My essay test this morning seemed to go well. We are all glad to have it behind us.
As I mentioned before, we’ve finished our first week of our economics class. It’s taught by Mike Veseth of the University of Puget Sound. He’s personable and a good lecturer. I would be interested to know more of his opinions on some of the economic ideas we discuss. Dr. Veseth has agreed to meet with me so that I can ask him questions about graduate school and how he balances teaching and academic writing. Dr. Veseth has been an important person in the relatively new field of International Political Economy. The IPE textbook he coauthored is a standard for introductory IPE classes. I’ve appreciated how aware he is of his students. It’s obvious that he works to keep up with the things we are doing with AIPES outside of our economics class. He weaves things like the hot water situation into his examples (even though he doesn’t live in our dorm).
Saturday we are having our first official session of our legislative simulation. I was elected the floor leader for my group, so I will present and lead the debate over our legislation. We were assigned to define the maximum punishment that will be applied in our fanciful country of AIPES. Our bill allows for capital punishment in exceptional situations. The opposing bill does not permit capital punishment, and it allows for parole after twenty years. I would expect that we will be the underdog in this race, but I think that the apparent laxity of the opposing bill may give us a chance.
Saturday evening we will be having our country presentations dinner. The students from each country will give a three minute presentation on their country.
Dr. Veseth leading the class in a market simulation. He used cards to guide the volunteers: the color indicated whether to buy or sell and the number indicated the value placed on the product being traded.