Do you actually like me or are you just using me to get to my mom?

Every time I take my mom somewhere, like to a friend's party, everyone always tells me how much they love her, usually multiple times. "Oh, you're mom's so great! I love your mom." "Hey, I'm having a party, and your mom is invited, too!" "Are you bringing your mom??"

This always makes me wonder -- does Tia (one of the people who loooovvvves my mom) really like me? Or does she just invite me over so I'll bring my mom with me? Then again, should I worry, as long as Tia keeps inviting me, and keeps serving Christmas cookies and mimosas at the holidays?

So, random topic, right? Well, my mom has been nominated for Teacher of the Year, and she asked me to help her with an essay she has to write as part of the application process. The essay is supposed to describe her teaching philosophy. In the e-mail she just sent me, she declares her philosophy is "try as hard as I can and hope for the best but realize most kids will learn in spite of what I do."

If you don't hear from me for a while ...

You know how in "Fast As You Can" by Fiona Apple, she sings "And I'll be your girl, if you say it's a gift, and you give me some more of your drugs"?

Someone who reads this blog needs to get me some drugs. Seriously. I've spent my entire Spring Break so far (except for Saturday) working on my thesis but not working on my thesis because my client gave me all this extra crap to do that's not related to my thesis, and I have a rough draft of my actual thesis due on April 9, and not one word written. (Let's not speak of the paper I have to write for Health Care Finance, which is due April 2, and has to be ten pages. Also -- not one word written.)

C'mon ... someone? I'll be your girl. Even if you are a girl. I don't discriminate!

(Just in case someone from the FBI reads this -- I don't really do drugs, not even aspirin, so don't arrest me or anything ... though ... that would be a good way of getting out of having to do this thesis project on time ...)

This post's for you, Tyrone

I've not been feeling too great lately (mostly, I'm just tired and I've overworked myself). Usually, I'm cheery and positive and joke all the time, so when I'm not, people ask right away "are you OK??" Of course, I appreciate this -- it's a sign that most of the time I am a fun person to be around.

So I have to say a big Thank You to Mr. Tyrone Bennett for cheering me up today. And he's going to get UAS's phone fixed, or maybe even replaced, since it looks like it's from 1960. Hurrah!

Since Tyrone works at the Data Trouble Desk (you know your job's gonna be tough when the name of where you work includes "Trouble"), he gets to hear all sorts of fun and silly questions, just like I do. Then we laugh about them after we're off the phone with the person who needs help.

A selection of our favorite calls:

"When I try to use my CalNet ID and I put spaces in between the numbers, it doesn't work. When I don't put in the spaces, it works just fine. What should I do?" (Ummm ... don't put in the spaces?)

Caller: Is your server down?
Me: We don't actually run a server; can you tell me what system you're trying to log into?
Caller: Blue (This is where Cal employees can check their personal info, like payroll, etc.)
Me: And do you get an error when you try to log into that system?
Caller: Yes. It says the server is down.
Me: (Silently): Ummm ... then it probably is?
Me: (Aloud): OK, well let me try. (I log in with my employee ID. It works just fine.) It seems to be working.
Caller: OK, yeah, I just tried, too. It works. Thanks for all your help.
Me: You're welcome.

Last week, a very sweet older gentleman needed help with his e-mail password. We got that taken care of in the office, but then he came back because he still couldn't log in. Problem was that when he opened up http://calmail.berkeley.edu, he only saw the column on the left hand side, and couldn't see the boxes where you type in your e-mail address and password. I asked him to go back to his office and give me a call to see if I could help before referring him to the CalMail consultants. He called, but I was on the phone, so he left a message, which I returned. He said he'd figured out the problem. "I just needed to make the window bigger, so I could see the whole page." (This man was extremely nice and even told me I was pretty, so I just can't laugh about it as hard.)

Caller: My paraphrase doesn't work.
Me: (Silently) (Ummmm ... wtf?)
Caller: I'm trying to reset my paraphrase for calmail with my paraphrase for my calnet. But it won't work.
Me: OK, I think we can fix that fairly easily.
Me: (Silently) (It's a passphrase, lady! Unless you're trying to shorten something that I don't know about!)

Yes, you should definitely hire me ... and teach me Spanish

You know how when you were growing up and you were complaining about trivial things to your Mom, and she said "It could be worse"? Not in a mean way, of course, just in the "Let's focus on the positive" sort of way?

Well, that lesson came back to me this week. Last week was bad, really bad. And I was exhausted and burned out and thus cynical and cranky. But then I watched this documentary that one of classmates made about the criminal justice system in Mexico. It made me want to get on a plane tomorrow and fly to Mexico and do whatever I could to try to fix it. There is a short, un-subtitled, version on YouTube.

