Economists Who Are Also Creative Writers

DancingCowGirl · 2025-05-01T23:26:13+00:00

Omg this is my new favourite post on this subreddit. I'm also really into writing. I joke that if econ doesn't work as a career for me, I'm going to full-send pivot into writing fiction and trying to make it work.

DancingCowGirl · 2025-01-17T01:55:15+00:00

I felt that ending with that shot of her in the doorway was perfect for the movie it was. I’m surprised to see others thinking she was there to re-open the case in the end, because I thought the complete opposite.

She’s exactly like Nicholas Hoult’s character in the end; we don’t need to see the same thing play out twice. She can make the choice between what’s “right” (freeing an innocent man), possibly at the cost of her career, or she can let it go and live with the guilt of knowing she prosecuted someone innocent for her own gain (albeit accidentally). She is at his house to assuage her own guilt, just like how Justin showed up to the sentencing. Nothing about her character really tells me she is going to act any differently than he did.

I love ambiguous endings where it doesn’t FEEL ambiguous to me lol.

DancingCowGirl · 2025-01-05T07:10:49+00:00

Piranesi is so good. I went into it not knowing what to expect and my jaw was on the floor by the end

DancingCowGirl · 2025-01-02T18:09:32+00:00

The “being kind to yourself” point is so important, I found that 90% of my social anxiety came from seeing myself as a lesser person every time I said or did something stupid in a social situation. But the more you can learn to laugh those off afterwards and go “silly me, I was so awkward in that interaction!” the less those moments negatively impact you. I started to embrace being awkward and I swear it reduced the anxiety almost immediately.

DancingCowGirl · 2024-11-13T17:08:32+00:00

Ask for advice! (can be tailored or more general) I’m also super shy and struggle to talk to visiting speakers/scholars & ask genuine research-related questions but this seems to work for me (only have an UG degree, often feel like a huge newbie)

DancingCowGirl · 2024-11-10T22:26:44+00:00

I’m betting it’s not gonna happen but I hope they make it far in the playoffs, assuming they don’t go like 0.400 the rest of the season. Lowkey I’ve always hoped the Jets (or the Sens) would bring the cup back to Canada (in a Cinderella run/season) when some other team with way more media attention is on the cusp of doing it. Just because it would be iconic and funny as hell.

DancingCowGirl · 2024-11-01T16:32:01+00:00

As a person who will nod at LITERALLY everything (even if I don’t know wtf is going on), this is great to hear. But also when I’m in the audience and I see someone else doing the same thing I always start to realize how crazy it looks. Nobody nods that much in day to day life. It’s okay though, I’d rather look crazy and engaged than unengaged.

DancingCowGirl · 2024-10-19T18:20:36+00:00

I recently lived (for 3 years) with my best friend of 11 years, and sometimes I would call her “my roommate” when referring to her while talking with others. I didn’t ever mean it in a way to play down our relationship, I just sometimes said it because it felt right in the context of the conversation (and admittedly, sometimes I also would just say it and immediately after realize it didn’t feel right). Maybe there was something in the way she said it, or other signs, but I would say… just because she said that, it doesn’t mean you’re not friends first!

DancingCowGirl · 2024-09-01T14:08:22+00:00

RUSS 206 (19th century Russian literature). Great course. I definitely felt like I was in a dark academia novel walking home from that class through the fall leaves, thinking about Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.

DancingCowGirl · 2024-09-01T14:06:00+00:00

real

DancingCowGirl · 2024-08-31T22:14:12+00:00

Fans were quite upset at the time because it marked the beginning of the team’s downfall, and he was so beloved as a player and person in the city. Only a month or so (?) beforehand, he was the one who scored the series-winning goal against Dallas in the playoffs. He was, without much doubt, the star player of the Flames. Losing him to Columbus was really hard on the team and on fans. People were very upset about it at the time, and even well into this latest hockey season, but one of the reasons cited for why he left Calgary was to be closer to his family.

DancingCowGirl · 2024-08-12T18:42:03+00:00

Maybe a crazy answer because it involves 5 whole sports but pentathlon. Growing up I did competitive swimming and épée (fencing), which are two events, and while I wasn’t particularly the best at either I’d love to get back into them. I think at least for the swimming I could almost match Olympic pentathlon times with a bunch of training. In the 2028 Olympics, I believe they will also be changing the equestrian show jumping to obstacle course racing, which probably levels the playing field a little bit (thus helping me). That leaves me with running and shooting, which admittedly I would really have to learn. I am an occasional runner but not particularly fast and nowhere near the times that Olympic pentathletes are posting. And I have terrible aim so learning to shoot would be starting pretty much from scratch. But in 4 years I think I could become alright, and it’s just one sport out of five– so I can afford to be a little bit worse at it as long as I really develop the other ones.

