Bullies and freedom of speech

Why is it that when a child says something offensive, he or she can be called a bully and punished, but when an adult says something offensive it's defended as freedom of speech?


PS, Merry Christmas!!!

Stories

Last weekend, I shared my 'story' with someone. My life story; the whole thing, birth to present. It took a long time, honestly, more than an hour and a half. I had never before done it all in one go. This person had specifically set up our lunch date to hear my story - no one had ever asked before, and I found myself eager to share it.

I'm not really sure where this eagerness came from. Maybe it's a secret fear that (I hope) we all have, that we'll be forgotten after our moment in time is over. We're all just blinks in the universe's eye. Are we making an impact? Does anyone or anything care? I have answered those questions for myself, but it is still daunting and overwhelming to ponder upon your potential legacy. What will you leave behind? Who will remember? Will your name still be known in three generations?

Telling my story was an emotional drain. Not because I find my story particularly dramatic, but because I was processing my entire life as I was telling it. The most interesting part for me was realizing later who and what I included, and who and what I left out. There are parts of my life that have felt mountain-shattering, that have ripped me apart and made me feel like I would never be able to tell which way was 'up' ever again. There have been times of extremely negative and overwhelmingly positive emotions; there have been times I have given up; there have been moments of triumph and pride; there have been people I have loved, I have betrayed, and others who have done the same to me. Some of these things and people didn't even get a footnote in my story the way I told it. Others, unexpectedly, got full chapters.

Listening to my own story unfold (through my own eyes, I should add) reminded me that maturity is a long road, and I hesitate to say I'll ever be an upstanding human specimen at the rate I am going. I don't say that in a self-depreciating way; I say that because I really believe there are always things one can be doing to better oneself.  Listening to my story reminded me of where I came from and who I have been. It reminded me how I have already grown quite a bit, sometimes by leaps and bounds over short periods of time. I think I'm closer to the person I would like to become than I was five years ago. Hopefully I'll continue in the right direction as my life progresses. I wonder what changes will occur in the way I tell my story as it continues.

A day later, I sat on the bus. It was a long ride to my destination, so I brought my book. I was clearly engrossed (or so I thought), when someone asked to sit next to me. He was probably in his mid- to late-thirties, and although he didn't look disheveled he gave the vibe of someone who was probably on the outskirts of society. Someone who had probably been put there against his own wishes, I would also guess. He started asking me about the weather. I nodded and smiled my appreciation of the sun on my face. He asked about the Seattle Public Library. I said I liked it. He mentioned his Kindle. I smiled. After each of these brief interactions, I put my head back down into my book. He quietly moved away from me to an adjacent seat just a few stops before I got off the bus.

As I exited, I realized how selfish I had been. I am not saying that I should have dropped everything and engaged this man in conversation...but why not? Why didn't I? He was clearly looking for someone to talk to. Maybe he has no one to talk to. Maybe no one has ever asked his story.

I think never telling your story to anyone, because they don't want to listen, is probably as draining as telling your story. Except the former hurts more, because those questions of what your life means in the universe are probably (erroneously) pointing towards one thing: nothing.

If this post comes off as depressing, I apologize. I just found it odd how these two, mirrored events occurred within 36 hours of each other. This post is really meant to say that your story is important, and you should tell it. In pieces, all at one time, whatever you want. Just share it with others. It's what connects us as humans, and it is what reminds us that we're all struggling with the same problems: selfishness, pride, control, fear, love, heartbreak, greed, lust, and the great unknown.

Before the end of the year, I would like to really challenge you all to ask someone their story. Maybe a parent or a friend, maybe a stranger. Maybe they will not know what to say and laugh it off, maybe they will get defensive and ask why, but maybe they will tell you. And we should listen.

Thankful for all of your beautiful souls. Thankful that you've all been a part of my life so far. Stick around, ok?

