Cute

In the weeks since my first post, I have been wrestling with what sort of blog I want to create. Is this "family blog" going to turn into a pregnancy/childhood milestones blog? A blog of posts for special occasions (e.g. birthdays, holidays, vacations, etc.)? An introspective blog? A picture-centric blog? An entertaining blog? Unfortunately, I am not as good at taking pictures or at making people laugh as some of my blogging friends. Basically I don't know what kind of blog I want to create, though this paragraph is making me think I may accidentally end up with an introspective blog.

Since I'm already waxing introspective, I'll tell you that I've really begun to worry about the effect that studying economics is going to have (has already had?) on my perception of reality. For example, what makes something cute? My dear older brother used to tell me that if there were three cinder blocks in a row and one was smaller than the other two, girls would call the runty cinder block "cute." I suppose he meant that it had become semi-synonymous with small, or that smallness could automatically endear literally any object to some of the more tender-hearted among us. Well how about these examples of cuteness, courtesy of two of my professors:

(1) Did you know that generically there are an odd number of Nash equilibria in any game? A very "cute" result from game theory.

(2) What word other than "cute" could accurately describe the fact that the unconditional cumulative distribution function of ln(capital) is a fixed point of the operator that integrates its derivative with the conditional probability distribution of ln(capital')?

Before I started my PhD program, I was under the impression that this is the sort of thing really embodies cuteness: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/18/lovely-owl-video_n_1101488.html. It's strange how economics (probably other fields as well, but I wouldn't know firsthand) really gets under your skin and changes the way you talk and even what you mean by the words you use. Perhaps by the time I'm done, my brother will be praying for me to go back to the small = cute mentality.

In between visions of the "this is your brain on economics" commercials I could make to warn away the unsuspecting beginning students of economics, I convinced Russell to grow a little goatee this week. I think he grew it for a good seven or eight days, and this allowed the hair on his chin and mustache to get as long as it has ever been in his entire life. What did we learn as a result of this experience? For one thing, it turns out that Russell has a sort of reddish beard. Which begs the question: what evolutionary or creative purpose can there possibly be to having a single human being with blond head hair, red facial hair, and black chest hair? My husband, the Neapolitan man.

But now the beard is gone, my brain is still on economics, and I think I should probably save the rest of my introspective musings for my journal, rather than assuming that anyone besides me could possibly be interested in them. In three weeks we get to find out "what flavor" we're having, in the words of my OB/GYN. Also, Thanksgiving will have happened. So perhaps I can escape an excessively mind-vomity blog after all...