May 7th Wednesday

I got up at 1:00pm. My first act of the day was smashing a mosquito that had fed on us in the night. The gross part is that when they’ve just eaten, they leave a big blood smear.

I had fruit cereal with milk for breakfast. Adrienne and I talked about our housing situation. We’d decided that we’d put up with Karuna’s difficulties long enough. We wrote a polite email to her. It explained that we were planning on moving out at the end of June so until then, we’d appreciate it if she found someone else to stay with. We typed up the email and sent it off.

Karuna had been staying with us rent free for a month and had not been a good guest. After that I went on Facebook for a while and then showered. For lunch I made a salad with ham, tomato, and cheese. I watched some X-Men cartoons and chatted with Tyler online.

This evening there was a very important meeting. Gøsta Esping-Andersen would be there. In our Varieties of Welfare Capitalism class in Chapel Hill, our class had to read a book called The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. It was written by a man named Gøsta Esping-Andersen and was seen as path-breaking. It was a far from exciting book, but the author had become a kind of celebrity among our TAM program. Our professor Stephens had talked about him all throughout our semester. Amanda, Adrienne, and I were really excited to go hear him speak. Jeannette, one of the German Euromasters, was there as well.

We sat in the front row and listened to him speak. He spoke in English since his French isn’t that great. His talk was very interesting. He spoke about what he called “social investment.” He said that societies should have more working mothers because when mothers work, child poverty disappears. The societies should also invest in the youth. This would mean putting more money into education for younger children to promote early development. He also mentioned something that I found interesting. He said that women select partners differently than in the past. Women are choosing to marry later and choosing men in their level. He said there was a woman’s revolution in upper society. There is more divorce now in the lowly educated. Esping-Andersen said that this could be because women that were more educated were waiting and making smarter decisions for their mates.

The talk was very informative and interesting. Afterward, Amanda, Adrienne, and I went up to talk to him. Adrienne had some of his books with her and got them signed. He was very nice and seemed flattered by three obvious welfare capitalism fangirls. He signed our books and agreed to take a picture with us. We could barely contain our excitement! I suppose that gives you another hint to nerd factor.

After the talk and our pictures, we all headed out to a nearby Italian restaurant. It had a cheap student price. I got a slice of margharita pizza and a coke to drink. We ate in the basement dining room and had it mostly to ourselves so that we could continue to freak out about meeting our celebrity.

After dinner, we realized that we happened to be right by the crêpe stand. I went and got a nutella crêpe. It was as delicious as ever. Adrienne and I walked home after that.

I talked to my parents for a while. I got an email from Karuna saying that the housing arrangement would be fine. I was glad I’d gotten some sign that she read the email.

I watched more X-Men and finished the 3rd season. I went to bed around 4:00am.