Unlike many people I know – my friend Rosemary (and her lovely blog) comes to mind – I do not especially enjoy cooking.  I can put dishes together well enough to survive, but I don’t have any particular talent at the art.  However, with life as a young professional beckoning, it occurs to me that I can no longer count on being fed (by a university dining hall, parents, foodie of a sister, etc.) but must instead learn how to feed myself.  Given I was bumming around the kitchen and watching the French Open, I figured today was as good a day as any to begin my culinary education.

Best to start simple, I figured – possibly ridiculously simple.  I created an impromptu sauce with grape tomatoes, basil, and garlic, threw it together with some fettuccine, and sprinkled some shredded parmesan on top for a perfectly pleasant bowl of pasta:

To supplement this, I cut up some fresh strawberries and mixed them into a massive dollop of plain yoghurt for just the right mixture of tart and sweet.  Since the end of the academic year, the last month of which involved far too much indulging in what I call the preservatarian diet, I have had a constant craving for fresh fruit and desired strawberries most of all. 

This also reminds me of the 90p yoghurt pots I used to buy from the café in the Social Science Library in Oxford as snacks during my lengthy coursework sessions there.  But enough of the nostalgia.

Speaking of the French Open, nothing says “summer” to me like Grand Slam tennis.  There have been some absolutely delightful matches so far with even better ones to come, not the least a Roger Federer-Novak Djokovic semifinal that will leave me positively wracked with anxiety, I am sure.

I was engaging in the time-honoured tradition of flipping through the Philadelphia Inquirer while eating a late breakfast when I came across the following sentence in a letter to the editor (“Strauss-Kahn sheds light on bureaucracy”):

The Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair has served to shine a light on the little-known international bureaucracies such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Bank for International Standards, and the United Nations.

I realise that I am going to sound like the greatest intellectual elitist prick of all time, but hear me out: the International Whaling Commission can be safely considered a “little-known international bureaucracy,” as can the Council of the Baltic Sea States or even, say, the Asian Development Bank.

But the IMF? The World Bank?  The United Nations, which I am quite sure every Republican (and quite a few Democrats) to ever run for any kind of political office has shat upon in a stump speech?  World, you make me despair. 

On May 21, 2011, I officially became an alumna of Georgetown University.  I have been thinking a lot, as people are wont to do in such situations, about what the last four years ultimately were, yet such contemplation is premature.  Their true worth will only become apparent with time.  But I can say with full confidence now that commencement weekend – beginning with senior convocation, running through Tropaia (which is fancy Greek for “awards ceremony,”) and senior ball, and culminating with graduation itself – will not be easily forgotten, for both the memories themselves and what they represent. 

The last four years have been so enriching at both a personal and intellectual level, even if they were, at times, difficult – because all worthwhile things in this world should be difficult.  It is staggering, to behold all that I have experienced; it is humbling, to count so many wonderful people among my friends, mentors, and inspiration; and it is bittersweet, truly, to know that, although Georgetown is indeed forever, this particular chapter of my life has reached its end.

A few opening remarks upon Yosemite National Park, which I visited during my Easter holiday with my family:

→ Even during late April, massive swathes of the park are still covered by not an insignificant amount of snow.  This is me, standing outside our accommodations in the park:

As you can see, I clearly did not do a good job of packing weather-appropriate clothing.

→ In spite of this sudden return to winter -- or, in some cases, because -- the vistas offered at Yosemite were actually as stunningly beautiful as people had told me.  Immersing myself in the internet-free world of nature was exactly what I needed after thesis/Carroll Round.

On the drive back to Los Angeles, we stopped at Malibu Beach for a bit of proper California sunshine.  I'm not terribly fond of the beach, personally, but it does afford some fun opportunities for photography. 

In particular, the ever-shifting shoreline is like a Salvador Dalí-inspired painting, if you look at it closely enough.

I also insisted on doing an impromptu photoshoot of my sister, whose heart and university aspirations belong to SoCal.  These photos are so incredibly trite, but that doesn't mean they weren't fun to take!  They should additionally leave no doubt as to to who between us is the cooler sibling (hint: not me).

First order of business: as kids these days say, GPOY --

If I look vaguely discomfited in this picture, that would be because I picked up my official graduation regalia yesterday afternoon.  Although I was already fully aware of the fact that I will receive my Georgetown diploma in exactly three days' time, there is nothing quite like awkwardly trying to figure out just how exactly one wears an academic hood to drive that point home.  (Necessary disclaimer: I am actually wearing my mortarboard from my Oxford days in this picture, not the graduation cap proper, which can hardly compare, and you have no idea how tempted I am to just show up to commencement in full sub-fusc.)

