Here are photos of my recent holiday in Tuscany (full set posted on web album, right sidebar). Tuscany is lush and my photos do not do justice to its beauty. Will do a write up of the trip soon. Maybe.
Freakonomics was arguably my favourite book of 2006. The book details quirky studies carried out using economic models to explain the power of incentives to predict behavior. Rather than seeing individuals as always rational and solely motivated by the maximisation of wealth (countering the primary assumptions in traditional economics theory), they use statics to distill people's hidden motivations or behavioral patterns. It's economics mix psychology mix sociology at its best.
An excerpt on my favourite study:
In other words, a crack gang works pretty much like the standard capitalist enterprise: you have to be near the top of the pyramid to make a big wage. Notwithstanding the leadership's rhetoric about the family nature of the business, the gang's wages are about as skewed as wages in corporate America. A foot soldier had plenty in common with a McDonald's burger flipper or a Wal-Mart shelf stocker. In fact, most of J. T.'s foot soldiers also held minimum-wage jobs in the legitimate sector to supplement their skimpy illicit earnings. The leader of another crack gang once told Venkatesh that he could easily afford to pay his foot soldiers more, but it wouldn't be prudent. "You got all these niggers below you who want your job, you dig?" he said. "So, you know, you try to take care of them, but you know, you also have to show them you the boss. You always have to get yours first, or else you really ain't no leader. If you start taking losses, they see you as weak and shit."
Along with the bad pay, the foot soldiers faced terrible job conditions. For starters, they had to stand on a street corner all day and do business with crackheads. (The gang members were strongly advised against using the product themselves, advice that was enforced by beatings if necessary.) Foot soldiers also risked arrest and, more worri- some, violence. Using the gang's financial documents and the rest of Venkatesh's research, it is possible to construct an adverse-events index of J. T.'s gang during the four years in question. The results are astonishingly bleak. If you were a member of J. T.'s gang for all four years, here is the typical fate you would have faced during that period:
Number of times arrested 5.9
Number of nonfatal wounds or injuries 2.4 (not including injuries meted out by the gang itself for rules violations)
Chance of being killed 1 in 4
A 1-in-4 chance of being killed! Compare these odds to being a timber cutter, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls the most dangerous job in the United States. Over four years' time, a timber cutter would stand only a 1-in-200 chance of being killed. Or compare the crack dealer's odds to those of a death row inmate in Texas, which executes more prisoners than any other state. In 2003, Texas put to death twenty-four inmates-or just 5 percent of the nearly 500 inmates on its death row during that time. Which means that you stand a greater chance of dying while dealing crack in a Chicago housing project than you do while sitting on death row in Texas. So if crack dealing is the most dangerous job in America, and if the salary is only $3.30 an hour, why on earth would anyone take such a job?
I stumbled across the authors' blog today - I would highly recommend for entertaining reading. Freakonomics.com
The primary school is only located 10mins away by train but it's worlds apart from the CBD environment. I think the term they used in the induction was 'socially impoverished'. Friday lunchtimes are now spent at the school playing number games with my two new friends, Paige & Ramou. Paige is a 8 - a bubbly, enthusiastic girl whose favourite colour is blue, likes to go shopping but dislikes fish & chips. Ramou is 7 - sweet and shy, with beautiful coco skin and braided hair, she smiles more than she speaks.
I had thought it would be hard work engaging and entertaining two young children but it turned out to be so effortless. They were so well behaved and beamed with such eagerness. I think the joy in being with children is the ease with which they can delight in the simple things. Their world is carefree, innocent and playful. Afterwards these two very small, very cute girls thanked me with hugs for spending time with them. It was the sweetest thing. But really they are the ones I should be thanking them for brightening up my day.
I can hardly believe that the first four months of the year had so quickly passed me by. I am still very much enjoying my life in London but the feeling is somewhat akin to being on a merry go around. It's exciting (or at least still novel) but things are spinning by too fast.
There's been a few recent changes and of more notable worth are the moving in of new Flattie and recent arrival of my latest international guest. Flattie and I get along very well; he's good-humored, considerate, and at times quite a gentleman. Perhaps our relationship is helped in no-small part by fact that he's hardly ever home - being a consultant who is currently on site outside central London and an overly enthusiastic traveller who jet sets once a fortnight (at least). It's possibly rather hard to have friction when there's so little opportunity for interaction. And my latest international guest, who is actually an old colleague from Syd, reminds me acutely of what a cocooned life we had when we lived with our parents back home. And that's all I am going to say about him (for now).
Of the places I've visited recently there are some which I would not recommend to others, places which should be on the never-to-do-list. Unfortunately a few weekends ago, some of us* found out firsthand that LegoLand falls squarely in that category. Firstly, it does not have much Lego at all! Add to that discoloration from the many years of sun exposure, cobwebs from neglect, and a hefty entrance fee well over GBP20, it was a real disappointment even to the inner child in us all. The only worthwhile section was the MiniLand where there were small replicas of different cities. Here's a selection (full set of photos posted on my Picasa web album).
*I am constantly teased by my colleague, Mr B, for having travelled half way across the world to hang out with fellow Aussies. It's not a conscious choice or even a desired outcome. I would love to meet more non-Aussie, non-corporate, fun-lovers but where? Curiously my new friends of late are not Aussies but Honkies. I have never really identified myself as a Honkie nor got along particularly well with those who did. But now, I relish practising my broken Cantonese with them and happy to finally have friends who understand my love for Honkie soapies and music. And they have many funny tales to tell about their ruthless work environment that brings a reality to the tales of Anonymous Lawyer. I admire their ambition and drive to achieve in their career and endless energy to maximise everything that London has to offer - to work ridiculous hours most days of the week and then to travel every weekend is an achievement in itself.