What to do about Syria

Ask many economics professors to sum up the discipline in a sentence and they will respond with the saying “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”  This aphorism loosely illustrates the idea of opportunity cost.  To formally define an opportunity cost, let’s suppose that someone has to choose either option A and option B; she cannot choose neither option nor choose both options.  The opportunity cost of choosing option A is the then value of option B, the option that she was forgoing by choosing option A.  

Examples of opportunity cost abound in the real world.  There is an opportunity cost to me writing this article, the value of the research I would otherwise be accomplishing.  (Sadly, this article is nearly costless for me.)  There is an opportunity cost to starting Dustin Pedroia for the Red Sox, the value of starting their backup Xander Bogaerts.  In both of these examples, and every other example I’ve seen, the alternative option is positively valued.  But there is nothing in the definition or intuition of opportunity cost that forces the outside option to be valuable. 

This brings us to the question of what to do about the chemical weapons attack in Syria.  I can think of a million reasons why we should not respond by bombing Syria: we will almost surely kill innocent civilians; we will risk escalating the civil war into a pan-Syrian regional war; we will risk ushering the Islamist rebels into power.  Unfortunately, I can also think of a million of moral, political, and financial reasons why we should respond by bombing Syria. Therein lies the rub.

The question is not whether bombing is a good option; it most clearly is not.  The question is instead whether it is a “good” option relative to the option of ignoring an evil act by an evil government.  Honestly, I have no idea whether it is the better option or not, but I do know that deciding how to proceed is neither an easy nor obvious decision.  

The situation reminds me of a West Wing quote where Toby Ziegler says that, “there’s nothing about this that doesn’t stink.”  One way or another people are going to be killed; one way or another there will be suffering; one way or another the situation will cost the United States money.  But the fact that there is no good solution does not mean there isn’t a best solution.

To Charter or Not to Charter

Before the main post, I have a bit of an editors note.  First, and most importantly, hi!  It's been way too long since I've either seen or talked to many of you; hope you all are doing wonderfully.  Secondly, for a variety of reasons, I'm leaning more toward doing some kind of consulting and/or public policy than staying in academia my whole life.  That means I need to work on writing about economics for non-econ Ph.D.s., so the plan is to start writing some articles in a (hopefully) similar style to what would appear in a magazine or on a blog.  Initially it will be on topics that I'm doing research on and I'll then maybe expand a bit to general economic news.  I thought you all might be interested, so figured I'd post them here!  First up: charter schools.

Any issue that involves race, gender, economic inequality, children, and public funding is bound to bring with it some controversy; the debate over charter schools is no exception.  The idea of a charter school is simple.  Along with funding comes a whole host of procedural requirements that public schools have to abide by, restricting the ability of public schools to adapt to their neighborhood.  While still publically financed, charter schools are granted much more operational autonomy in return for more stringent accountability.  Many charters have taken advantage of the autonomy by structuring their administrative organization and teaching practices in very different ways than public schools.  In particular, much attention has been given to the fact that they, on average, employ younger non-unionized teachers, while public schools work exclusively with unions.  But stripping away some aspects of the controversy, the question stands: does the empirical evidence suggest that charter schools work at improving student achievement.

Initially, this question runs headlong into the problem of selection.  An ideal study wants to compare one student who goes to charter school with an otherwise identical student who goes to a public school.  Then, any difference in their academic achievement is solely due to the differences between the schools the two of them attended.  While it is relatively easy to control for observable differences between a student who attends a charter school and one who attends a public school, the very fact that they chose different schools implies differences between the two that researchers cannot control for.  Studies that naively compare charter school students with public school students might reflect a difference in the type of students who attend the two schools, rather than a difference in the ability of the two schools to educate students.

Because charter schools are publically funded, if more students want to attend the charter school than the school has room for, the school must hold a lottery to determine which students can attend the school; they must choose this way instead of “hand picking” which students can attend, the way a private school like Colby does.  In addition to drama, as documented in Waiting for Superman, these lotteries provide the randomization needed to consistently estimate the effects of attending a charter school.  In particular, it allows researchers to compare two students who not only are observably identical, but also made the same choice to apply to a charter school (or multiple charter schools).