Anyway, back to the subject at hand as I continue my effort to finish catch-up blogging before this undergraduate business is over.  If you spent so much as ten minutes talking to me during the last year -- assuming you would ever want to subject yourself to such a thing -- you probably heard something or another about the Carroll Round, which, as our website proudly proclaims, is a premier undergraduate international economics conference here at Georgetown.  I first heard of it near the end of my freshman year, when my dean sent out his customary e-mail encouraging students to apply for the conference's Steering Committee.  Though my interest was very much piqued, I ultimately did not apply, believing that I did not have the requisite academic track record in economics -- or any useful skills, really -- to deserve such a position.  On the list of things I regret about my four years at Georgetown, the decision to let this opportunity go ranks quite highly.

A year later, as a sophomore, I knew that I was Oxford-bound and much more dedicated to the subject of economics.  I paid the ongoing Carroll Round a visit and sat in on a presentation in which terms like "vector autoregression" and "lags" were bandied around with ease -- with so much ease, in fact, that they went right over my head.  My junior year abroad at Oxford thus marked the true beginning of a gradual, if occasionally arduous, acclimation with the economic lexicon, even as I found myself enduring a string of existential hang wringing sessions regarding econ's role in my post-Georgetown plans.  Nevertheless, when the application for this year's Carroll Round Steering Committee was made available, my desire to be involved with this conference was still there.  I thus found myself on said committee and was given the position of Recruitment Chair, i.e., the person who sends e-mails, reads applications, and sends more e-mails.

There are many ways to slice and dice an academic year, when looking back on it, but this last one at Georgetown was, in many important respects, defined by economics.  I began it still uncertain if economics was what I truly wanted to do.  When it seemed that almost all of my classmates were landing jobs at this investment bank or that consulting firm, my aspirations to postgraduate study in econ -- as if I could handle the rigour of such a thing! as if any of these universities would ever want me! -- felt flimsy indeed.  I also had my first experience with real empirical research (though writ very small) around this time, and I would be lying if I did not say that struggling to learn the syntax of the language that is Stata was frustrating at the outset.  As for Carroll Round, I discovered that Recruitment Chair could quite a labour -- the number of headaches that mail merge caused, honestly...

Yet I am pleased to say that, when all was said & done, the end of this year found me -- surprisingly and happily (plus or minus some margin of error) -- reconciled with economics.  My round of PhD applications may not have been terribly successful, but, starting in mid-June, I will be a research assistant at a certain international financial institution.  Stata and I ended up getting along quite swimmingly, and, after writing two empirical papers and a thesis, I ended up discovering that I do, in fact, enjoy playing around with data.  And, through the never-ending correspondence with universities/applicants/participants, careful management of Excel spreadsheets, late-night Gchat conversations, meetings, papers and more papers and oh dear God above why so many papers, I felt my love for the Carroll Round, rather than diminish.  So much of what I have done as a student is because, in some sense or another, I "have" to do it (which is not to say that obligation and enjoyment are inversely related; "Do your duty until it becomes your joy," said one Friedrich Nietzsche).  This conference became the rare enterprise that I would look at and think, "This is good work, what we're doing.  Really good work."

Because, truly, what could be more fantastic than gathering about thirty undergraduates who all, in some way or another, love economics in the same place --

(Photo credit: Stephanie Joyal)

-- and having them present their original research on topics as diverse as price discovery in Baltic stock markets, tuition fees and student enrolment in German universities, and the modelling of subjective well-being --

-- while inviting well-known academics and policymakers in the field (this year: Joseph Stiglitz and Jagdish Bhagwati), who lecture from on high and then find us all so infinitely engaging that they stay to chat --

-- and even landing the one and only stand-up economist and my personal hero, Yoram Bauman, for a comedy routine at a local bar (hence my tenuous rationale for this post's title)?

Perhaps it is simply my overly contemplative mindset, brought on by the end of four years of uni, that is speaking, but what will always be most amazing about the entire Carroll Round experience is the very singular quality of the community that it convenes.  When I think of this year's participants, with whom I corresponded for so long, it is with the utmost affection and hope that I will see them soon.  When I think of the alumni, I am pleasantly surprised to remember that the awkwardness I always expect to accompany my attempts at interpersonal communication does not seem nearly as pronounced when around them.  And, of course, when I think of fellow Steering Committee members and our awesome-beyond-words faculty advisor, I know that I will cherish the friendships that I have developed with them.  It really is one big happy Carroll Round family, and what is this thing called life if not a series of journeys in search of that place where we are not alienated?

As of about last Saturday at noon, I turned in my last official bit of work as an undergraduate -- a take-home exam for which I had written about 2,000 words, where each word felt like a single tooth I was wrenching free from my gums with my own bare hands -- which necessitated the in-vogue exclamation, "I am done!"  Of course, it would be the case that I would still have some unofficial work left; namely, a post-conference report for Carroll Round that ended up being longer than my thesis.  Now that I am finally finished with that, then, I can truly say that I am, in fact, done. 

