Living in exile

Things are still ok for the most part. There are some changes to the reporting of the temperature. This time, I have to send a picture of the thermometer reading. I commented to the building representative that trust is hard to come by. The rep responded that they did not have a choice and did not mean to make it hard on everybody. I said that I understood. It is just the job. But I am glad to get a clarification that the temperature reporting will end after the 14-day self-quarantine. I also have to report temperature (including time I took the temperature!!) to the “burning cloud app”. There really is a time for metaphors.

I finally was able to buy flour (so that I can make bread) after 3 days of trying. It should arrive in five days. I also bought tons of canned pickles to allow us to use congee to extend the rice supply. After buying these and paying, I wanted to add other things. Then I noticed something with JD.com. It is the second time that after paying for one shopping run, the next run I do runs into an error and I could not add things into the cart. I will observe this in the next few days.

Breakfast and lunch: Back to chocolate oats. But this time we added spam. You know, to cut the sweetness. Prepped a Bavarian dish called böfflamott to be made after 4 days. The recipe called for an onion, celery root (I still do not know if this is 芹菜根 or 芹菜头 and I rarely see it), and a carrot. I did not have those three. Fresh ingredients are still not available to us. So used onion powder to substitute the onion and then gamble with using a syrup of sorts later for the celery root and carrot. It is absurd that I can buy these downstairs but self-quarantine...

Dinner: Rice plus the chicken adobo. Still have leftovers for tomorrow. I plan to cook the beef version of the adobo in the next few days. I still have a garlic shortage. Fortunately, the vinegar I ordered arrived.

I spent some time writing up a list of questions and some proposals for the running of the yet to officially start “semester”. I wonder if it will ultimately be futile. But I guess we continue to fight it out.

Speaking of fighting, the approach to virus control is framed as a battle. I wonder if it is a good way to frame the situation. Battles ultimately require sacrifices, which in turn relies on a pecking order. I also hear a lot of discussion about using science and experts. A curious phrase I hear a lot is “要科学” or need to be scientific. I wonder if people actually believe this. One recurring of history, regardless of the point in time, is distrust of science and expertise. The death of Li Wenliang is surely something that we have seen before in this context. I think what we really need is not 指导 or guidance (with a touch of hierarchy) but 沟通 communication (with a touch of flow, hook, and sinker).

I finally finished Racine's book from Day 2. It is a highly recommended book and influenced my choices for the syllabus. For one, I realized from this book that you can teach a specific feature of time series analysis (most relevant for economics) by the second week of an econometrics course. In particular, after introducing simple regression, you can already jump to spurious regressions, unit roots, and a very specific form of cointegration. The major reason for doing this is that software have made unit root testing and cointegration too available to everyone. These topics have somehow “infested” the content of some of the irreputable journals. Hopefully, I can do my part to fix this issue by showing why these topics are more complicated than what the software suggests. These topics already allow you to introduce non-standard inference right away by week 2. I will talk more about the book as the days go by.

I also spent some time setting up a learnr tutorial and doing some testing. I still need time to finish it up. I am trying to deploy an online course with as few use of bandwidth as possible. Once everyone (literally) starts to do things online, something will break. We have to be prepared but I am not sure the higher ups are worried.

This month is also the grant-writing season. I am waiting for a particular gesture from researchers in China. I am hoping that they could coordinate to not apply for any grant so that they can redirect the money to the frontline and to competent experts (here and abroad) to study the virus very carefully and to PAY everyone in the food chain even the RAs!

I also spent some time catching up on new shows. You should too. Try McMillions, Everything is Gonna Be Okay, Miracle Workers, and Awkwafina is Nora from Queens.

That's it. I leave you with something that cracked me up from Awkwafina's show. A group of old Chinese ladies and a group of old Korean ladies are fighting over a plug outlet. There was an argument (with accompanying middle fingers raised) between these two groups. Inventions were being touted: books, paper, chargers, Samsung, etc. One of the choice lines may sting but is also true (When we got back home recently, I saw something fresh by the gate of our neighborhood.). This was uttered by one of the Korean ladies:

“Don't you have a floor to spit on somewhere?”