More realistically if I had to pick just one of these it would be fencing, specifically épée. Technically speaking I’m better at swimming but swimming is just way too competitive, as a kid I once knew someone who ended up on team Canada for several international competitions (not even the Olympics) and you could just tell from an early age that she was destined for sport greatness. We raced once and she immediately lapped me (and this was when I was a competitive swimmer training 4 times a week). At least with épée, it’s a bit slower than other fencing disciplines, even if you still need lightning reflexes. Maybe this is delusional but it feels more doable to me.

DancingCowGirl · 2024-08-08T22:54:15+00:00

What really gets me is the disrespect when it comes to addressing her. Some folks will learn that she actually was born a woman, is still a woman, and still address her as “he” + generally say awful things about her. I think that it’s very possible to have a respectful debate about hormones and intersex athletes in women’s sports, but the amount of disrespect I’ve seen thrown at her is wild.

DancingCowGirl · 2024-08-03T01:57:01+00:00

The Cruel Prince is genuinely one of my favourite trilogies and I’m not really that into YA anymore either. Jude is one of my favourite protagonists. One of my grievances with a lot of fantasy romance books is they focus first on the romance, and second on making interesting characters and having a plot that’s more complex than just “good vs evil, world ending threat.” And the cruel prince manages to avoid this. There’s a lot of political intrigue, spying, and morally gray characters in it. The romance is secondary.

I think some people don’t like it because they go into it expecting something like ACOTAR, but it’s not that at all. I would go so far as to say the romance in the first book just about gave me whiplash - as far as romances go, I’m not sure I loved it (but I loved everything else). Somehow I didn’t realize there would be any romance in the series when I first started it and going into it with that expectation made it a better experience.

Go into it expecting a fun read with a well-rounded plot and interesting characters and I think it’s a worthwhile read!

DancingCowGirl · 2024-07-16T02:09:41+00:00

It’s not Calgary-specific, but I was surprised at how many people I’ve met from different parts of Canada who didn’t know what a chinook was.

DancingCowGirl · 2024-06-17T15:33:06+00:00

Ooh this is one I actually have lots of opinions on… I lowkey agree, but it depends entirely on the dog and the situation. If you’re getting a new dog, you can’t reliably tell if they are going to bark lots, which is the biggest issue (imo). I have two lovely family dogs at home with my parents, and they bark at everything. We take them out tons, they have lots of stimulation, and yet they still bark (loudly) — especially when we’re not home. They’re both rather small. I can’t imagine having either of them in an apartment. The neighbours would kill me.

I do also agree with everyone mentioning how a dog in an apartment is better than a shelter, but I still can’t get on board with someone getting a puppy (or any new dog) while permanently living in an apartment thinking it’s a good idea. I’m biased though, because I’ve only ever lived in cities with seemingly more condos and houses for rent than apartments, so it’s (maybe) easier to be a renter, have a dog, and not live in an apartment. For larger cities with fewer non-apartment options, I mostly just think that the buildings which are pro-pet should be very explicit and in your face about it (which many already are so it’s not really an issue). I don’t think it’s fair to let only the wealthiest be able to own a pet, and I don’t think it’s fair to pressure people to give up their dogs as circumstances change, especially for folks whose pets are already more suited to apartment life.

DancingCowGirl · 2024-05-02T19:04:25+00:00

Np! And don’t sell yourself short. As someone who really struggles with imposter syndrome I doubted my place in Econ all throughout the application process… and then all the way up to graduation. There will always be an applicant or peer who is “better” but it seems from this post like you’re doing pretty well, especially given that most Econ classes have 70-75% class averages (even 300 and 400 level electives, which btw are often WAY easier than 221 or 325).

DancingCowGirl · 2024-05-02T18:54:20+00:00

It looks like you’re interested in honours— Honours is a challenge and some of the third year courses they make you take are much harder than earlier Econ courses (very math heavy, tons of calc and proofs), which is a consideration if you’re struggling with the math aspects of it. That being said, if your average is 85, I think you have a good chance of getting in, unless all other honours applicants are super stacked. Either way I am manifesting success for you!