At first, there was elation, pure and undiluted --

-- (why yes, a bunch of Oxford-inspired toffs prancing about is the epitome of joy) and I am sure that the celebratory mood will return in due time.  But there is also an equally strong realisation that this does mark a definitive end of something.  There will no longer be a campus to which to return in the fall, carefully outlined syllabi to dictate the pace of my days, or academic loops through which to jump.  For all that one does grow by leaps & bounds during college, it is a curiously sheltered existence, one endowed with all of the freedoms of real personhood with none -- or very few -- of the real responsibilities.  Sometimes, it feels as if an entire lifetime has been unceremoniously crammed into four years, replete with glorious highs and despondent lows.  It is a lot to process, so please excuse this damper of an introspective paragraph.  (Just wait until the inevitable introspective post devoted to university!)

Anyway, I did mean to catch up on blogging during finals, but their drudgery is such that, when I was not revising, I could not bring myself to do anything that required even a modicum of thinking.  On the bright side, this does mean that I am completely caught up on Glee, utterly addicted to Game of Thrones, and slowly falling for The Borgias as well, but more on my television habits later.  Although senior week, in which I currently find myself, is a time for the entire class to come together in collective reminiscence/inebriation, I remain afflicted with post-finals desire to spend every waking moment asleep.  In the course of my taking it relatively easy, then, I hope to clear out the blogging queue before graduation and, in my online life as in my real one, begin my post-Georgetown existence with a clean slate.

Nothing like catch-up blogging to serve as a quasi-productive distraction from revision.  (I had legitimately forgotten how dull exams are, or perhaps I am just not sufficiently terrified by them.  Where is the vaunted East Asian work ethic when one needs it the most?)

To roll back the calendar, er, two months or so, I present here a selection of pictures from and remarks about my trip to New Orleans.  Carnival and Mardi Gras conveniently overlapped with my spring break this year, and, since Katherine and I had, at some point in the seemingly distant past, discussed the possibility of my staying with her to enjoy this most singular of spectacles, I figured I might as well take advantage of this coincidence and make that possibility a reality.  My sojourn to New Orleans marked the first time since my year abroad that I had travelled in a context outside of a family-related excursion, and being in the city was such a novel experience that it recalled fond memories of dashing about the Continent.

I know very little about the local history of New Orleans, but spending even a handful of days there was enough to impress upon this outsider its distinct identity that makes it quite singular among American cities.  My memories of the places are, I suspect, at least slightly biased by Carnival-related festivities, yet that such a place should have such celebrations at all underscores its colour and vivacity.  There is too much to love: the food, the music, the architecture.  Besides, they have Pimm's, even if it isn't made the proper English way!

As for Mardi Gras itself, when I told friends that I would be present in New Orleans for the holiday, I received rather askance responses; I am, after all, perhaps the farthest thing possible from the boozing type.  While it is true that one can approach Mardi Gras as a fraternity party writ large -- and I imagine that a fair fraction of out-of-town university students who descended upon New Orleans were looking for just such a thing -- I experienced it more as a city-wide neighbourhood block party to which everyone was invited and everyone, more or less, attended.

One particular highlight: catching an up-close-and-personal glimpse of one Anderson Cooper, who was riding in Endymion, one of the larger parades.  I managed to catch both his eye and a commemorative plastic cup, which he tossed directly at me.  It took all of my self-control to not faint on the spot.

Another highlight was walking to the French Quarter on Mardi Gras itself with Katherine and her family.  Going there in pedestrian street clothes was, of course, out of the question, which brings me to the rather fabulous tradition of wearing fancy dress/costumes (aside: it has been almost a year since I left England, and, still, I find myself debating between Britishisms and Americanisms -- the former usually win out).  There is a lovely, covert thrill to obscuring one's identity -- or, if carried far enough, slipping out of it entirely -- and dispensing with one's usual inhibitions, something that is appropriate for Mardi Gras, I think.  As the picture below demonstrates, we dressed up as "absinthe-minded"; please do admire the wit of it all at your leisure.

It took a while to get to the French Quarter, but there were many sights to absorb along the way and in the French Quarter itself.  Also, Bourbon Street -- four and fifth pictures down -- was just absolutely mental.

The dedication required of some of the costumes that I saw was unbelievable.  Others, like the "U.S. Hair Force," were simply too amusing to not photograph.

All in all, between watching parades, clamouring for beads & other throws, and taking in the electric/inebriated ambience, I had a good deal more fun in a few days than I usually do in, well, a few months.  That makes revisiting this trip in the dark depths of exams week most worthwhile.