I haven’t had a blog in a long time, but I thought it might be a good time to start one…..or, at least, I seem to have things to say at this point in my life that I think might go well in a blog.

I went to the annual grad student workshop hosted between UMass and the New School this weekend, and got to see many heterodox Economics graduate students present their work. Some presentations, of course, were more related to my interests than others but on the whole I thought they were really good. I was a discussant, and I think my comments were well received, and I enjoyed participating in the discussion after papers too.

I also got to meet some nice new people from the New School, and people I don’t know from UMass, and to reconnect with some old friends…and to have a weekend in New York, which is always a good thing. I had such a nice time with an old friend, remembering our first year in the program, telling him my story about when I had my interview at the department, and watching him remember what I was like when I was 19 – it’s amazing how much of my life has been spent in graduate school.

The Friday before the conference was a fundraising event hosted by Economists for Peace and Security (www.epsusa.com), with Jamie Galbraith and Linda Bilmes – Linda was speaking about the costs of the war in Iraq, and it was very interesting to hear her outline everything that needs to be accounted for, and to engage with her in discussion a bit afterwards.

Today I gave a lecture to a group of senior citizens about the Political Economy of War. It was great…the participants were so different than the students I’m used to teaching, and I think I’ll change my approach a little for the second giving of the lecture on Thursday, but the participants were engaged and several of them told me that they really enjoyed it – one told me it was the best lecture she had been to as part of the series.

I have a busy week ahead of me…dinner with a new colleague tonight, the Pan-Celtic Session at the pub tomorrow with some friends, another lecture on Thursday, dinner with Monica on Friday, and then probably hanging out with someone at some point in town during the weekend (no travel planned, thank god)…plus, now that I’m having Thanksgiving at my place (and have invited all the no-plans vagabonds I know), I better get to work finishing up my apartment and getting ready for what promises to be a very diverse, international crowd.

Next post planned: discussion guide about the political economy of war (we’ll see how well this works out……)