These lottery studies all point to a similar conclusion: students who win a lottery to attend a charter school do better than identical students who lost that lottery.  This is true for just about every observational type of student, regardless of his or her gender, race, prior test scores, or family income. (See, for example, Hoxby et. al., 2009)  In addition, this is true for a variety of ways to measure “do better,” whether it is high school test scores, SAT scores, AP scores, or enrollment at four-year colleges. (See Angrist et. al, 2013) The one caveat to this result is that it holds only for urban charter schools; the results for rural or suburban charter schools are much more mixed.

After reading these studies, the policy implications seem clear: remove, at least in urban areas, some of the many existing barriers that currently make it difficult to found new charters.  But while the research suggests that oversubscribed charter schools work well, the policy implications require more thought than it at first might seem.  First, these studies only estimate the effect of charter schools that hold lotteries.  Assuming that more children apply to the best charter schools, these studies are implicitly looking at the effect of the best charter schools, not of every charter school.  Non-experimental studies, which compare students who are demographically identical, but who differ in their school choice, can estimate the effect of all charter schools.  But they must assume that the selection issue, described in the second paragraph, does not matter.  There is some evidence that this is true in among the schools that are oversubscribed, but I think it is safe to say that this issue is not well understood.  (As an aside, this is a plus for me personally, because it means I can study it.)

The main issue, however, is that even though it is now known that current charter schools are (on average) more successful than public schools, no one has a great sense of why.  This makes it tough to know whether or not the positive effect of charter schools will extend to the next set of charters.  Suppose, for example, that motivated students apply to charter schools and that being around motivated students increase academic outcomes.  In that case, students who attend charter schools will do better academically than identical ones who do not, but increasing charter schools is not necessarily a good policy.  This is both because the next set of charter schools will not as successful and because the presence of charter schools hurt public school students by lowering the motivation of their peers.  On the other hand, if charter schools lead to better results because they often have a longer school year and more flexibility in hiring teachers, increasing the number of charters is advisable. 

In fairness to charter schools, the available evidence suggests that the being surrounded by motivated peers is not the reason why charter students do better than public school students and that getting around restrictions imposed by teachers unions is one of the main advantages of charter schools, but the point still stands.  Without knowing why charter schools work, it is impossible to know what the effect would be of increasing the number of charters.  Knowing why they work is the next step, one that hopefully I’ll be able to help with.

Baseball in/and America

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23348513

Quick read. Thoughts?

Three Weekends of Ultimate

Life after the school year has been another whirlwind of ultimate, finishing up my dissertation proposal, and not relaxing quite yet even though it’s technically summertime. But the ultimate has made it all worthwhile.

Solstice – 6/22 – 6/23

This was my second time being the volunteer coordinator for Summer Solstice, Eugene’s annual ultimate tournament. Fun fact: Summer Solstice is the third oldest ultimate tournament in the nation, with one being Cal States (started a couple months before Solstice) and the other being a tournament near where ultimate was invented in New Jersey. There was a time when over 50 teams would show up for the tournament, but these days it is closer to 20 – 25 open and women’s teams. This year we hosted Master’s regionals, bumping up our tournament number of teams to 32. We had two different lined field sites and a party with local beer and catering following Saturday’s games.  

Being the volunteer coordinator consisted of sending emails and Facebook pleas of trying to ensure volunteer participation, and then direct communication with volunteers when they’ve signed up to figure out their availability and interests. It requires more work closer to the actually tournament weekend. I (stupidly?) scheduled my dissertation proposal meeting for the Monday following the tournament (6/24). Fortunately, this forced me to get all of my work done in advance of the proposal meeting. However, it meant that balancing finals, scheduling, and ensuring that the tournament was running smoothly conflicted with my ability to concentrate directly and fully on the proposal. Even when school got out for the summer, I was still feeling stressed and running around from place to place, balancing the demands of school as well as ultimate. Yet both sets of demands ended up great: I passed the dissertation proposal and received mostly positive feedback regarding the volunteers for the tournament.

