The traditional mid-trimester break update

Hello all,

No exciting pictures this time as I'm pretty much working flat out to finish my Honors year alive at this point.  I keep thinking I'm about as busy as can be and then getting busier.  In case anyone's wondering, I didn't even notice the earthquake, although apparently many Wellingtonians did. It sounds like Christchurch is a real mess, but thankfully there were no casualties.

Classes continue apace.  I'm also working as a research assistant for one of my professors.  We're trying to see if we can improve kids' emotion understanding with an intervention using stories that emphasize emotions.  (This is important because good emotion understanding is related to better social, academic, and mental health outcomes as children grow up.)  The study involves going out to preschools and kindergartens and getting 3-year-olds to sit still and pay attention while we read to them and ask them questions.  Needless to say, this can be a frustrating task.  It's lots of fun playing with the kids though.  It's also nice to get out of the university, where I would otherwise spend most of my time chained to a computer.

To add further variety, I'm working on a project to raise funds and awareness about the Pakistan floods, which have left 20 million people in need of assistance but are getting relatively little attention.  (For a well-written and nuanced account of one writer's experience in Pakistan, see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/opinion/26sethi.html?pagewanted=1&_r=4 )

There have also been a few interesting presentations here.  Yesterday I saw a talk about the archeological evidence that Pacific Islanders made it to the west coast of the Americas well before Columbus landed.  (Essentially, they found pre-Columbian chicken bones that shouldn't be there, since the Europeans were supposed to have introduced chickens to the Americas.)  It was fascinating.  They're also using gene-sequencing to trace lineages of people and animals, thus showing how prehistoric people may have moved across the world. 

Another interesting talk I went to was about the idea of using a Financial Transactions Tax to rein in the financial sector (perhaps using the revenue for development work as a bonus).  Apparently this idea is gaining traction given the underlying causes of the current economic crisis.  Mostly, this talk just reinforced for me that I know absolutely nothing about economics and should really learn more. 

Otherwise, I am spending my days applying for various things.  It looks like law school is the best bet for where I'll be next Fall.

Until next time!