Living in exile

It has been 23 days since my last entry. Time really flies even if self-isolation is getting looser. I went out today to gather meat, vegetables, and fruits for the next weeks. We were able to last 3 weeks since my last grocery shopping last March 13. Of course, our strategy might not scale well for bigger households but I am thinking that a large refrigerator and freezer would be needed. For bigger households, preparing the sauce for pasta or the broth for noodles would be a good approach. I would also suggest that kids pitch in the meal planning so that they don't get bored by the food choices.

Both my outings today and three weeks ago have left me pissed off. After a few steps from exiting the apartment, I already see people spitting, cars parked where they should not park, people smoking with masks off (some even with an N95!!!! Fuck you.), couples getting their prenuptial photos without masks, and so on. The same annoyances that characterize the everyday minutae in “normal” times are now back. What was most annoying was a person who had quite a good mask and he took the mask down his chin and then sneezed like a fucking fucktard. Oh my God. My id is taking over the writing here. Have to control it.

Today is the first time I ever peeled a tomato as the goulash soup that I was making needed them. I did not know how but guessed that I would need to pour boiling water over tomatoes. It worked and somehow while peeling the tomatoes, I felt some joy and felt myself smile. The experience of peeling a tomato is certainly not orgasmic but it felt right and I felt calm. I think you should try it too.

I am glad to have that moment of calmness because the past three weeks have been energy draining and there were many moments in those past three weeks that just fucking pissed me off. Despite having only one course to teach and working from home mostly, I have not had the time to actually do productive research except for reading econometrics books for the course, crafting new slides, and reading papers related to fixed-$b$ asymptotics.

In case you have not heard about it, fixed-$b$ asymptotics is just what it is. $b$ stands for bandwidth and there is a growing literature (almost 15 years worth of research) on how to modify usual asymptotic theory in econometrics where $b\to\infty$ to the more realistic and practical case where $b$ is actually fixed. Typically you will see this type of asymptotics in the context of heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent (HAC) estimation. To learn more, look up the paper called HAR Inference: Recommendations for Practice.

Now, back to my calmness or lack thereof. I was hoping that the outbreak will be a push for the university/school to actually explore and free itself of some of its structural problems. Most “tasks” in the university can really be done online without a lot of face-to-face. As a result, there should be a strong demand to be very clear, specific, and transparent about rules and regulations. But this demand somehow has fizzled because of a combination of not grumbling directly and in the open, staying silent, not making sure everyone participates in the discussion, and in general the lack of mindfulness. Somehow, the default settings are taking over once again, like nothing happened, now that the outbreak is somewhat in control here in China.

Another structural problem is the question of whether the university/school has the capacity to support international students. Sure, they are good for brochures. But the real tasks in the background are another thing. This structural problem also feeds in to the question of how different are international students from domestic Chinese students. If there exists a perfect student, I think that both international and domestic students are just differently weighted versions of the perfect student. Both these groups have different needs and require different approaches to “educational management”. God, I hate myself for even writing that phrase because many administrators talk the talk about teaching but really have no idea what it is like on the ground.

Yet another structural problem is the amount of effort that a professor dedicates in service. Given that there are tons of stuff happening that makes a school continue its operations, it is just right that everyone who participates in service (not just as a mouth-breather, will talk about this some other time) get adequate compensation either in the form of money or in terms of recognizing the hours they have put into the effort. For some reason, some of my colleagues view that self-reported hours may not be reliable. That is probably true but rendering service is a repeated game. If a colleague does not perform reliably, it becomes obvious after a couple of iterations. It is possible to just exclude this colleague from all services (that need to be rendered as part of the contract anyway) and do some sorting towards what would make the colleague happier in rendering service. I think the sorting should be a good thing in the long run. The repeated nature of the game should also somehow foster some trust, which the system desperately needs in order to function autonomously.

On brighter news, some students of mine have gotten offers to continue their PhD studies abroad. I am very happy for these students. I hope they can find a way to be better than me and would have more opportunities that I could not have. At some level, I believe that once you got a PhD, you are done. You should be training the next set of people and give them the opportunities. This is possibly one of the good things about the master-apprentice approach to the PhD. Publication would somehow just be a secondary goal. There is really no way of knowing about the ability of a professor unless you examine all aspects of that professor. You got to read their papers closely (rather than ask someone else to read it for you) if they have papers. I hope these students will change the way research is done and assessed.

Another bright piece of news is being able to play Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It is one of those games that is just chill and has some fun here and there. It is an excellent way to pass the time in a quarantine. The game operates on real time so there is no need to rush things or even to grind. I role-play as myself as a Resident Representative in an almost deserted island, which I named after my institution. It was just funny to do this. I especially liked developing the natural history museum with an owl named Blathers serving as the very knowledgeable, insect-fearing curator. I learned a lot of new science stuff from this owl. Quite a good resource for kids. When Blathers asks for contributes to the museum named after my institution, Blathers says “The cultural development of is a worthy endeavor indeed.” When Blathers said this, I was laughing so hard. Of course, I donated while wearing my star shades, groovy top, and floral skirt.