Long, long day today. In to the office this morning at 9:00 to get some work done on my regression problem set. Managed to get much of it done, though there are parts that could use some more work. Also worked off-and-on on the game theory homework, which is also due tomorrow. It's nearly done, but I seem to be spending all of my time on regression and can't seems to get the thing finished. I stayed at the department until 9:00 pm, when Devon was nice enough to come pick me up. I worked until after midnight, though, unfortunately, I will have to get up early to complete the game theory homework before class at 9:30.

Got to school early this morning, wanted to get some game theory review in before class. Didn't seem to amount to much. After game theory, headed back to the office to get some of my regression homework finished. Didn't make a lot of progress before heading to lunch with the cohort. Travis, Emily A., and Eunbin showed up, so it wasn't the best of turnouts, but we haven't gotten to do a lot of stuff together this term, so it was nice all the same. We went to Donato's, and I had a meatball sub that was much too large and rich to eat at one sitting---but I did so any way.

After lunch, we headed to regression. That was uneventful, but we had a short meeting afterward to go over some of our problem set answers. It doesn't look like I am too far from where I should be, but I have quite a bit more to do.

Home in the evening to work on regression and the game theory problem sets.

Surprise, surprise—into school again today. Spent most of the day typing my problem sets and completing them as needed. Made it through the majority of the regression homework (still a few of the more confusing problems to take care of) and completed my game theory homework (well, basically, have to write up some explanations). It's going to take some time to type all of the answers. Unfortunately, I didn't get to my reading for game theory, nor did I do much general studying for regression. I'll have to catch up later in the week.

Into the department once again in the morning. Worked on the next problem set for regression, while also spending time on my game theory problem set (both due Wednesday). Made a bit of progress before meeting with some of the cohort members to go over the regression homework. Seems we all had some rather general questions about how to approach it. Spent the rest of the day in the office trying to get both problem sets completed and typed. That didn't happen, of course. Still have lots to do.

In to the department early this morning to finish formatting my regression problem set. Got that turned in some time before noon, and then reviewed my notes and prepared to give a presentation in class (comparative political economy). The class and the presentation went well enough, even though I found out at the last minute that I was responsible for presenting all of the week's reading and not just half of them. Seems Emily had switched her presentation to next week—I hadn't been told.

After class, headed home to get ready for out intramural soccer game. We lost, 6-3, but had a good time. I was a bit winded after (and during) the game—just not used to all of the stop-and-go sprinting. I did manage to slide on my knee, twice, bloodying it some. In the process of doing that I also managed to tweak my wrist. That worries me more than my knee. Iced the wrist, and didn't get much else done in the evening.

Worked most of the day on my problem set, but also managed to get my notes for tomorrow's class (comparative political economy) typed up. Only have one reading to finish, which I'll do in the morning. I could have gotten more done, but the office was very busy today. People were in and out all day and it was very distracting. For now on, I may just work at home on Thursdays. Home around 4:30, where I finished typing my problem set.

Game theory in the morning—we're going over normal forms, Nash equilibria, etc—and then regression in the afternoon. In between, I went to a talk on a working paper (authored by my stats prof and a senior student). It was pretty interesting, but I was the only first-year to attend. Regression was very helpful today; it really clarified some things for me. After class, we went over our problem set that is due on Friday. I then headed home to work on that for the rest of the night.

Inauguration day. Spent the day at the department getting prepared for game theory and regression tomorrow. I did manage to watch the inauguration—the swearing-in and speech—in the conference room, where the IT people put it up on the projector. I still can't believe Obama won; it was a good day. Hopefully, the Republicans will heed his call to bipartisanship in politics (at least when it comes to the recovery bills and economic reform), but I doubt it.

Devon had her German class in the evening, and I worked on my stats homework. We (the cohort members) will go over it tomorrow after class, I suspect, so I wanted to get as much as possible done beforehand. It's due on Friday.

Martin Luther King Jr. day today so I didn't have any classes. I did head into the department, though, and even made it there a little earlier than usual. Worked in the morning on stats and did some reading. At 12:30, Emily and Travis came by for a LyX tutorial. Our stats professor strongly encourages us to submit our homework typed, which would be a nightmare in Microsoft "Word". I offered to introduce my cohort members to LyX, which would provide a more favorable introduction to LaTeX. Unfortunately, Travis was on an old laptop and couldn't get LyX to start up. He was forced to just watch as I went through the various features. I wasn't all that organized in my presentation and, in the end, I am not really sure if they are going to stick with it. Hope they will; will certainly save them a lot of trouble in the end.

Stayed home in the morning as we were supposed to have soccer practice (I joined out department's intramural soccer team) at 1:00 and I didn't feel like heading up to the department for 3 hours before having to head back home to get dressed. As it turns out, practice was canceled because only a few of us could make it (probably due to the cold).

Spent the day inside studying. Made it through a good portion of my reading for next Friday, including some note taking. Also started on my stats homework. It looked ugly at first, but it actually went pretty quickly. Only have a few more I have to get through, then I have to start typing it up. The professor encourages us to type it, glad I know LaTeX.

Finally signed up for Facebook today. Bill, from Johnson Reid, wanted me to get an account. I don't like it. People from high school are already finding me. The whole things feels voyeuristic.

Made it up to school a little late today—got there about 10:15. I spent the morning reading and typing some notes. Also found an article for my stats replication paper, and managed to download and organize all of the data. I wasn't, however, able to get it imported into R. It's Central and Eastern Eurobarometer data (7 years, 65,000 observations), and is provided by ICPSR in SPSS and plain text formats. I was hoping to import the SPSS data so that I can avoid having to recreate the data mappings (several hundred variables---not fun). I finally found the memisc package, but it kept giving me an error:

> data <- spss.portable.file("06104-0001-Data.por")
Error in sub("^[[:space:]]+", "", res) : 
  input string 1 is invalid in this locale

It appears to be having problems a font included in the data file. My guess is it's one of the many East European characters it's not liking. I'll have to see if my system at home has the same problem.

Received our first problem sets for stats, began working on that in the evening, while Devon worked on a birthday cake for a co-worker.

Headed into the department early. It was cold, really cold. When I left the house, it was -5 degrees, not accounting for the wind chill. I spent the morning getting notes together for class, but it ended up being canceled, so I switched over to stats. Spent the night doing that.

Spent the whole day at home working on my political economy paper. The first few pages went quickly, and I thought it was going to be done fairly early, but it never turns out that way. I ended up turning it in (via email) just before 5:00 pm. Did some more reading after that, but didn't get all that much done.

Had game theory in the morning, then did some reading before regression. Our class has been moved to a room in Bolz Hall—a building that reminds me a lot of a middle school, lockers and all. After class, went back to the office for a couple hours of reading, then walked home (in a snow storm). Did more reading in the evening, while also beginning an outline for my paper on rational choice and comparative political economy that is due tomorrow at 5:00 pm.