The first day of Harvard classes

Yesterday, I had my first classes - Quant and Econ. Well, the strange thing about this required summer program is the classes don't really count toward anything. They're designed to prepare us old folks in the Kennedy school for the fall. Fortunately, the average age of the class is 40, and I turn 40 in a few months. Right now it's about 5.30 am Saturday morning. Kalian woke up early, so I'm breastfeeding her while writing this.

I rushed over to school yesterday - of course, again, I had to change my shirt at the last minute, though that's not why I was late. Chris and I were just enjoying a breakfast together while the kids were playing in the living room. It felt like such a rare moment these days. Since we don't have any outside childcare, any time alone together feels precious. When I finally did leave the house, once again Kalian was screaming because I was leaving - it breaks my heart - while Liam couldn't even look up from his legos to say good-bye.

When I got to the Kennedy school, our room assignments were on a sheet of paper that I quickly grabbed, as I struggled to figure out how to find the room. Fortunately, Lesley, the summer program director, was giving another student - Wuan - from the Central Bank of China - directions to the same room, so we walked over to the Littaur building together. On a prejudiced instinct, I thought, hmmm...an Asian guy who works in finance - hope I didn't get into a class that's too difficult. Basically, the tests we took on Wednesday were placement tests for our classes. When I walked into the room of 20 students or so, 3/4 were Asian and all but 2 were men. I know, I know - totaly stereotypes, but I still paused at the meaning. Gulp. We then went around the room and introduced ourselves and told the teacher, Maria, who works for the Netherlands Central Bank herself, and the class what our quantitative experience is. As all of the engineering and finance folks introduced their background and the math they use on a daily basis - ok, there were a few other journalists peppered in the room - when it was my turn, I said that recently my experience has been teaching my young kids to count and while teaching yoga counting breaths in yoga postures.

Sure enough, Maria said that we had placed into the highest section. Go figure. We would start right off with calculus and other math areas I had never heard of (I was the only one), including game theory. The teacher, who I really liked, was tall, elegant, had that European short hair look - dark hair, as she is Greek, spent a good portion of the class explaining what we would be doing in the class. She mentioned us having to take a "how to" class on Excel. I raised my hand and said that I had to go to the required financial aid meeting, scheduled for the same time - apparently, I was the only one in the room. A lot of students are sponsored by governments or corporations. Maria said she'd figure something out. After class, ???, approached me. ??? works for the census bureau as a high level analyst and trainer of other countries on conducting the census. He offered to teach me excel, which I thought was sweet.

Later, at lunch, he asked me in various ways how I had gotten into that class. Had I studied? In other words, how did a mom test into the most advanced level of math? It was very sexist and insulting.

The quant class itself was fun and challenging. At first, I was nervous and thought I was in the wrong place, but I soon realized how exciting it was to be challenged.

Unfortunately, I wasn't so lucky in the econ class I was placed into. I had a totally different vibe from the teacher and from the students. First off, the teacher is a student herself - normally, not a big deal, but I had the sense that she was trying to look more professional with her high heels since she did look to be about 18 (gosh, that probably sounds sexist on my end), but she definitely knew her stuff in a very traditional way. She was very poised and kept the conversation on track, but it felt like she was stifling discussion - not just in how she answered questions but from the get go - I had a very evisceral reaction to her introduction - where she said emphatically that economics was a science and that if an economist says something is bad/good for the economy that they are being objective and that only policy makers are subjective in their decisions to implement that "something." Huh? Hogwash. I couldn't help but roll my eyes, squirm in my chair and yawn for the rest of the class. It was all to straight for me, though a lot of the guys in the class seemed totally into it.

Well, the one upshot to my hating this class - I considered trying to get into another class, challenging her statements, etc. - is that it has made me research more radical economists - including some at Tufts - I'm hoping to possibly take a class over there (???). And I read over all of the articles my teacher posted - it was all about how regulation impedes society and the free market. Blech. No wonder - she comes from the Harvard Business School. When I mentioned this to Chris he commented how glad he was that I was excited about something. Yeah.

The teacher also mentioned how a lot of "lay" people after reading such books as Freakanomics are extrapolating obscure (my wc) economic theory into blanket statements but that it's dangerous - ok, she didn't use that word - but the upshot was very conservative and traditional - what i wanted her to say was that this was based on the outcomes of u.s. capitalism and imperialism. Chris summed it up when he said that economists have all of these models and theories but they are not science because they can never be trusted - there are too many variables.

During the econ class Chris had brought the kids over to campus for a family gathering - yep, he was the only dad - and they everyone met - with their families if they brought them - in the courtyard for tacos and volleyball. I got a chance to chat with the parliament rep from Dominica, who talked about his daughter who had just graduated from the kennedy school and helped him get set up. He seems very cool and very sweet, but it makes me wonder about my hunches coming true about the international students - them coming from American-influenced privileged classes.

It was nice to meet some of the other kids, but I mostly struggled to get food for my kids and play with them in the broiling sun. I took the potty out a few times for Kalian - she was so dehydrated she never went, and I wondered about our California diaper free style as Liam at 3yo ran around without a diaper after peeing in the bushes. Breastfeeding Kalian I got the standard, "How long are you going to breastfeed her for?" - by an African-American woman who has two kids - but Chris gave the great answer "til she's 15."

Had friends over last night - Joel and Lani - who not only had checked out our apt for us in the first place, but even helped us put in another AC unit. In the close to 100 degree heat, I stell felt like I had to cook a full-on meal and roasted a chicken with potatoes and made a salad. Marxist Martha Stewart goes to Harvard. While they were here, I managed to put Kalian to bed and then put Liam to bed. I was so exhausted from the week that I only managed to read one book to him before falling asleep myself - while I had guests over!