The filmmaker in question had been one of my econometrics tutoring students, but he did so well on the first exam that he doesn't qualify for my help any longer. The last time we met, I was telling him about how in awe I am of him and his wife because they're going to run Mexico one day. And he said that, when they are in charge, they'll hire me. To do what, I'm not sure. Teach everyone in Mexico the consequences of measurement error in your independent variables? I guess between now and when they start being in charge, I better pick up a few more skills.

This isn't as scary as I thought it would be

So far, this not doing any work thing is working out just fine. I have left the house only to go check the mail; I didn't get anything, though (boo!!), so that was a wasted trip down and then back up two flights of stairs.

I talked to my parents for a while on the phone. My dad was out thatching the yard in the pouring rain! My parents' house is slowly morphing into the pimp-party house of Forest Estates. First, they got satellite TV, then they bought a hot tub. Then they installed central air (which nobody in Seattle has), and now they have a generator, so the next time the power goes out, they're still gonna be able to watch the satellite TV, sit in the hot tub, and enjoy the air conditioning. Though, they probably won't do those all at once.

And Kate & I chatted about our trip to Oz. I am so excited. I can't wait until August/September when we go!

Mostly, I've been relaxing in bed, listening to music. You know, all the good stuff, like Jimmy Eat World, Korn, Bob Marley, Bryan Adams and Winger.

More things in life should be like this

Yesterday, one of my classmates, Manabu, got married. He and his bride, Junko, had a beautiful reception at the International House on campus. Both sets of parents flew in from Japan for the ceremony and reception. As is traditional, I gave a fancy envelope full of cash. I also got fancy envelopes for other classmates who were invited, and wrote their names in katakana in the right place on the inner envelope. (I won't bore you with a lot of the details of how these work, but they are beautiful.)

I tried to give everyone the best instructions I could on how to use the envelopes, but they can be hard for non-Japanese to understand, just like everything else about Japanese culture. However, the Japanese are very good-natured about this. They realize that the only people who understand their culture are those who were born in Japan, to Japanese parents, and have lived in Japan for most of their lives. The Japanese also realize that, though there are people who understand their culture (mostly themselves), nobody can explain all of it.

Every tradition is intricate, and foreigners, no matter how hard we try, will never get anything exactly right. The Japanese recognize this, and so they reward us for our effort and ignore the errors in our execution. What at first seems to divide, is upon further reflection, like a free pass to be yourself.

A white woman with blondish-reddish-brownish hair and hazel eyes is never going to have to get the envelope thing exactly right, even if she did spend a little time in Japan. Nor would a woman from Ghana, a man from Korea, or a bunch of people who've never left the U.S. But if you give it a shot, and are sincere about it, they'll love you anyway.

It's been a long time since I've had a day like this

As it is the first day of Spring Break, I told myself I could not do any work today. At all. No school work, no work on my thesis, no doing anything for anyone else. It's only 9:14 a.m., but I'm already feeling a little lost; I'm unsure of how this day will turn out. I guess it's like Shakespeare said: "Time thou must untangle this not I. It is too hard a knot for me to untie."

I want my Spring Break

My undergrad alma mater gave us our spring recess during the second week of March. It came along right before you hit the burnout point. I would go home and go skiing with my dad. Cal gives us our spring break the last week of March, a week after you've burned out. And I'm not going home and going skiing with my dad. I'd had plans for this year; to go somewhere fun I'd never been before -- maybe New York City or Chicago. But nope. I'm going to be in Berkeley, working on my thesis. I know, this sounds depressing, but bear in mind that 90% of my classmates are going to be doing the same thing. The other 10% are apparently going to settle for a "B+" on their thesis.

Besides, I'm sure you can figure out whose side I'm on

A while ago, I wrote a long entry about how sad it is for me to watch the rift in the Episcopal/Anglican church grow. It's still sitting in my "drafts" box, because (1) it's long, (2) it doesn't say exactly what I want to say, and (3) my Episcopalian "credentials" are weak, because I go to church on Christmas and Easter, and half of those trips are to a Methodist church (it's a long story ... but I'm the only Episcopal in the family).

This New York Times article about the financial relationship between the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church is interesting; much more interesting than my take on the situation.

I'm not smart enough to figure out whether this guy is right

My favorite news source led me to this story about The United States of Foreclosure. On one hand, this guy's point seems valid. On the other, I can think of many reasons why he's over blowing the situation. He tells us that last year, Wall Street purchased 60% of all mortgages (after they were packaged by lenders into investments). However, he doesn't tell us how much of Wall Street's "worth" if you will is based on mortgages. I think it's improbable that Wall Street "ignored" the risk associated with purchasing sub-prime mortgages, but I can see that it's possible.

