The new semester was ripe from the beginning. Flame just entered a stressful Masters program (Columbia’s Climate and Society– so she can be “Master of the Climate”), and is trying to hold down her book writing job on Fridays. Between us, we flirted with about 10 classes.
I settled on Andrew Gelman’s “Bayesian Data Analysis” and a “History of International Development” taught in the history department. The Bayes homeworks can take days, and their assigned every week. The history class has about two books assigned per meeting. But between them, and polishing up my Himalayan Flooding paper, I ought to be done with my MA requirements this term and can really focus on research.
Next week I spend in Ohio at the Ecosummit 2012, with talks from E. O. Wilson and Jared Diamond. Previous Ecosummits have been in Beijing, Halifax, and Copenhagen, but at least my program has money to send me. I have a poster to present my Open World modeling framework, so I’m hoping for good feedback.
I was recently wondering if twitter has a role in my life, and I think the answer is “no”. Even if the brevity had no disadvantages, I rarely want to engage in much conversation online. And if the goal of twitter is to consume tidbits, then I have even less interest. For someone like me, is the only use of twitter for when we want to engage in some old-fashioned online social engineering?
Speaking of which, I have some new projects coming up. I’ll say more when these classes calm down!