Starting Year 2

I took the comprehensive exams yesterday. The Micro exam was from 9
to 12, and the Macro exam was from 2 to 5. The Micro exam was about
as hard as I expected it to be. I was able to finish most of it, and
I am fairly confident that I did well. The Macro exam, however, was a
joke. I finished it in two hours, spent 30 minutes fine-tuning a few
answers, and then spent the remainder of the time bored. Lots of
other people also finished early. The department does not really care about
macroeconomics, everybody knows that the Macro exam is mostly a
formality and the real challenge is Micro. If you do well on the
Micro exam, you will pass both of them, and if you do badly on Micro,
your Macro score will do nothing to help you.

The teacher recommended that we take the weekend off. Yeah Right.
Before next Tuesday, I need to read five methodology papers and write
an essay on them, teach myself how to deal with Markov Chains, and
prepare for the class I am teaching. In the near future, I also have
to study several chapters of the Econometrics book, come up with a
paper topic for another class, and grade a pile of problem sets from
the first-year graduate micro class. So here I am, working in my
office on Saturday morning.

But I would rather be doing this than working in my old job. It is
usually fun, and I don't get bored.