Professor X.”

In introduction, why study macroeconomics?

Unlike microeconomics, macroeconomics is actually useful! At cocktail parties, you always hear people talking about the interest rate, or the growth rate of the economy. Rarely will you hear people talking about the marginal rate of substitution.

Don’t you wish there were real experiments in social science?

We cannot go to Boliva and blow up the entire country to see what happens, but sometimes politicians will do that for us.

Reassuring the first years that we all got admitted for a reason.

You all have different attributes. Some of you have excellent math backgrounds. Some of you are excellent economists. Some of you even speak English….

Does increased investment lead to economic growth?

Many people believe that investment is the answer. Including one of the world’s most important economists, in fact a professor here… Angelina Jolie.

And finally, a confidence-boosting statement from the Micro TA:

I don’t want to scare you guys, but the first year of the PhD program is going to be hell, and Micro is a big contributing factor to the hellishness.

Welcome back to school, I suppose.