Hungry

Ukraine's Yulia Tymoshenko to end hunger strike

Today's been a long day.  Not by any means has it been bad, merely... eh.  I worked 9-5, mainly fixing up the R&R.  After much deliberation, I finally resubmitted the manuscript.  *fingers crossed*  At 12 pm we had a brownbag presentation by Thomas Plümper.  The research question regarded free-riding in military alliances, which really isn't my forte, but I was interested in the research design.  He had a novel approach to studying free-riding.  If you were asked to determine whether a partner country was taking advantage of another country's military expenditures--that is, not putting in the same amount--how would you go about doing so?  Thomas and his colleague focused on the issue of spatial simultaneity, which in this case concerns how a country's military spending patterns are affected by those nearest it (i.e., the alliance partner).  I have my doubts about the research design, but it didn't come across as effectively as I had hoped in the Q&A.  A common feeling is to think as critically as  you can and to come up with a comment to help the presenter, to gather up the courage to speak to a room full of people, only to hear crickets once the question's been asked.  It's a hollow feeling.  Nevertheless, it was a good exercise to think more critically about the research design and an overall interesting presentation.
When it was time, I clocked out and went to grab some groceries.  The thing about grocery stores in Norway is that pretty much no two grocery stores are alike.  I ducked into the first store that I came to (near the closest bus stop), but I found none of the things that I was looking for.  I'm not talking about specific brands like 'Tide' or 'Doritos', but things like 'cereal' or 'spaghetti'.  I found Ben's requested items at the second store.  Each grocery trip has been unique like that.  In some ways there are many more options in terms of the type of food that one can buy, as a result of cultural pluralism.  At the same time, there are not a lot of the conveniences to which I have become accustomed to at home.  The act of gathering together the ingredients to make spaghetti and meatballs seems like quite a task!  To be sure, it probably wouldn't feel that way if I could read Norwegian.  Until I learn how to, we are relegated to vegetables and breads and packages with symbols for instructions.  No worries though, we are not hungry.  We are, however, being forced to eat better.