Ah fall, a chill enters the air, leaves start to change, you start to see light at the end of the academic tunnel and, unfortunately, THE WHOLE FREAKING ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT AT NMSU GETS SICK! The cold is going around in a bad, bad way. You can almost feel the stench of virus and ill health in the air.

I couldn't avoid it. I too fell prey to the common cold. When I first started to feel sick around Saturday afternoon I dreaded the worst, the flu. Saturday night I was sick as a dog and despite loading up on nyquil, I slept like crap and ended up waking up every hour or so. Same drill on Sunday night. This thing has lingered much longer than I thought it would. Here we are on Wednesday and I'm still sick. I am very much on the upswing though and expect to be 100% by Friday.

The one year anniversary of the start of this blog is quickly coming up and I went over and read what I wrote then. It has made me take a hard look at the last year and focus in on what has really changed. How much progress have I made? What am I progressing to anyway?

I'm going to be honest, in my undergraduate days I was just pathetic. I was a social misfit and a recluse. I was very unhappy because I think that, by nature, I'm a social person. There could be days like today where I am in a horrible miserable funk until I start talking with people then I feel better. I think this is where my time at Hastings really helped. It doubled my friend count and really helped me come out of my shell in a way that other places haven't.

I also happen to think that my cycle of emotions are different. They can still be pretty wild, that's for sure, but I think they are a bit more steady. Lately something has been starting to creep in that I'd never had before, egotism. Not that that's a good thing necessarily, but it is certainly better than being miserable and depressed all the time. I think I've always had a bit of an arrogant, self-centered streak deep down in me, but lately, it has been showing itself more.

Somewhat related to this, however, is my self-image. As I said, I can have periods of extremely inflated ego, but by and large, I'm still not horribly comfortable with myself. I really, really don't like myself very much most of the time, physically, mentally, in pretty much every way. This is one area where there hasn't been much improvement since I finished chemo and something I know I really need to work on for next year.

Ah the TSA, God bless them. On second thought, no, don't. THEY SUCK

I think I realized that junk food is having a very negative effect on my mood. I eat it. I get grumpy. I get depressed. I start bugging my friends via text. It's all a very vicious cycle and it seems to keep repeating itself. Is the taste enough to outweigh all the bad stuff it does to me?

It's like I live in Groundhog Day. I'm good with my diet and working out all week, but come Friday, I pig out and nearly ruin it all. It gets that taste for junk food and sweets in my mouth, then I'm craving it all weekend. They cycle repeats itself over and over and over and over again. So frustrating.

Over the last few years, my sweet tooth has wreaked havoc on my life. Most of my life, I never really had one. I could go months without ever eating candy or ice cream. But, come my sophmore year of college, everything went to hell. A lot of things went bad that year and I'm still dealing w/ the consequences and correct some of the habits I developed. At one point, I was eating 4 pints of ice cream a week, the premium, high calorie kind. I don't do nearly that much now, but I think it's time to take the next step and eliminate the cursed bastion of sugary goodness from my life completely.

It looks like it's shaping up to be another really busy week coming up. I have a ton of stuff do on Thursday, one assignment of which is totally unnecessary as it should have been given last weekend when I had practically nothing. It's probably better for me, though, to have lots to do rather than little. When I have lots, I get lots done and tend to stay more focused. When I have little to do, NOTHING tends to get done, even the little I have.

Got my econometrics exam back and the grade wasn't bad. He was very, very generous, though, because I didn't really do all that well. I guess I don't really care. I'm just ready to move on from that material anyway. Hopefully I will get my micro theory exam back today, and while I think I did well, you can never tell. I have one more test in this little cycle on Tuesday then I will be test free for a while... yippie.

Things are really starting to kick into high gear with movies this weekend. I have basically two choices, Where the Wild Things are and Law Abiding Citizen. I suppose I COULD go see both, but I don't really want to spend that money. I plan to see Law Abiding Citizen, but should Where the Wild Things Are turn up online, I wouldn't be dissapointed.

Speaking of movies, I finally finished with the "A's" of Roger Ebert's Great Movies list. I would say that about 90% of them I have liked so far, but the "B's" aren't off to a particularly great start. So far, they've been largely 40s-50s flicks, which are ok, but I was never able to get into those quite as easily as I could the later ones. Last night I watched the old Humphrey Bogart movie Beat the Devil, which I HATED. I have a string of Bogart's coming up, so hopefully they will get better.

Heavy month for exams, I had one last week, one this week and one next week. At least it isn't any of that 4 in one day shit like I sometimes had as an undergraduate. One a week is totally managable. Last week it was micro theory, which I feel pretty confident about. You never know for sure, but struggling so much on the homework was a good thing because it forced me to actually, you know, learn stuff, which is good to have on an exam. Econometrics, today, is another story. I think I'll ultimately do fine, but I'm not nearly as confident. I figure I get whatever grade I deserve because I didn't know the material that well. I just sort of memorized stuff. I figure I'm at about my limit for how much math and statistics my poor brain can take. Next week is my regulatory economics test, which I'm not too worried about.

