Introductions

Howdy all! My name is Ben Fillmore. I am a graduate student in the Economics department, with a film minor. I chose Economics because it does a fantastic job of preparing its students for the workforce in a variety of capacities; the manner of thinking required and solidified by Economics establishes students in the world of critical thought quite well. My current studies have transitioned into a Masters in Data Science, which is a natural progression from Economics as it applies the theories and principles learned therein to the real world in a very calculated way. I've enjoyed my time in Data Science as it really breaks down how we see the world into very manageable and quantifiable methods. Last semester I took a class titled - "Statistics for Decision Making" and I thoroughly enjoyed this course. It did an excellent job of exploring how to model the world and better understand its operations. I believe my biggest accomplishment of the semester was opening grad school strongly, while planning my wedding, which truly took some time. Consequently, over break I traveled to Austin (My Favorite Place) and married my best friend, which had been a long time coming. This trip serves as the perfect segue to talking about a few of my main interests, as I opened the trip by getting down south before my fiance, and spending some time with my groomsmen. This pseudo-bachelor party was spent primarily either in front of a television or a rock wall. Which leads to my next section, the bulk of which will be discussing my favorite books, movies, music, and hobbies - as all were present this bachelor week. 

Potentially my favorite long-form narrative television show is titled The Leftovers (HBO, 2014-2017). This show is built around the consequences of 2% of the world's population suddenly and mysteriously vanishing. The Leftovers follows protagonist Kevin Garvey and his struggle to find definition, clarity, and purpose in the years following the "Sudden Departure". It's a masterpiece of emotional turbulence, isolation, and grief; so it seemed only natural to marathon it in two days with my closest friends. We then turned to the task of a single day marathon of the Extended Edition of The Lord of The Rings (Peter Jackson, 2001-2003). This is a mission I've undertaken with my closest friends on a few occasions and never does it disappoint. We quickly followed this marathon with another; the rapid completion of season one of True Detective (HBO, 2014). These undertakings represent my favorite films, television shows, and books - as I'm now entering my 13th year of annual Lord of the Rings readings and I have yet to regret a single moment of it. However, as an individual who must be constantly busy for fear of silence, I'm also currently averaging 1.3 movies per day for the year 2020. My favorite movie I've seen recently was likely A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick, 2019). My top movies for 2019 in order are The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers, 2019), Parasite (Bong Joon Ho, 2019), and A Hidden Life. As far as music goes, I tend to lean the Folk direction; primarily listening to Andrew Bird, Father John Misty, and Willie Watson - although recently I've leaned pretty heavily on James Blake. This time in Austin was quite ideal, as it afforded me the chance to do what I love with people I love. This transitions nicely into my more active hobbies - first of which is bouldering. I'm afraid I fell for the consumerist trap of watching the film Free Solo (Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, 2018) and falling in love with the sport of climbing. Although this film focuses more on big wall climbing, in which I've only dabbled, it is arguably the greatest sporting achievement to date. I believe if I had a free day, with which to do whatever I may choose, I'd go to Joshua Tree for bouldering.

Professionally, I aim to work in either marketing strategy or data science, as both apply economic theory and coding in a very hands on way, which interests me. My wife and I both strongly desire to live in Austin, and as such will likely be moving there within the next 4 years. We have a pet cat named Gus (Asparagus). I will make an effort to include Gus pictures in some capacity down the road. My wife admittedly doesn't do a ton of cooking, but we're currently work-shopping some crock-pot recipes for days when I'm in class extensively. I've been practicing cooking traditional Japanese recipes, and currently am enamored with the process of cooking Shoyu Ramen. I tend to spend altogether too much money on cookbooks and will likely need help down the road to end this purchasing habit. I believe this concludes my introductory post- I'm excited to speak with you all as the class progresses, godspeed.

Pictures:
(1) Boulder in Virginia State Park | flickr
(2) 'el capitan dares you' | djandym (flickr)
(3) gus | original