Really strange succession of events that led me from this calm night at my desk to a tense discovery of some experimental music by Ellen Fullman:

Just proud of my little brother for getting his first job, really big news.

Amazing to have the chance to be part in a program where you have a group of clever people for biking to a new neighborhood for having a close experience with the place over which you will spend two weeks researching (in a research type 2).

I surprisingly interesting talk with big city directors of planning departments from the US. One of them having lived all his life in the city where he is working. Other having had 6 jobs in different cities during the last 12 years.

Quite a luxury to have Cass Sunstein himself explain to you what a nudge is using the case of the fly in the urinal.

There were a couple of days that I thought about looking for a place to eat a good breakfast. The breakfast that I had in my mind was one that we ate with Claudia and Daniel in Las Vegas the time that I came by myself for the first time to the US. I didn’t remember the name of the place, nor I knew it was a nationally known chain that had a place in front of the Kennedy School.

A maze. Just what you don’t need, especially when you have limited time and your battery has died. But you dive into it anyway. You even find the way out, but choose to turn right and keep on going in, trying to reach one of the 6 bridges. You even have a map in your hand but you refuse to use it. Only for the pleasure of getting lost. Again.

¿Te embistió un auto? ¿Estabas haciendo una pirueta? ¿Estabas manejando en una zona mojada? ¿Estabas mirando a una chica pasar? ¿Estabas tratando de alcanzar la señal de pase? ¿Estabas tratando de evitar atropellar a una persona? ¿Estabas tratando de salvar un cachorrito? Ne, simplemente yo y mi rivalidad con las hormigas.

Name from: crazysmartclueless.com

Hoy fue la última clase de análisis cuantitativo con Michael Hooper, un planner enseñando estadística. Sigue siendo algo difícil decidir qué es lo mejor, si un profesor de la misma profesión para quien la estadística es una herramienta útil pero, en cierto modo, externa, o un profesor especialista en estadística para quien lo externo es la profesión de los alumnos.

Estuve hoy en un evento sobre la reconstrucción en Chile luego del terremoto. Fue en el basement de la famosa Adams House, una de las casas de undergraduates de Harvard. En una de las exposiciones me perdí un poco porque ya estaba a unas páginas de terminar el libro que he tenido que leer para la clase de Análisis Cuantitativo “Statistics, a tool for social research” de Healey. Sea cual sea el tipo de libro, incluso cuando es uno que hay que leer obligado y con un cuaderno de ejercicios al costado, siempre es placentero acabarlo, especialmente cuando termina con líneas como ésta: “Efficient use of these packages will enable you to avoid drudgery and will free you to do what social scientists everywhere enjoy doing most: pondering the meaning of your results and, by extension, the nature of social life“.