Another piece of the puzzle

I've long known that I work best in the evening. Before I met Bethany, I was convinced that I was most productive between the hours of 10 PM and 2 AM. I hope an explanation appears in the New York Times soon as to why some people are more productive at night. (They specialize in medical articles on topics like that - the series What Ails the Upper Class generates many pageviews. It's true - this article is historically the most emailed.)

However, I have no explanation for why my most productive work hours have come on the weekend (particularly Friday and Saturday) while in Brazil.

Tonight, another (big) piece of the puzzle fell into place. It turns out that the World Bank conditioned state fiscal reform loans on the creation of a regulatory system in place to deal with privatization. The original documents are all here. One day I'll explain why this is so important to my dissertation. Non-academic readers might find it dull. Academics might also find it dull.

Unfortunately - depending on your point of view - I'm energized for another five hours of work this Saturday night.

Instead, for my own sake, I should instead go find a bar for the Argentina-Brazil World Cup qualifying match.

Some other brief highlights from the past week:

1. I sent off interview requests, and heard one response. Interviews start next week.

2. I tried to swat and kill a mosquito, and put my palm through the glass window. Shards of glass fell nine stories. No injuries, but the window won't be fixed until Tuesday. (Nothing is open on the weekends. Monday is Independence Day, the day Dom Pedro I declared that he wouldn't go back to Portugal on the orders of his father, and that Brazil would be independent. He declared this in between Sao Paulo and Santos, from the banks of the Ipiranga River. This act is mentioned in the national anthem, and every city has an Avenida Sete de Setembro.)

3. I have a cellular phone and, more importantly, it works. Unless the situation is dire, please don't call it - receiving and sending calls here is terribly expensive.


And to add one thousand words, the view out the living room window on a cloudy day. The day was sufficiently cloudy to block out the view of Jesus, which you can normally see by sticking your head out the window and looking right. This is my normal office view. It looks over the Modern Art Museum and Gloria Marina in the foreground, and the Morro da Urca and Sugarloaf in the background.




UPDATE: Brazil qualify for the 2010 World Cup with a 3-1 win over Argentina. My roommate was cheering for Argentina; as the game came to a close, even the waiters (at Amarelinho, a mildly famous bar in Cinelandia) started razzing him. And boy, do Brazilians dislike Diego Maradona. Do they ever. They also know several ugly epithets in Spanish for him.