January 2nd, 2009

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I woke up at 4 am this morning. Couldn’t fall back asleep, so my mind began to wander. For whatever reason, my mind started to think about indifference curves from economics and the hierarchy of needs. There must be someway to combine them…after all, it’s really hard to be indifferent between goods that are from different levels of the hierarchy. After that, I couldn’t sleep at all, so I started working on my theory. I came up with a few different graphs…I’m thinking of making a video to explain my reasoning, and send it to my friends and the Freakonomics website. There’s still quite a few places where I don’t understand, and does’t seem to fit the definition of an indifference curve…but I’m working on it! I was so excited. I think now I know a little bit about how academics shout “Eureka” after they realise the breakthrough of something they’ve been working on their whole lives!

After that, I fell back asleep…and didn’t wake up until 2 pm!! Thank goodness that L also slept in. We went to Aas centre and bought food to make tonights dinner; we wanted to thank A for feeding us with delicious food for so many days. I also finally got an universal adapter! Now I can use my computer and recharge my ipod.

Went home, watched news, went over to L’s to make dinner (spaghetti, garlic bread, and salad). Met her room mate, K, a Norwegian masters student. We had a lot of trouble saying his name..Apparently “Americans” no matter how hard they try, can’t pronounce his name. I thought about telling him I’m not American…but thought that was a bit rude on our first time meeting. L had invited him to dinner before, but refused. Norwegians really are quite shy and not very social in the Canadian sense.

I had nice chats and discussions with L while making dinner at my place. We invited A over when we were done. He was really tired today from dealing with all the new students coming. It’s just going to get more and more busy these coming days. I hope he’s going to be alright. We looked through A’s photos of his stay in Norway after dinner; his room mates are really fun and interesting…now I understand why he likes them so much.

We went to the sauna after dinner. It was really fun. I had a tiny bit of beer, but my head was buzzing when we came out. I have a feeling I’ll be going to the sauna quite often from now on.

P.S. I watched an interview about the organization Playpumps Internation. It combines the simple concept of water pumps with one of those roundabout things kids play on. It’s basically a wheel turned by kids to pump water…but the kids looked like they were having a lot of fun. What a great idea…