The writing isn't fantastic, but if you can hang with him, he makes quite the point about bubbles. If you can't, here it is, extracted for you:

Equity bubbles are an expression of class interest. They are a way of shifting wealth from working class people--whose hourly wages or fixed-incomes can’t keep pace with a hyperinflationary monetary policy—to the wealthy and powerful, who benefit from overheated markets and rampant speculation. The investor class and their plutocratic peers are the only ones who profit from interest rate manipulation and increases in the money supply. For everyone else, inflation is just a hidden tax. Greenspan used the money supply and interest rates as weapon against working class people. It became his preferred method of “social engineering”; creating greater division between rich and poor while ensuring the upward redistribution of wealth consistent with his plans for a new world order. (NWO)

Trouble with this point is that he doesn't really tell us why the investor class wins when interest rates are low (that's what would lead to increases in the money supply); maybe he means they suffer less?

And if you've never read A Random Walk Down Wall Street, which includes a history of the major "bubbles" in history -- starting with the Dutch Tulip-bulb bubble in the 1630s, I highly recommend it. It's easy to read, entertaining, and helps you figure out how to invest your money soundly. And Amazon charges less than $20 for it.

*Ben -- I'm sending your copy to you this week. I didn't forget :)

Statistics in Action

When I work with my tutoring students, I like to give concrete, real-world examples so they are more likely to believe and remember the concepts they're learning. Probability was last semester, but I now have a perfect example for the rule about how you have to multiply with "and" probabilities.

When you forget your CalNet Passphrase, which is a passphrase you made up that goes with your Student ID Number or Employee ID Number, you have to call User & Account Services to have it reset. Then you have to change it from the super-simple phrase we give you to something more complicated. Doing this requires that you do five things correctly: (1) Enter your CalNet ID number, (2) Enter your current passphrase (which I've just given you, cuz I'm the one who reset it), (3) Create a new passphrase, according to the requirements, (4) Enter the passphrase you just made up into a box, and (5) Re-enter that new passphrase into another box.

Most everyone can do one of these correctly. Let's say the probability is .99 for steps 1 and 2, .9 for steps 3 and 4 and .97 for step 5. To get a probability that someone does all five of them correctly, you have to multiply each of the individual probabilities. In this case, that's .99*.99*.9*.9*.97.* This equals .77, so there's only a 77% chance that a person will manage to do all of these right and successfully do something as simple as change his/her CalNet passphrase!

This doesn't surprise me, as I get to help people do this all the time, and just this morning, I was on the phone with Cathy from Police Services for more than ten minutes while she did exactly this. (It doesn't bother me at all; it's mostly just amusing.) And hey, chance was on Cathy's side, but not as much as it seems at first.

*This assumes, of course, that the probabilities are independent. Let's save conditional probabilities for another day.

It's not just my room that threw up all over itself

When our rooms start to get really messy (as mine is now), Lisa M & I joke that it looks like our rooms threw up on themselves.

I'm starting to feel like my whole life has thrown up on itself, not because anything bad has happened, but because it feels like everything is so disorganized and messy. I have a killer headache (I get headaches very rarely), I've not slept enough in probably three weeks, I have a meeting with my thesis client in thirty-three minutes, I have to tutor this afternoon (and have no idea what they've even covered this week), and I'm just feeling like things are ... messy.

I think this calls for a long nap this afternoon.

And this is WHY I'm a workaholic

One of my tutoring students called me while I was out with Ashley discussing our APAs (thesis projects). She said, "this is going to sound like a really stupid question, but you're the only one I feel comfortable asking."

"There are no dumb questions! What is it?"

"Well, it's for econ ..."

"I'm less qualified to talk about econ than quant, but go ahead."

"How do you take derivatives?"

I don't know if I'll ever get the same feeling I got from that call from anything else (or from when another student called me for help with his econ memo -- from Mexico!) It's the best drug ever. And that scares me a little bit.

Update: So I was working with the student mentioned above (who called me while I was out at dinner). She also works with the econ tutor, who is supposedly totally more qualified to answer her question. She told the econ tutor about how she'd called me. And he said "That's why you don't have my phone number!" Blah! How horrible.

Hello, my name is Lisa, and I'm a Workaholic

Last semester, someone told me he was really surprised I had time to keep a blog, because, he said, "I thought you just studied all the time." A few weeks ago, Lisa M asked me if I were working more this semester than last. I think I actually work fewer hours, if you count all the school work I did last semester as work.

The problem is that almost all the work I do is interesting and fulfilling to me. (Except for that ridiculous health care finance class ... blah!) I love working with my tutoring students. I learn so much from them, and knowing that I helped them understand something makes me feel wonderful. Same for helping people with their computer problems (especially the ones who are nice about it!) So, although I recognize the fact that I am pretty much working all the time, I don't feel like it, because so much of what I do is rewarding. Far more rewarding than, say, lying on the futon and watching a DVD, but less rewarding than reading a wonderful book.