We were also able to witness some great ultimate. On the Women’s side, two of the best female club teams, Riot and Fury, met up in the Finals, with Riot taking home the victory. Additionally, we hosted the women’s U-23 teams from the US and Canada, and we featured them as our showcase matchup. On the men’s side, we also hosted the U-23 Canada team, and they ended up taking the tournament. It was as smooth of a tournament as one could hope for—there are so many more details that go into a tournament that I had ever imagined, and it reinforces my appreciation of TDs and volunteers that help ensure that each tournament is a success.

Logjam – 6/29 – 6/30

I specifically chose not to play at Solstice the weekend before, knowing that I still had an opportunity the next weekend to play up near Portland for Logjam. There were 16 teams that met up for Logjam in the sleepy town near Estacada on what happened to be the hottest weekend of the year (so far), with temperatures nearing the high 80’s and low 90’s. (I know I can’t complain to you East Coast folk, specifically because there was little to no humidity… it still kinda sucked, though). Eugene players put together a pickup team called Midnight Whisky for our bid, and most of the members of the team I have played with or against with regularity in City League. This was one of our first times coming all together to play in a tournament, which was a) tough because we needed to figure out each others’ tendencies but b) fun because we generally are facing off against each other. There were two tough parts about our games on Saturday: we were placed in a “power pool” unknowingly and our ladies that we had lined up were having to bow out for injury or work-related reasons. We were scrambling Friday night to make sure we were going to have the minimum three ladies for our second game based on how people were coming and going. Our ladies played with one sub for the first game, savage for the second game, and with two subs for our third and fourth games.

We had a fun match for our first game that we lost 13 – 10, but our next two games were just absolute laughers. We played Engine 45, the best mixed team in Oregon, for our second game, and got one point (with our ladies playing savage). We played Jazz Picnic, a mixed pickup team from Seattle, and got blown out again (and scored two points). With that record, combined with the heat, could have easily led to our team being frustrated and dispirited. But we rallied, played our crossover game against the winner of a non-power pool, beat them, and improbably sent ourselves to the winner’s bracket despite a 1 – 3 record on the day. Our team bound together, played positively, and with a lot of spirit—it was terrific to watch and unfold.

Logjam is a camping tournament, so everyone was directed to campsites at a local State Park that was just down the road. There was catered Southern food, a Suzie Sticks tournament, Oregon beer on tap, and dancing once the sun went down (let the record show that my friends and I were dancing before anybody else was). We went back to our campsite en masse, chatted and drank our whisky at midnight, and hit the hay for the next morning.

Our second day included more reinforcements (especially for the ladies) and more tough matchups since we were placed in the winner’s bracket. We faced the winner of the other power pool and predictably lost again. (Our captain was never informed of how the tourney was going to be set up, but based on his reactions, he wanted us to have played easier teams… it worked out all the same). We played another Seattle mixed team in the chumpionship bracket, winning 10 – 9 after having been up 9 – 4. We were hampered by the heat, a small lineup, and somehow we still pulled it out on a 35 yard hammer to the end zone. Worth it. We didn’t play our last game because the other team was exhausted and also happened to be the volunteers running the tournament. We gave them some whisky as a token of our appreciation.

There are weekends with teams that are magical, and the weekend with Midnight Whisky fit this category. Our ladies, despite being down in numbers, never complained about playing savage, everyone enjoyed each others’ company, we played hard, well (at times), and pulled out key victories. Each of our tournament newbies came down with at least a goal, and there was a general sense of collectiveness. It felt like we scored half of our goals on hammers. We heckled the shit out of other teams when we were on our byes. I loved how it came together organically, and it was symbolized by our after tournament dinner. We gathered at a brewery, fit all 12 or so of us around a square table, and reveled on our improbable 5^th place finish while going 2 – 4.

