i’m not sure what to call this one, because the earthquake near sendai, japan, has been so shocking. i think the main reason this quake hasn’t occupied my every waking moment like the haitian earthquake did is because i am married to a haitian woman, while i do not know many japanese or anyone visiting…
Month: March 2011
i own this…
I took a detour on my way to work this morning by walking across the Capitol directly catch the Orange/Blue lines. [I don’t like crowds, and if you’ve been in Union Station with broken escalators between 7.45-8.45AM, you might sympathize.] Halfway to the station, I looked up and this is what I saw: I remember…
#31
I’ve been reading Leslie Newbigin’s “The Gospel in a Pluralist Society” and he’s got me thinking about some of the fabulous ideas he presented. I think one of the most riveting ideas he presents is the myth of a secular society. To make things short, Newbigin argues that we as Christians cannot assent to the…
learning teaching & understanding understanding
I am a new assistant professor at George Washington University in Engineering Management and Systems Engineering. For my first semester, being an assistant professor was better than a dream! No teaching responsibility, so I was only writing proposals and submitting postdoc papers. My, how much difference winter break has made! Now, being a prof is…
#58
Today, I just finished an awesome book, Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely. Prof. Ariely, MIT Sloan Professor of Behavioral Economics, describes many ways in which we predictably and systematically violate the usual “rational actor” assumptions of classical economics. He shows examples from his research demonstrating how arousal, desire for uniqueness [or conformity], temptation, social norms,…