Yesterday I woke up early (4:20am) as our AC in the master bedroom is not working and sleeping in the couch in our studio is not very comfortable. Naturally I checked my phone to time and saw many messages about a breaking news. It’s someone that touched my life deeply in my learning years (grad school) who just took a very high level impactful position in the institution that I work for.
I was surprised but not so surprised because she’s the smartest economist I know. Not only that, she is the best communicator (concise, powerful and easy to understand) economist I know. There are many good economists out there but most of them are academic (nerdy) who doesn’t know how to communicate their ideas for non-economists, or maybe they don’t even care if the message gets crossed. But my mentor is totally the opposite, her ideas are simple, powerful, those that you listen and said “this makes so much sense, why I haven’t thought about it”. One thing that I learn from her is that simple ideas could be powerful. Really no need to complicate things when it can be just simple.
Over the course of the day, i kept getting message of people who knows I used to be very close to my mentor. A lot of sweet memories in those years came to mind. Not only about ideas, but also about life. We also used to cook together, I would drive her back home after class, we would “work” on her bed while the husband brings tea and cookies, Christmas dinner at her place and woke up seeing white swan on the lake, Lizzy’s first Thanksgiving in her Boston castle, my first academic conference trip to Boston with her with a very bumpy flight but she remained calmed and we kept chatting. It was only when we got off the flight she said: that was a bumpy flight. She’s also the most fun person to be around, those that her presence cannot be ignored. In many aspects, I am like her, love hosting parties for people we care but at the same time enjoy solitude. I learned from her the value of trusting your economist intuition, backed up with evidence, and tell a simple story to get your ideas out. Don’t pretend that complex models make you look smarter, they don’t, they are the mask for people who doesn’t have enough confidence to say what they believe.
My next train of thought was less fun to think about it so I stopped when it got difficult. That is what if she asks me to join her…. that means our life will change again, and not sure if it could be considered a wise career move, but just being around her those are life lessons that would outweigh career prospects. So hard… so stopped thinking about it.
Simple lunch for the family, very vegetable centered plus pasta and rice cake leftovers.
does anyone get impatient when kids spend over an hour eating their food??? Mines always just chat and eat slow.
Our New Journey 