Potlatch – 7/5 – 7/7

This might be the holy grail of party tournaments for ultimate. There has only been one other tournament that has any basis for a comparison to Potlatch, and that was Clambake senior year at Colby. Clambake featured great competition, a lobster bake, multiple bands playing, and basically every type of alcohol that you could want. Everyone was friendly and upbeat and definitely there to have a good time. And it also happened in a barn outside of Portland. Yet it happened for just one night, a Saturday night.

Potlatch was this, plus a bit more, times three. I was fortunate enough to be asked to be on the Eugene pickup team (featuring some, but not all, of the players I played with the previous week… for this tournament, some of our best players came out to play). The bid involved describing how you help develop ultimate within your community but also how you plan on being spirited. The theme that our captains developed for this year’s Potlatch was “Animal Cocktail Party,” meaning that we were dressed up as animals in formal wear. Pretty ridiculous, right? That was only the beginning.

Potlatch takes place at the Sixty Acre Fields in Redmond, Washington, around the Fourth of July weekend. People take off from work to converge and play in the tournament… from all over the world. All of the fields are located in one spot, and there are about 30-something lined fields. Along the perimeter of the fields, teams set up there tents, canopies, and whatever else they want to help their parties. Think makeshift tented dancehalls, huge boomboxes pumping out dance music, lighting, tables for drinking games. There was a team called the “Desert Lorax” that created light-up trees you would see in the Lorax that also apparently spouted off ambrosia (the nectar of the gods). There was even a spaceship and a lifeguard chair that were built over the course of the weekend. It’s a sight to behold that no amount of hype can prepare you for as you step onto the fields for the first time. We had tremendous weather, terrific company, and a three day tournament. Each night was a party that lasted however long you wanted it to (I hit 2 o’clock in the morning on two nights, 1 o’clock on another, while other friends routinely stayed up later than me). Each night featured little sleep. And each day involved day drinking (our team developed a box-wine drill involving slapping the bag after making your appropriate cut), playing great competition (our team played three international teams: the U-23 mixed Team Canada team, a team featuring Vancouver pickup players that organized Flowerbowl, and a club team from Stockholm, Sweden that called themselves the Stockholm Syndromes), and finishing each match with more drinks, games, and gift giving. As Animal Cocktail Partyers, we had animal-themed games and passed out decorated wine glasses with sequins and animal patterns.

Even with that description of what Potlatch is like, I can’t really express what happened, outside of just how much sheer ridiculousness there was. Animal Cocktail Party, despite losing some close tough games, were definitely there to “win the party.” We played spirited, we would try to rope teams into our shenanigans (we got the aforementioned Vancouver and Sweden teams to do our box-wine drill), we chanted (a go-to cheer was “sex and food and sex and food…”), we communicated through whale calls (think Finding Nemo), and instead of forcing “home” we would force “herd.” I introduced the concept of flipping people instead of discs and we may have flipped a banana once too instead of two discs…

At this point, I have two things I can say on the subject: this is definitely a tournament that you should attend if you ever get the opportunity. As in, you should drop everything and make it out to the Northwest if whatever ultimate group you are affiliated with should earn a bid. And it’s reasonable, too, as traveling can occur around the 4^th of July weekend. Make it happen.

The second thing that I experienced was a homesickness for Colby ultimate. There were a number of teams that were reunion/alumni teams there this weekend: Oregon, Pacific Lutheran, Colorado College, etc. I was definitely getting hit in the nostalgia spot when my friend joined her Pacific Lutheran friends to do their pre-game or post-game dances (there team’s name was Parkland Quality Beats and they lived up to that name by hosting dance parties and playing solid music). So a Colby College reunion team should happen at a large tournament (i.e., not the Colby tournament that doesn’t really happen with consistency) for the sake of all of us coming together, reliving some past glory, and enjoying playing some ultimate with each other. I think we’d win the party, too. 

