have you met people who inspire you, who command your respect and leave you feeling very impressed? i have met such people, though not very many. however, i felt really privileged to have met such a person yesterday, and though he has always stood high in my regard, yesterday's talk with him left me feeling WOW.

prof vc is such an animated teacher, and very akin to a walking encyclopedia. we were talking about my paper topic on education, and he had so many valuable insights, and his approach to using economics as a framework to focus on social development, politics and welfare struck a chord with me. not that it'll matter to him, but it matters to me that *finally* here was someone who was concerned with social effects and policies, and not focused on high finance! ok, i do admit to be quite bored by people who are so engrossed with looking at decimals jump and forever talking in long/short/call/put/hedge terms and who keep yakking on about the value of their portfolios and who tear the fed's wording apart to try to forecast the future and whose heartbeat pattern resembles that of the stock price chart. gosh, give me a break!!

hehehh im biased. and obviously in the wrong place huh. back to vc...

so in that 1.5hr talk with him, we talked about politics, voting mechanisms, coalition architecture, education, intervention points and so many interesting and thought provoking issues. i felt so inspired by his knowledge and insights and i think im getting a glimpse of where to head to in the future:)

and what he said abt the danger of peer pressure was so funnily accuratem, it kept spinning in my mind : " ...and what? kill yourself just because of what your neighbour thinks? isnt that crazy?"

on my way out of the sess office area, i met prof hoon who taught me monetary econs the term before. he's another walking brain whom i respect, and it was really flattering when he paused, and said," Jovine, rite? hello!" . hahaaa.. i didnt know that he could recognise me, much less remember my name. perhaps it's cos i fell asleep in his class ( oh no but i didnt...really) but well, it's just nice :)