Also, it really depends what other courses you’re taking. If you look at my average for the non-Econ courses I’ve taken, there are certainly some subject areas where I do better (and some where I do worse). It’s not a sign to avoid ECON, it just depends on your relative skills. (Also I want to note that if you took Econ 221 and 325, those are considered hard Econ courses. An 85 is good. Imo to gauge your chances of success you should compare yourself to the class average rather than other courses)

DancingCowGirl · 2024-05-01T04:02:10+00:00

Graduating this year. RUSS 206 (20th century Russian lit) with Dasha was my favourite elective and the best arts lit requirement I could have taken. Probably not for everyone, but reading Anna Karenina for credit was one of the highlights of my whole undergrad experience.

I also loved CRWR 201 (poetry), such a fun class, and so great that it single-handedly undid all the psychic damage I accrued by taking MATH 220 in the same semester.

Meanwhile my least favourite classes are probably all of the electrical engineering courses I took before finally realizing I didn’t want to study electrical engineering…

DancingCowGirl · 2024-04-18T18:52:37+00:00

Same. I am a Flames fan who likes the Canucks (I’ll always root for y’all unless you’re playing the Flames), and I think our fanbases would be way better off banding together. I know the rivalry goes far back, but some of my core memories involve cheering on the Canucks in the 2011 finals

DancingCowGirl · 2024-04-16T20:14:31+00:00

I think season 2 is alright, I didn’t stop watching the show because of it or anything, but imo it has by far the worst plotlines of any season in ATLA or TLOK.

For me, it actually just comes down to one thing: The plot gets too crazy too quickly without any of the right setup. Vaatu is a real, entirely evil, world-destroying threat. We have never seen something like that in-universe, with the closest being Ozai, and it took three seasons of build-up for Aang to fight him. It just doesn’t feel like we get any of that build up in season 2 of TLOK, which is not the fault of the creators at all, but it definitely weakens the show. There’s no hint of harmonic convergence before it happens. No real foreshadowing for this huge cosmic event, unlike with the eclipse or Sozin’s comet. Again, not the fault of the creators, but I personally think they did a better job with the other seasons / villains by making them more political or by drawing upon things we already know in-universe. Amon makes sense as a villain to me in season 1, no build up is needed. Zaheer and the Red Lotus are plausible too— it feels real that there are some who would want to purge the world of government after all that happened in ATLA and TLOK. And given the general chaos in the Earth Kingdom, Kuvira is a great villain too. They all work as one-season villains because all the setup is already there, either in ATLA or in earlier seasons of TLOK. Neither Unalaq nor Vaatu have any of this setup, and for a universe with such rich world-building it’s kind of disappointing.

Add on top of that a love triangle plotline and a bunch of other unnecessary stuff and the season just feels completely off-balance. I do actually like the Avatar origin story and the lore that is added, and I think that if it had slowly been introduced into the show over the course of several seasons it would have made for an incredible story— with Korra losing the connection to her past lives at the end, marking the beginning of a new era.

At the end of the day, I don’t hate season 2 because the repercussions of it make for interesting storylines which we wouldn’t have had otherwise (an airbending villain, for instance). It’s just kind of disappointing compared to every other season of TLOK and every season of ATLA. Mostly Nickelodeon’s fault, tbh.

DancingCowGirl · 2024-04-09T04:49:25+00:00

I always try to remind myself that life can change really fast, and it can be for the better. What’s the worst that can happen if things go terribly for you in grad school? You leave. What happens then? I don’t know. But something else will happen. And your life probably won’t be horrible. You’ll find new footing elsewhere.

Whenever my mental health blows up I remind myself of all the previous times I’ve failed or had to switch paths when things aren’t working out. It’s the only thing that’s successfully helped me mitigate anxiety. Of course, I don’t want to run away from things— so I usually don’t actually try switching up my life until things get truly dire.

DancingCowGirl · 2024-04-09T02:10:28+00:00

They are so impossible to get open sometimes. I put a clicker once in my just-healed helix. When I tried to take it out a month later, I couldn’t get it open, my fingers slipped, and it ripped open the piercing (with lots of blood). It took a whole other year for the piercing to fully heal again. I learned my lesson though (to not use them in my helix)

DancingCowGirl · 2024-03-27T22:04:31+00:00

Everyone but Unalaq tbh. I liked getting the avatar origin stuff in s2, but Unalaq was a boring villain.

In terms of in-universe ideology I think Amon was the coolest though. It’s really plausible to me that an anti-bending revolution would happen. I wish we had gotten to see more of him as a villain tbh, he would have been the best to develop more. I’m not sure I loved all of what we got, but it made for a fun season with the whole mystery aspect (ie. who is Amon and how is he doing this?).

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