Preppy Wedding Inspiration

I am going to be leaving town for work for a few days and probably won�t have the time to blog, so I wanted to leave you with some other teaser details on the wedding, since we are a day away from being March. As in, the month of our wedding. Ahhhh.

I am trying to work out a guest blogger of the male species to blog in my absence. We'll see if we can't get a 6'4 cutie to share his thoughts on the perfect preppy wedding!

Just in case you need reminding, our monogram.

The Inspirational cake (except ours will have more dots and the monogram with be more in line with the monogram) oh and no topper. I am just not a fan of flowers on cake?

The CD preview (I promise to post the how to later next week). And they look a lot cuter wrapped and tie with a brown grosgrain ribbon. Sorry about the color, my camera makes it look a little off.

Bathroom Basket Inspiration (which my mom is taking care of).

Thank you picture for the thank you cards to be run after the wedding.

And just and FYI - most pictures are courtesy of the knot. I hope everyone has a super fun and WARM weekend. I think spring is in the air! Oh and look-out for the guest post tomorrow. Should be LOTS OF FUN.

PARIS - jeremy scott after show party, le baron, 02/27/07

PARIS - pret-�-porter fw 07/08 shows: marith� & fran�ois girbaud, le carrousel du louvre + lutz, espace cardin + christian dior, tuileries, 02/27/07

Principles of Economics, Translated

Preppy Honeymoon Must Haves

The warm weather in Richmond today, has me thinking about the honeymoon. Here is my shopping list of preppy honeymoon must haves.


Exploring

J Crew Argyle Short Sleeved Sweater

With matching (monogrammed with my NEW initials) J crew 3� navy shorts


Out to dinner

Velvet Striped Babydoll Dress

With this fun necklace


And these shoes

Sunshine

This super cute bikini

And a cover-up since I won�t be in tip top bikini shape (who ever really is?)


So I can people watch.
Schlepping

So, out of my price range, but I want this.

HCER

After yesterday's ec 10 lecture, students were offered a hard copy of the student-run Harvard College Economics Review, which my blog readers can get online. In it, you can find an interview with Larry Summers, as well as profiles of Brad DeLong, Daron Acemoglu, Robert Aumann, and Thomas Schelling.

Pedagogical Blogging

In a previous post, I recommended that junior faculty avoid activities that distract them from research, such as blogging. Here is an alternative point of view:

Dear Professor Mankiw,

I am a second-year assistant professor at the United States Naval Academy (I finished my Phd at UC Davis, summer '05), and regular reader of your blog and thought I might offer a slightly different perspective on your post: "Advice for Junior Faculty"--since many of your blog readers may be new faculty such as myself: at a school that places a lot of emphasis on teaching, but we still still need to publish in peer-reviewed journals to get promoted.

I decided to set up a blog this semester for my senior level class on monetary policy in order to foster class participation (and get the students to read the news, hopefully). I post a couple times a week (in the style of your blog and marginalrevolution.com) and then ask/require the students to respond to the posts. Their comments go towards participation points in the overall grade.

In this setting the benefits of a blog may outweigh the costs:

Benefits:

*A class blog is a way of connecting with students and providing a different way for them to participate in the course. This hopefully makes the course a more enjoyable experience for both teacher and student.

*A blog is a way to provide "innovative" technology into the course content; being online is a regular part of today's college student's lifestyle--this exploits that. Frankly, at a teaching school such as USNA (or comparable places, say, liberal arts colleges with around 5000 students or less), using a "fresh" teaching approach will be valued more, ceteris paribus, during tenure review than for those at a research school.

Finally, the costs are small if:

i) You post only a couple of times a week and keep the posts short (I also generally go with short articles on cnn.com).

ii) Your classes are small. I have approximately a total of 50 students across three classes this semester.

Lastly let me note blogs such as yours and marginalrevolution.com provide positive externalities for those of us at teaching schools. I can check them and then alert my students to the "day's headlines." If you're interested, here is the link.

Thanks for your time,
Ryan Brady

PARIS - flanders fashion institute presentation, r�sidence de l'ambassadeur de belgique + burfitt presentation, centre culturel su�dois, 02/26/07

PARIS - pret-�-porter fw 07/08 shows: gaspard yurkievich + isabel marant + maison martin margiela, 02/26/07

Southern Weddings

Tara Guerard, the acclaimed Charleston party planner and owner of Soiree has just published the book Southern Weddings. For all you preppy brides who admire Seersuckers and Mint Juleps, this one is a must have. I think I would have just bought it for the cover (I have been known to do this, sad, I know).

And if you have the time, take a look at the Gallery section of the Soiree site. Her ideas are fantastic!

In other news, the kitchen organization weekend project went very well. I managed to not do anything truly wedding related this weekend, which was glorious. I had my last dress fitting last week, finalized the program details and sent them to our graphic designer after meeting with the church coordinator and organist. Did y'all know that the Bridal March by Wagner was bad luck? Apparently, so, so I suppose Trumpet Voluntary (the Fischer version) will do.

Summers on China

In today's LA Times, Larry Summers offers some advice to China.

PARIS - pret-�-porter fw 07/08 shows: es + lie sang bong + article.23 + cosmic wonder light source, 02/25/07

Teaching vs Research

My friend Ron Cronovich, in a comment on a previous post, suggests that universities give too much weight to research over teaching:

Approximately only the top 20% of published journal articles really make any difference at all. Most of the rest are read by scarcely anyone but the editors and referees that decide the papers' fate, and do little more than earn their authors tenure and merit pay.

On the other hand, writing one of these papers in the lower 80% can be a useful exercise. It keeps you connected to the literature, the questions top researchers are asking, the methods they're using, the results they're finding. It helps keep you as part of the discussion.

Still, I feel that the social benefit of published journal articles outside the top 20% is way smaller than the private benefit, and too small to justify their overwhelming importance in promotion and tenure decisions. I have colleagues (not necessarily in my department or college, but maybe) who publish a high quantity of articles in "C" journals, get $2500 merit pay raises every year, and are living large. But if you read one of their papers, you have to wonder what the contribution is, why anyone would bother reading it.

The ability to do research in this lower 80% serves as a barrier to entry and reduces competition among teachers and schools. I wonder if this might be why schools stack the incentives toward mediocre, unimportant research and against more socially meaningful things like exceptional teaching that truly makes a difference. If someone knows of a different reason, please say so. I would much rather hold a less cynical view about this.

I am inclined to agree with Ron that universities should give more weight to teaching relative to research. Yet I am not fully convinced about my own judgments here because I do not understand what market failure leads universities to overweight research.

Note that Harvard may now be moving in the direction of elevating the role of teaching. Only time will tell whether this change is real or just "cheap talk" aimed at satisfying alums and other donors.

PARIS - pret-�-porter fw 07/08 shows: robert normand, palais de tokyo + mina perhonen, chez kvadrat, 02/25/07

A Couple Morning Reads

Economist Thomas Sowell takes on Barack Obama. Economist James Galbraith (son of John Kenneth) takes on the Hamiltonian Democrats.

NY - on the street, soho, 02/23/07