"Modern" life: slowing down and considering the lilies

Is it comforting or unsettling:
That we've been discussing this topic for nearly 150 years and that we're still worried about it?
That we have always idealized the past, while simultaneously accepting and adapting to the newest technology?

I recommend the full xkcd (bigger and easier to read) with mouseover: http://xkcd.com/1227/

I really liked this xkcd post. It comforted me that humans (Americans?) have always been fighting against, or at least cognizant of, our inability and unwillingness to slow down and have real conversations with people. However, it disappointed me that although our Luddite rantings about bicycles, tricycles, trains, boats, and telegrams existed, we now have technology like those ridiculous Google glasses, cell phones, smartphones, and email. 

Were these arguments raised to fight back against technology? Or were they raised simply to state a point: that technology is ruining our ability to communicate and think effectively? I also wonder what these authors did in their spare time. Did they ride their bike anyways? Did they give in to their mentioned technology after a few years? I'm sure they said "it can't get any worse". Were these articles warnings or admonitions to society? 

Brave New World here we come...?

Burrito Reviews

I haven't had much time to write for pleasure with my dissertation proposal being due to my committee on Monday. The only creative writing has been reviews of burritos in Eugene. A fellow Californian and I were commiserating over the fact that we missed California burritos. Instead of continuing to bitch and complain about it, we started going to highly rated burrito and Mexican places in Eugene with our fellow program members, rating various aspects of our experiences. The following are the three reviews from our first three trips.

El Super Burrito Review

5/7/13

The great expedition has started. The quest to find the best burrito—a long elusive holy grail of sorts—is on. A crew of nine (or was it more?) hungry, UO SPSY students rolled into El Super Burrito, hoping for an oasis in the burrito desert that is Eugene/Springfield.

I had it on good authority that El Super Burrito was one of the better burrito places in Eugene, and somehow I had avoided going here in my three years in town. Apparently, many of our comrade-at-arms had already been here, specifically related to St. Patrick’s Day festivities of 2013, celebrating James Hayes and St. Patrick in their finest glory. As this will be a relatively scientific endeavor, I ordered a steak fajita burrito, because I want a consistency between what I order and that matched my typical order back in California. Also, it had sour cream and guacamole. Bomb.

Eugene Rating: 7

I was pleasantly surprised to see that many of their burritos were quite reasonably priced. In terms of burritos in Eugene, the food/taste/price combo is probably going to be one of the best. Thus, the rating of a 7. Solid steak and veggies, maybe a bit to heavy on the refried beans and sour cream. Quite filling, and I couldn’t decide for a while if I wanted to take a nap or go out and exercise to work it off.

California Rating: 5

Some of you may be thinking… a “5?” Isn’t that a little high/low/right on for a snobbish, burrito eating California? Well, chances are that you aren’t. El Super Burrito, take it as a compliment. It’s a solid burrito amongst my wide and varied burrito experience. The top of that bell curve. Roland Good would be proud.

Chips Rating: Not Juanita’s.

Salsa Rating: I’m guessing that El Super Burrito has never heard of a slotted spoon before. It felt like I had to dunk my tortilla chip into an ocean in order to scoop my reasonably tasting pico de gallo. One might say I had to strap on some galoshes to get to that pico (h/t Eva K-N). Nobody likes a soggy tortilla chip.

Ambience/Atmosphere/Décor: The lady that took my order forgot that I ordered chips and salsa, and was bewildered when I kept insisting that I had ordered them. Boo.

Super Taco Review

5/14/13

This, dear friends, was supposed to be a Moment (capital M). This was the place that was supposed to have inspired it all. One Elizabeth Chase said this was the best burrito place in Eugene. I was excited. Plans were made. We made it to Super Taco, another crew in tow. 

Alas, what was found was very reminiscent of last week's adventure, dear friends. Shall we count the ways? 

