94. Flight Home

Last night at around 3AM, the fire alarm at my dorm went off. I was very upset because I had to wake up at 7 or 8AM to catch the 8:44 train in the morning (flight at 11:55am). I waited outside (it was raining) under an arch with other people from our dorm for the alarm to stop. It went on for about 20 minutes.

When I woke up this morning, I felt well-rested and knew something was wrong... I must have overslept. It was 9:36AM! I got my stuff and ran to the train station, bought a ticket, and hopped on. Thank God I made it, but I was 1 hour behind my intended schedule.

In the end, I made it in time for my flight and got to California early by circa 20 minutes.

I am reminded that

"In his heart a man plans his course,
but the LORD determines his steps." (Prov 16:9)

I can try to plan my future in my own risk-averse way, but God really knows what's best even though it seems awful to me at the time.

I was stressed that I might miss my flight, but instead, I ended up catching the flight, getting around 1 extra hour of sleep, and arriving at Cali early. And who knows, maybe God protected me from other obstacles as well?

Even if I never find out why some bad things may happen, may I purpose to Do All Things Without Grumbling or Complaining.

93. Discomfited.

He thrust them into the baking oven and snapped the door shut. He was done. It was over.
He was supposed to feel happy. He was supposed to feel relieved.
But no.
He felt discomfited, very discomfited.

"Aw man, I should've spent more time kneading the dough."
He spent about 1-2 hours last night and a bit this morning kneading, but the texture and mix of the final pre-baked crust evidenced subpar preparations.

It was too late. The fire was going, and the pies were already in.

"Hope they don't turn out too bad."

He looked at his hands,
Stared at the oven;
Then, back at his hands.

He just wanted to cover his face and cry.

92. Summers

Just dropped the kids off at the pool. While I was there...

Some Freshman: Hey Zema, we only have three real summers left in our whole lives.
Zema: Not even. More like two.
Some Freshman: ... Oh yeah, internship.
Zema: Gotta get that internship.

91. More Classroom Fun 2

Today we talked about Instrumental Variables (IV) in Econometrics.

--

[Talking about how it's good to have an overidentified IV regression.]

Professor: What do you do during Thanksgiving?

Student: You eat a lot.

Professor: Okay. Yea. You sit down during Thanksgiving, and you think, "Aw, I really like turkey. Oh! There's turkey!"...
"Aw, I really like gravy... Oh! There's gravy!"
"Aww, I really like mashed potatoes. Oh! There's mashed potatoes!"
Then you say, "Ohhh, I really like pecan pie. I really, really like pecan pie. OH! There's pecan pie too! ... There's also pumpkin pie, and I don't really like that, but that's okay because there's pecan pie."
Like, it's the same thing. "Boy, I really like instruments."
"Oh, why don't you have an instrument! Have a second instrument! Have a third, a fourth!"
"Thank God! Now I can write my paper!"
It's like Thanksgiving. There's 10 of your favorite things.

--

Professor: What's this variance? We don't know.

Student: It could be a zero or not zero.

Professor: That's right. It could be a zero or not because we don't know the true beta. Who knows what the true beta is? If you know the true beta, you know the variance. But nobody knows. Only God knows. God knows.

(Then, he wrote "God knows" on the board.)

--

Professor: Do you know the formula for this?

[nobody answers]

Professor: "No" is a fine answer.. because there's no midterm for this class. "It's midterm week, so I have to study for other important things. I don't have to time to memorize formulas."

90. Church Fun

Student (to another student): Sticks and stones may break my bones--
Me: But words hurt the most.
Student: Noooo. Sticks and stones may break my bones--
Wayne (I think): But words break my heart.

89. 困惑

Human intuition tells me that it's disrespectful to give someone dressed nicely a bad seat and someone in dirty, torn clothing a nice seat.

88. More Classroom Fun

Some other random things my Econometrics professor said these weeks.

---

"If you don't get zero, throw your computer away."

"TSLS is also written as 2SLS because 3 starts with T as well. Believe is not, there is something called Three Stage Least Squares."

Talking about how statistically, if the first two children are of the same sex, the mother is more likely to have a third child.
"I don't know. For some reason, they want to experience hell in some other way."

Talking about how he presented statistical work about cigarettes in front of a judge and jury for the case he was doing. He generalizes about the type of work.
"You present your work in front of a judge, who is a lawyer, and a jury, who's like your mother-in-law. She's a great person, but doesn't know what a Multinomial Discrete Choice Model is. I can't communicate with my mother-in-law about things like this. And the judge thinks he's the smartest person in the world, but in reality, he's an idiot."

Then, he reveals that famous economist Daniel McFaden was coincidentally the judge in that case.
"For important things like this, you don't want to give it to chance. You want to hand it to a master."

87. Computer, do this.

Econometrics

Professor: The problem with this is that you have to do it point by point. That's why we have computers that will test your betas while you have lunch, grab a beer, or go out with friends. Your computer will do it for you. It says, "I don't have friends. I don't need lunch. I just work while you have fun."

Professor: Computers are really fast. They can run 100,000 regressions. But you have to train it. I did it with this computer--this laptop (shows us his small laptop). And ya know, it took about a second. Of course, I kept messing up, so I had to say, "Oh, there's another second." (click motion with finger) "Oh, there's another second." (click motion with finger)

Professor: What a drag. It only took a second, so I couldn't have lunch.

[Then, we asked him how to do it on the computer.)

Professor: You guys are really smart and hardworking, so that's it. You'll figure it out because you're smart and hardworking.

ggelizpwned