econ and cute French girls

Ok, things have calmed down slightly. My cousin and her husband have left Paris so while I don't get to hang out with them and be silly and offend Parisians or get invited to dinner anymore, I do have some time to read and go out and not be as stressed out trying to juggle everything.

I'm now reading a book called Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships. I have to choose a chapter to have everyone in my class read and then somehow present the entire book and lead a 30 minutes discussion two Tuesdays from now. It's not nearly as dry as it probably sounds despite being about both politics and econ. It gives a great model of why autocracy has been so common throughout history, and points out that good luck had a big role in the emergence of stable democracies in England and the States. Big sections on Soviet history too, good stuff.

Also on the reading list: ... eh, no one cares. It's a long list for this week though.

Last night went to a club called Triptyque to check out a battle between four djs and a live drummer named Andrew something. The four djs were ok but they really could have done a lot of what they were doing with some clever computer programming and one dj. The frustrating thing though was that they were so chill last night, when everyone really just wanted some fat beats to dance to. They'd be all mellow and downtemp, then pick it up in the last 30 seconds of the song. Fortunately, NYC MC Mike Ladd was there with some friends and a live band. Damn, that guy knows how to perform!

For the evening as a whole, it really helped that I was there with this very cool (and cute!) French/American girl from Sciences Po. No dirty details though, sorry Matt. Speaking of which, you were right about my French teacher. She spilled the beans yesterday afternoon.

Off to start another evening of debauchery and madness. Hopefully I'll get a little homework done too this weekend.

Bisous.

p.s. does anyone else think that the list of current moods for blog posts is a tad long?