I Defended My Thesis Because No One Else Would...Poor Little Guy

That's right, on Monday this week I defended my thesis. This was the last act of the theatrics that were my Master's Program. The reviews were fantastic. I got a happy rainbow pot o'gold (scores are given in lucky charms here, just another peculiarity about Russia).

Another peculiarity about Russia is that apparently your program forgets you exist for 6 months while you're trying to write your thesis. This got quite depressing at times, since I had to go about teaching myself the entire subject matter. I learned so much about myself in the process, but I think the paper turned out slightly worse than it would have with support. Anyway, significant effort went into this paper, so I thought I'd include my abstract here on my blog just for memory's sake.

Abstract                                                      

This thesis will investigate short-run investment herding in Russian markets.  It has two objectives:  first, it will explore informational cascades as an example of herding to suggest a timeline in Russian markets. Second: it will apply game theory to transition conditions to suggest a larger Eastern European context for the Russian example. There is some scholarly interest in herding in developed and developing countries, but there is little literature on transition countries[1]. Do herding models have validity outside advanced markets? The answer to this question can be found partly in price irregularities in the market. My thesis has policy-relevant conclusions.

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[1]      See Miller (2008)

Reminiscent of a Diary (minus my current crushes and what all the girls said at school today)

A bit early to my evening English lesson today, so I walk around a nearby park. I've got a cold raspberry yoghurt (drinkable of course) to cool me from the recent heat wave in Moscow. A murder of crows (I love saying that) is harassing a dog a few feet away as one swoops down just out of reach of the angry cuss while the others jaw and cackle at the scene. I worked on my thesis defense all day today, and this little break is much needed before work.

After my lesson I come home and throw on my running clothes as fast as I can. It looks like a summer drizzle might start, and if I don't go now I won't get in a run today. About a kilometer into the run what looked like a sprinkle breaks into a microburst downpour. The night sky usually stays light until about 10.30 or even 11.00 this late into June, but the clouds block out all light from the fleeting sun tonight. Explosions of lightning give brief glimpses of the forest path in front of me, helping me dodge any obstacles.

But what may seem like bad luck to most runners is a refreshing break for this one. The rain not only cools the air, but pulls the heavy pollution out of it momentarily. The pollution gets so thick in this heat that it's almost hard to breath sometimes.

Before going home I stop in a grocery store for some chocolate milk (OH YEAH!) and I'm certain that every last eye in the little shop is fixed on my dripping, wet-dog appearance the entire five minutes it takes to get the milk. Despite the glares, today's run was a fantastic way to end a typical Moscow summer day.

The disheveled room behind me really accents the disheveled me after my run.

A piece-of-junk bike is all I need for a good time

In the spirit of juicing life I went on a forest bike ride yesterday. One of my favorite parts about Moscow is that it is dotted with forested parks. When the hustle and bustle of everyday life gets to be too much, I love escaping to these little sanctuaries. We (I) packed some snacks, went to the park ВДНХ, rented some super awesome bikes (these are possibly the worst bikes I've ever seen in my life...they warned us not to push the pedals too hard. I thought this was a joke until halfway through the ride one of my pedals snapped in half), and were on our way to The Forested Island (Лесиный Остров).

You shouldn't try to take pictures while riding a bike at full speed...unless you're awesome.

I love that things just grow here almost on accident...being from a barren desert, I'm used to having to tenderly coax life in vegetable form out of the ground. Here wild strawberries just pop up randomly.

We nicknamed our route 'post-apocalyptic alley'

...and you can see why

The road says 'A sober Russia is a great Russia.' I agree in principle, but this has historically never happened, so no one really knows.

Great day.

Eventually I'll get around to real life

One of the lessons of living in a foreign country for me has been the realization that it doesn't have to be as hard as I make it. As a student here, I've always looked at my time in Russia as temporary, and therefore have been dissuaded from investing in things that go under the topic real life in my head. You can probably guess the majority of these things like furniture, household appliances, etc. But many of the things that I'm realizing are subconsciously on the list really don't belong there (and really I don't know how much longer I can temporarily live without totally losing it).

Example: One day this week I was wishing I didn't have to cook dinner every day, and thinking about how in America we sometimes save food in ziplock bags...then I realized they have those here too. So this week I've been feasting on leftovers, and loving it.

Another example: I've been wanting to play tennis ever since I came here. I'm so terrible, but I still just love the game (side-note about tennis: no matter how great you are at the sport, you never look good chasing a stray tennis ball). The only problem is that most courts here are SUPER expensive, so I just gave up trying to play a long time ago. That is, until my friend Artur took 5 minutes to look into it this last week. He found a relatively cheap place, and we went. Sometimes all it takes is just deciding you're going to do something, and then following through. Or in this case, all it takes is someone else deciding you're going to do it. Peer pressure, it makes the world go 'round. And you know what? It was such a blast!

Don't get me wrong, sometimes life in Russia is exactly as frustrating as I make it, possibly more (Tuesday was tough, but that's for another post). But I think it's appropriate that on the longest day of the year I try to fit some little pleasantries in. It's all about squeezing the juicy moments out of the pulp of life. Speaking of which, I really want some juice now.

A broken dream and a sad day

Yes, my dreams were dashed. For you see, As I sit in my room writing this post, the lovely aroma of cigarettes drifts through my window from an adjacent room...

It wall started a few months ago. A new law was passed banning smoking on all university campuses. A fairly bold move by the Putin administration because smoking is possibly Russia's second favorite past-time- coming in after drinking. It sounds great at first, but what they don't tell you is that it's all a conspiracy to extend Russians' life spans by several years. Well played Mr. Putin, but I'm on to you.

I asked a few people about the new law and got mixed reviews. Some people were happy about it, saying that Russia was finally getting its act together and acting serious about health concerns (the attorney general here gives out odd advice sometimes...for example, don't eat food outside of Russia because it'll make you sick). But most people were pretty upset about it. I was walking home when I overheard one guy who was visibly upset about it. He got so worked up that he punched a window that had an anti-smoking poster on it, breaking the window in the process. He totally looked like a bad-ass (throwing a temper tantrum). 

Now for the sad day - today. I wrote about my student Yasya a while ago, and today we had our last lesson. It really took me off guard just how much I'd miss teaching her when she hugged me goodbye. I think Yasya was born with an inner wisdom of how to be happy. I've never seen her anything less than perfectly content with what she has, and perfectly delighted to learn new things.

  

"Let us leave this place, where the smoke blows black, and the dark street winds and bends. Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow. We will walk with a walk that is measured and slow, and go where the chalk white arrows go... for the children, they mark, and the children, they know, the place where the sidewalk ends."

That's part of a poem that we memorized together in one of our lessons. I'm not convinced that all children know that place, but it's good to know that some of them really do.