I had a plan to eat at 7:30 AM today but after being awakened by my alarm at 7 I decided to take a quick power nap, which turned into another hour and a half of sleep. After a quick breakfast and about an hour at the gym I headed back to the dorms to get ready for class. However, I didn't quite make it as a bunch of people in my cluster were in Paragon and invited Dylan and I in to join them for lunch. I wasn't super hungry but I decided to order something anyway, deciding that I would save the other half for a time when I was starving and/or I really needed some food. I did exactly what I thought I would and only ate half but I had lost out on some major time and pretty much only had time to walk back to the dorms, grab my stuff, and head straight back out to class.
It was a good thing we weren't really doing much in class today because I was so tired. Maybe it was the gym or maybe it's been the lack of sleep but something with me was just not feeling too great. For class we went to the computer lab to do a bunch of different economics simulations. The first was a trade simulation based on Opportunity Cost and Specialization so it wasn't really that difficult. We were each given a role as a large producer, which is what I was, or a small producer, with whom we were able to trade freely any amount of our goods we liked. The goal was to get the most amount of combos, which would then be exchanged for money, in which case the person with the most money wins. It was fairly easy to figure out the fair exchange rate and how to get the most combos but the difficult part was communicating with your partner to make sure the right trade was going down. Me and my partner didn't win but we finished quickly and fairly close to the top scorer, which was a win in itself, especially since we messed up so many times throughout the game.
The next game was that of a bidding war. We were put up against one another to bid on a certain object. In this simulation the point was to win the bidding war and thus make money in the process. The objects were the same for each person but they had different values for each, making it impossible to predict if your bid was higher or not. The profit was calculated by the value of the product minus the bid of your opponent. This only happened if you won though, so if you lost you neither gained nor lost anything. I didn't really do too well in this game but after we realized that it was all based on luck so I didn't really feel too bad about it. The third simulation was relatively the same thing except that the profit was calculated by the price of the product minus your bid. This meant that someone couldn't just bid an abnormal amount to make sure they got the item and hope that their opponents bid was less than their value. It made it a bit more interesting and I did much better, not nearly enough to win the final prize of a Starbucks gift card though. We were excused about 20 minutes early and I went straight back to the dorms to cool off.
I didn't really do much after class except relax but before I knew it it was time to meet my cohort for the short walk to Capital Grill. We met at 6 and arrived around 6:15, which gave us plenty of time to wait for our guests to arrive. We didn't need to wait though, as our first guest, Guy Sanchez, an alumnus of Brown, arrived shortly after us. Everyone else, which included some of the students we had our last dinner with, showed up around 6:30-6:40 and we got started right away. The honored guests of tonight were Ms. Mercedes Domenech, a Senior Admissions Officer at Brown, and Kisa Takesue, the Director of Leadership Programs at Brown. Mercedes answered any and all questions that we threw at her while Ms. Takesue's happy-go-lucky attitude helped to keep the conversation flowing smoothly. Now I know what you all are thinking right now. Now is the time for the description of the food right? Well I'm sorry to disappoint you all but I forgot to bring my camera and as a result I just don't think I can do the meal justice with my words. Arnold seemed to be getting some pretty good pictures though so I would highly recommend looking at his blog if you want to see what we ate. I am still shocked at the amount of amazing food that I've even over this trip but tonight was definitely one to remember.
After an outstanding dinner and an even better conversation we decided to wrap it up around 9:25 PM. Once we said goodbyes and parted ways the cohort stuck behind a little bit to have a short conversation with Ms. Scott about life at Brown. The conversations didn't really last long though as nobody really had anything bad to say, or at least I didn't. Everything has been perfect so far and I can't wait for what lies ahead. Even the rain didn't seem to bother me as it came down shortly after we arrived back at our dorms. It was soothing but once it really started coming down we went inside and settled down for the night. Finishing this up now I realize that I have a good chance to sleep in tomorrow morning. I'm going to take full advantage of that now so.... Jusqu'a a la prochaine fois!
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