Eugene Burrito Rating: 7

California Burrito Rating: 5 

I am pretty determined that the cooks from El Super Burrito were airlifted and dropped into the kitchen at Super Taco, because they gave me essentially the same burrito. Toasted, same tasting of meats and veggies (yes, I know I ordered the same thing), still probably too much sour cream (or at least, they could have distributed it better across the burrito), still using refried beans (what the actual fuck, Eugene? There are better beans than refried beans! Don't hate on black or pinto beans!). The use of different hot sauces that certainly improved the flavor of my burrito. Almost a mirror image of everything that I had last week. I can't justify providing a different rating than last weeks. 

Fortunately, for Super Taco, I had a bit of a better experience in other ways: 

Chips: These were still not Juanita's quality. So that wasn't actually better. Salsa: MUCH BETTER pico than whatever flooded crap that El Super Burrito gave me. 

TANGENT/RANT: Is this really going to be a thing, spending $2.50 for a side order of chips and salsa, Eugene, or are you just going to keep trolling me? Because, honestly, just fucking give me the chips and salsa and mix it into the price of my burrito. That's what we do in NorCal. It's called hospitality. At least give me a choice of different types of salsas. 

Decor/Ambience/Experience/Atmosphere: Better than El Super Burrito. Cleaner, nicer, friendlier, less janky. 

If it weren't located all the way out at Bailey Hill, I would probably spend the extra $0.50 to get my burrito experience (again, a little bit of hyperbole) on at Super Taco. Will I insist that we go to Super Taco anytime we are coming back from a trip from the coast. Yes, yes I still probably will.

Taqueria Mi Tierra Review

5/31/13

Friends and fellow burrito fans, 

On the strength of some Yelp reviews and recommendations from friends, our postponed Tuesday adventure was moved to Thursday night. Sadly this meant losing our esteemed practicum students (one more week!), but picked up some OPP-ers in the process. Fortunately for myself (and I guess this holds for Mal, as well), it wasn't held against me that showing up fashionably late as a result of a glorious, glorious nap. 

As a result of said nap, I was able to reach the little-known and even less-experienced post-nap, post-burrito state of nirvana, inspired by the meal served at Taqueria Mi Tierra. And I was able to reach this nirvana, of course, once I was able to successfully re-engage with the world and re-establish my mental functioning. 

Eugene Burrito Rating: 7.5

California Burrito Rating: 6 

For the purposes of being reasonably scientific (ahem, Chase), I ordered a burrito. However, this institution was a little bit more a sit-down, fully authentic Mexican meal, complete with beans and rice as side dishes on basically all of the meals, rather than the "burrito-specific" places we had been attending. I don't think I can be faulted for this choice when it says "Taqueria" in it's name, so... deal with it? 

#44 was just a burrito, with no indications of what I might expect. I ordered the Carne Asada and chips. The burrito, sadly, came with no sides (though visiting Stuart rectified this, for the win), but the burrito was pretty tasty. The focus of the burrito was on the cheese that it added and the meats, and my burrito wasn't swimming in the unnecessaries (looking at you, sour cream). The fact that this was a different type of burrito may have inflated the grade a bit (it was still very solid), but I appreciated the different take on what a burrito should consist of from our previous two adventures. 

Still, though, I'm getting trolled by all of the Mexican restaurants in Eugene. Goddamned refried beans. Cannot escape them. 

Chips: Still not Juanita's. Seriously, you guys, Juanita's are the official sponsored partner of Heaven (whichever Heaven or afterlife you might subscribe to).

Salsa: The effort on the Pico was not particularly memorable. However, the two green salsas offered (a guacamole one and another standard green sauce) were tasty. Both made it on to my chips and my burrito. 

Decor/Ambiance/Experience/Atmosphere: Tremendous, we have an early lead here. Just a purely inspired effort with the Spanish Soap Opera playing in the background. Maybe I'm still speaking from my state of nirvana, but that essentially sealed the deal for me. I will be going back here, probably not to order a burrito, but to eat some more legit foods/options. I know that Chimichanga has my fucking name on it. 

Also, it was our server dude's birthday, and he was genuinely awesome. 

In conclusion: You should probably try this place if you haven't already.