Forward Momentum and Questions for You (The Potential Reader)

Made a couple of significant steps forward in my research on NATO's performance during military operations today. Before, there was a closed loop of calculations which effectively ran me down the rabbit hole. Now, through a simplified, smoother "relative" model, I can approach the problem as a series of relationships.

Also, convinced the family to go in half/half for a white board. Good deal. Right now I'm flipping through so many pieces of paper, and so many e-mails, my head is spinning.

Few quick questions for ya'll:

1. What's your favorite place to work?

2. Know any good basic (beginners calculus, intermediate statistics) math books?

3. How do you organize your research?

Thanks.

Tags for the post: Progress, Questions, Math, Models

Normal. For once.

Here We Go!

Ok. This is how I plan to procrastinate during finals...also how I plan to spend some of my time this summer. This blog. It'll be an adventure (I tell myself). Here we go!

I'm big on economics, international relations, politics, and I'm a wannabe quant. Right now, I'm working on a quantitative analysis of NATO's mission in Afghanistan. It's almost done, but I'm really getting bogged down.

Having problems with moving from a static to a dynamic model...Oy.

I've got some goals this summer though:

1. Get a whiteboard (a must at this point).

2. Learn Math.

3. Realize I can't "learn math" and settle for understanding lots more than I do right now.

4. Not fail out of college because I'm doing nerdy things like discovering the underlying patterns of human behavior.

5. Not list things about college on a summer to-do list.

But seriously, a side note on patterns: finding what you think might be a pattern that unlocks an aspect of individual (or state) behavior is like sorting chaos to find the face of God. You know a little bit more than everyone else about how the world works.

^^^That was a little dramatic, and for the 2 people who will read this, I apologize.

Finally, my tags for this post will be Summer, Afghanistan, Models, About Me.

Ridiculous.