It is 5am, I am at ~2400 words of my 3000 word essay and it is due in exactly 9 hours. Sipping my strawberry wine and hoping for an epiphany because I am kind of stuck right now ): On a side note though, my headings and subheadings look great in the essay, haha. How asthetically pleasing (: Also, in a fit of randomity, the boyfriend taught me about Prospect Theory in Microecons today. He used it to answer a question which I could not for the life of me see the logic in. Admittedly he thought it was ridiculous and illogical too, but I guess if you apply the theory to it, it makes sense. In a warped way.

Allow me to explain, in a simpler way. There was a company who was under an old insurance plan. The workers would pay 500 pounds a year to the company. If they got sick, they would just claim the money accordingly. If they didn't, no change. (In other words, you give a set amount of money no matter whether you get sick or not.) Under a new plan, the workers would pay 250 pounds instead of 500. If they didn't get sick, there would be no change. If they did, the first time they got sick they would have to pay another set amount of 200 pounds. (Hence, total of 450 pounds.) However, most of the workers stuck with the old plan instead of the new one. Why?

So neither the boyfriend nor i could make head or tail of it. If you didn't get sick, the new plan was better since you give 250 instead of 500 pounds. If you did get sick, the new plan was still better because you gave a total of 450 pounds instead of 500! So why would the workers stick with the old plan still? I tried to come up with some nonsense answer like, oh they either didn't understand the policy (because well they were using some crazy words like 'deductible' and whatnot to explain it and I was like wtf is this about) OR the workers were too darn lazy to change to the new plan from the old hahaha. But obviously, it's wrong >_> (ECONS DEPT Y U NO HAS TRICK QUESTION.)

So later the boyfriend figured it out, somehow. APPARENTLY, it all comes down to this graph here below. Notice the bit about losses and gains? Yeah that's actually important. This is the Prospect Theory graph. Very undulatey, I know.



Okay when the workers paid 500 pounds, they gained a set amount of utility, which is quite a lot because well, they did pay a lot, so the point is nearer to the end of the x axis, the outcome. When the workers pay 250 pounds, the utility they gain is less. Okay got that? All this is happening on the x axis ah. Now, look at the shape of the graph. Notice the left hand bit is much steeper than the right hand bit? Yep, apparently when the workers pay the extra 200 pounds when they fall ill, that goes into the left hand side of the graph, and the loss is HUGE as can be seen if you shade the area under the graph. And that's why. Kind of.

Makes sense, in a theoretical and really warped way. For a better explanation, ask someone who is actually majoring in Econs >_> I might not have explained it as well and as fully as I should since this discussion took like 10-15 minutes and really, who can absorb theories fully in 10-15 mins anyway. So, arguments perhaps that some theories in Econs might be way too impractical in the real world? But then again I guess anyone who spouts pure theory at you in real life, whether it be economical or political and so on, is definitely a moron.

Okay this post took like 20 minutes, I ought to get back to my essay now. Taaa.

/update: It's 7:20am now. I have passed the 3000 word mark. o_O And I still have like two major points to get through, though admittedly I do have quotes littered around those sections which are taking up word space. But all the same, argh. It's getting harder to concentrate now as my head is killing me. I wish today was yesterday so I wouldn't be in this state now... Such is procrastination, guys. Don't do it. Hahahaaa.

/another update: Just about 9am now and I have more or less finished with a conclusion to write and que horror! (Sorry no accents, I'm not on my iPhone currently.) I AM FIVE HUNDRED WORDS OVER THE WORD LIMIT ARGH. Need to rectify this faaaast ):

/last update: Turns out I am an idiot. I forgot to click the button on the word count limit that doesn't take into account the words in the footnotes. I only discovered this when I was chucking huge chunks of text into my footnotes to get the word limit down (much like PW where we chucked everything into diagrams and footnotes teehee) and somehow the words weren't going down. I got suspicious, checked, and tada~ It worked. Dropped from 3500 words to like 2800 words immediately, so that's when I put some sentences back to make it flow better ;) Handed it in at 10am, and crashed so badly from 10:30am to around 5pm. And, I'm hungry ): AND MY NEW FLOOBLE IS OUT SO PLS COMMENT THANKS.