So I'm torn. I work all the time, but that's because I love what I'm doing, which is good, and nothing to complain about. But it also means that I'm not doing the work that I could be doing, which I think I'd be even better at. And, it means that I don't have a lot of space in my life for things like new friendships, or even time to plan my vacation.

It's Star Wars Week for Lisa W

First, my brother sends me a lightdagger toy (like a mini lightsaber), and then Nick sends me this.

(I went to CWRU. You can't possibly be surprised that I like Star Wars!)

Tip of the Day: You want help, be nice to me

As the supervisor of all the students who work at IST, I get to deal with all sorts of people. If you ever think you need to improve your patience, let me recommend a career move for you: working in tech support.

Because of a re-organization within IST, I've taken on supervising all the students in the department (I had just supervised one group of students), and that means I often fill holes in different help desks' schedules. One of those desks is User & Account Services, which is the people you come to if you've forgotten your CalNet passphrase, your CalMail password, etc.

If you are ever in the position to need technical assistance, let me recommend some things to help you get what you need:

The people you've reached are doing the best they can, and they really do want to help you. Being rude will make them feel bad, and then they won't want to help you. They still will, because that's their job, but your needs are going to go to the bottom of the list. Being nice goes a long way.

Be patient. It takes time to figure out what's wrong. The system you need help with (be it a computer, a software program, a bureaucracy) is complicated. If it were simple, you wouldn't need help. The person you've reached wants to help you as efficiently as possible, but he/she also wants to do a good job, and that takes time. Think of it this way: I can take the extra ten minutes to figure out why your CalMail account got cancelled when it shouldn't have OR I can refer you to a different help desk in fifteen seconds, and they will take at least ten minutes figuring out that they have to refer you back to me.

Say "Thank You". It makes us feel much better about our jobs and about ourselves and means that the next person who calls/comes into the office will get better service because we're in a better mood.

I could go on all day, of course, but I have to go back to building a model in Excel that my thesis client assigned to me yesterday morning and needs back by tomorrow afternoon. I never want to type anything ever again that begins with =vlookup(.

Books can be hard to use, too

If you have ever suffered through helping someone use a computer, I think you'll like this. And, if you like books, you might like it, too, but for different reasons.

For those keeping track

A Lamborghini sat parked outside Soda Hall today, on LeRoy. (Soda Hall is across the street from GSPP). A crowd was gathering as I arrived and a distinct crowd was gathering as I left, two hours later.

I don't know what else to say

I just saw the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater perform at Zellerbach. (I saw the same program last year.)

It was so good I almost cried.

Don't tell me you didn't see this one coming

In December of 1993, my parents bought their current house for a smidgen more than $200,000. It's 2,900 square feet, has four bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a 2-car garage and sits on a tiny lot.

Fourteen years later, that house is worth around $500,000. The home's value has more than doubled. It's increased by 150%, which works out to be an average of more than 10% per year. This is also about double what real estate normally appreciates at (around 4% to 5% per year).

Unlike many people, my parents have not taken out a home equity loan to take advantage of this difference. They have no real reason to: the kids are gone, they never carry a balance on their credit cards, they owe money on neither car. They paid cash for their cars in the first place, a habit I've taken up as well. In fact, they own another house, which they bought in the eighties for about $75,000, and which they've rented out since we moved out of it.

After the dot-com blow up, interest rates plummeted, eventually leading to a huge run-up in the demand and thus prices for real estate, especially in the growing regions of the U.S. People were taking out interest-only loans so they could afford to buy in markets they couldn't really afford to buy in. Others took out home equity loans to pay off credit card debt or go on vacation or pay for their kids' college education.

Now that interest rates are higher, and the real estate market is cooling slightly (although my 401(k) statements still cry out 'why didn't you put all your money in that REIT??'), the real economic condition of the U.S. is starting to become clear. I'm still baffled by the fact that the Fed was so dismissive of the idea that a real estate bubble would just mask the dot-com bust. Yes, real estate bubbles don't burst so much as slowly collapse, but they still cause real problems for people. (The price of an individual company's stock can drop a lot in a short period of time. It takes more than one day for real estate markets to adjust, especially when they're moving downwards.)

I doubt that my parents' home will suddenly drop in value from $500K to $278K (the inflation-adjusted value of $200K from 1993 dollars to today's). But it's not going to be $550K next year either.

We're starting to see what's really going on in the sell-offs in international financial markets, and in the news today that the Commerce Department Says U.S. Economy Is Weaker Than Expected. Not weaker than I expected. But who am I?