A good day.

I'm pretty lucky to get some of the opportunities I get. Today was one of those days. I walked into the Federal Reserve, went through the metal detector, swiped my card, and went up to the seventh floor. What do I get but an E-mail from my mentor saying there's a conference in the River Room with top economists presenting their research? Jackpot.

I watched professors from Stanford, U-Penn, CMU, and the NY Federal Reserve present research on topics like DSGE Model-based forecasting vs Bluechip forecasting, something about GDP/GDI averages and measurements, econometric models of banking and derivative trading, etc. It was pretty incredible, and I was honestly confused, but it was the good kind of confusion that spurs hard work and curiosity. I also understood more of the math than before thanks to Diffeq and Skerbitz. ^_^ The DSGE Model-based forecasting paper was really interesting as I got to talk to my mentor and the local Federal reserve forecaster about it. Weird how a computer simulation can actually predict better in the long run than experts on Wall-street.

The day only got better after I came home. I played like, what, 5-10 games of Starcraft today? Won a few of them, lost a few, but hey, it's a learning experience. I beat Obelisco for the first time in a long game. God, my ZvT is so bad, and mines are so brutal. Still, I won in the lategame for once. ^_^ I held my third, took 2 more bases, and crunched the his T with drops, ultras, lings, and defilers. A pretty good way to end my day of SC. Oh, and I remembered to blog after all. :)