Voter irrationality and strip malls.
Two links, discovered in brief (but given there's a week left, not brief enough) sanity breaks from working on the dissertation. Both my economics and advanced behavioural decision making courses touched on voter preference and behaviour -- interesting stuff, though unlike Grash I didn't write a paper on it. This article from the New Yorker on the subject is educational and depressing by turns, and has pointers to more research in the area.

Which reminds me (see item 5 6 [no, really, I'm numerate], below), these are the highlights of my to-do list for September:

1. Hand in dissertation.
2. Party.
3. Party some more (a wake of sorts must be planned for John's departure to the home continent).
4. Get the sound on my laptop fixed (on hold on and off since November).
5. Finish unpacking (on hold since June).
6. Indulge obsessive information magpie/archivist tendencies until my access to electronic journals via JSTOR and Web of Science runs out.
7. Implement the system from Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (yes, it would have been more effective to this in, say, February)
8. Recommence contemplating what to do when I grow up.
9. Spend two weeks in Canada, mostly in Kelowna, mostly going through all my stuff that's been stored chez mum and dad for the last year and figuring out (stress-free and productively) what to do with it.

Related to that final item, the second link:

"Whatever else it may be, Kelowna, B.C., is neither Old World nor New Age. Rather, it may best be described as a long strip mall, winding like the sinuous tail of the local sea monster, Ogopogo, through a valley of stucco mansions and speedboats and blond highlights."

This is possibly the truest description ever of the town in which I grew up.
- posted by Christina @ 11:45 am