Actually, I guess you could say I'm not really worried about any of them. Even though I don't think I did all that well on econometrics, it's like I don't even really care anymore. I guess that's what graduate school is supposed to be about, not worrying so much about grades and instead focusing on the material. I don't find econometrics horribly relevant and I'm not even sure why I took the advanced level (only the basic is required). I needed another class, but there was probably a better option out there.

The prediction I made a few weeks ago about Mad Men, and the now infamous lawn mower incident isn't coming to pass. I believed that it was going to be a turning point in the season story-arch, which had been non-existent, but in the 3 or 4 episodes since then, they haven't even mentioned it again. I guess it wasn't that important. But at least some sort of arch has developed with Conrad Hilton. I think Don's relationship with Hilton has changed him for the worse. He used to be mr. cool calm and collected but he seems a little more testy lately, almost angry, which was very evident in how he handled Sal's firing.

This last episode also provided an interesting contrast between the characters of Don and Betty Draper. Both were faced with a choice, cheat on their spouse when they are tempted, or don't? Don, naturally, did, but interstingely enough, Betty came to her senses and said "no". I think that adds a dimension to her that I wasn't sure existed.

I feel the cloud is starting to lift. I'm not quite as grumpy today as I have been for the last few days, but I'm still not sure what's causing it all. Just me and my crazy brain, I guess. I really should be more appreciative of the fact that I'm even alive and not waste so much time wallowing in self-pity.

I have reached one conclusion, though. My weight has stopped going downward and I've been at about 220 for several months now. It's fluctuated up and down, but always comes back to that point, which is where I was when I left Las Cruces last May. My goal is 190, which seems a looooooooong way off.

The problem isn't lack of activity, I'm working out more than ever, but rather my old curse, food. My eating is really a constant battle and one I really need to address if I want to get anywhere. I was crunching some numbers in a spreadsheet and reached a few conclusions:

1) I need about 2298 calories to start losing weight

2) I do a really poor job of distributing my calories throughout the day, eating very little during the day but a whole bunch in the evening. I think it wreaks havoc on my metabolism and stops me from using the energy efficently.

3) My Friday night benders are KILLING me. One really shouldn't eat 3000 calories in about two hours time. Even if I eat good all week, a day like that could wreck it all. I really need to stop that.

4) Most of the time, I was simply unaware of what I was eating and when. It was very enlightening just seeing it in front of my eyes how crazy my eating habits are.

I need to keep better track of these things.

I'm having a really hard time getting over this Barak Obama winning the Nobel Prize thing. Usually after an outrage I go to the gym, lift and run out my aggression, and come home feeling better, but that hasn't happened this time. The more I think about it, the more it bothers me, it wounded me deeper than most other things.

The Peace prize has always been somewhat political, that I understand. But I don't think I've ever seen it as this overtly political. It's almost as if it has nothing to do with promoting peace anymore, rather, just an "I'm Not George W. Bush" award. That's why he got it, because he is the first non-GWB president. In the last few years, other Bush opponents have gotten it too, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Mohamed ElBaradei, but they have at least had SOMETHING vaguely related to peace to make a case on, regardless of how flimsy. Obama has nothing.

It's disgusting to think that, out of all the people who actually risk their lives to promote peace, they deem Barak Obama worthy. Consider the following:

Morgan Tsvangirari, leading of the Zimbabwe opposition, been imprisoned and beaten, risked assassination several times, has not won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Rebiya Kadeer, fighting for Uyghur rights against the Communist Chinese, spent two years in solitary confinement in China.

and..... wait for it....

Ghandi.

Yes, the Nobel Committee deemed Barak Obama, a man even SNL was beginning to tease as a "do nothing President" worth of the Nobel Peace Prize. Un.Freaking.BELIEVABLE

This commercial really annoys me. The way she says PERSONAL doctor, I mean really, is that the only doctor you ever plan to see? But she is cute though.

Also, I've caught up on season 4 of Dexter and I think it is off to a good start. The story is still evolving, unlike Mad Men where it seems to be simply on auto pilot. To me, John Lithgow is the PERFECT person to play a serial killer. Doesn't something about him just seem, I don't know, off?

I have an exam tomorrow

I don't want to study

I have a project trying to replicate the Forbes Magazine college rankings

not to mention the fact that I haven't finished the U.S. News ones yet

NM business data also needs to be collected.

All in all it's a fairly slow week, but I'm tired and lacking in motivation.

Thursday's can be kind of a drag. There's too much on tv to justify putting in a movie, yet, not enough to keep me occupied all night. There's shows I like, but also, plenty horrible crap.

SNL Weekend Update Show: Terrible! Why does this show exist?!? SNL stinks to high heavens these days and not even watchable, either on Saturday or on Thursday

Parks and Recreation: Worse than SNL. A cheap and pathetic Office rip-off. Why doesn't Amy Phoeler just go away already.

The Office: Been a fan for years. Still watch every week, but the show is starting to grow a little stale. Curious to see the manager conflict between Michael and Jim though.

Community: Just started, but I'm interested. I expect good things from this show, so naturally, they will cancel it.