Anyway, the weather was so cold today! And with the cold weather, my propensity to buy hot drinks has also increased as well. Now, I have another excuse to buy coffee besides to stay awake during class, and that is to keep myself warm. And my appetite has also increased too. Keep craving for hot food. Argh. Hope I don't put on too much weight during this cold weather.
Anyway, I have only had one lesson so far for my Financial Engineering class, but I think I am going to like the class and learn a lot from it. It's supposed to be the last class in the Computational Finance sequence and the capstone class for masters students, so I guess this would be my most difficult class this semester. It is really quite eye-opening to take the class with the graduate students because even though we are supposed to be well-equipped with the necessary prerequisites, but we obviously do not have so much real-world knowledge or work experience. The class is mainly about designing and pricing derivative securities and pitching those exotic securities to clients. We are supposed to work in groups as the structured product team of an investment bank and solve cases. The professor wants the seven of us BSCF students to be in one group, but we are divided into two sections, and I was placed into the section with 3 BSCF students. It is going to be challenging to "compete" against masters students, but exciting at the same time. I guess the most significant thing about this class for me is that it seems that we are going to be doing a lot of structuring when solving the cases and I have always wanted to know what structuring is about and actually considered it as the alternative career to banking.
Weather-wise, it has been really cold, windy and rainy this past week. No more hot weather sadly. I guess we barely noticed that fall was slowly creeping up on us, with the day getting darker earlier and the leaves turning red, because of the hot weather which was so reminiscent of summer. But now that the cold is here, I just realized that we are actually well on our way in fall and about to go into winter already because the trees are starting to shed their leaves! It's really fast isn't it that soon, it's going to be Thanksgiving then Christmas? I have had to remind myself to bring my camera to take pictures of the school in fall with the trees covered in glorious red leaves, but my camera died for no reason, even though it was full-batt =( I think it's time for me to get a new camera. Oh well.
You know, sometimes, I do question myself whether I have made the right decision by graduating a year earlier. At times, I have regretted my decision about graduating next year because I like college so much and I'm not sure about being ready to go into the workforce just yet. A few people keep reminding me of the long hours and lack of sleep that await me when I actually start working and I'm quite scared about them. And I feel really sad when everyone tells me to enjoy my last year in school and tells me that I am going to miss my school years, because I don't think I have been enjoying and cherishing my last year as much as I want to.
Leaving college and beginning my career also means another milestone, a new beginning in the journey of my life. It means that I am really an adult, a working adult, and no longer sheltered by school. In college, most of the concerns would be doing well in school and taking care of myself here, but once I start working, I would have to think about my job security, how I am going to manage my pay, how much to save and my career advancement. I will have to make decisions that are going to have more serious repercussions on my life. Suddenly, it seems like a much bigger world out there and I feel so small, so insecure.
As they say, ignorance is bliss, and it feels good to feel ignorant, sort of, when in college. But I cannot just stay in my comfort zone all the time. And with many things in life, I wouldn't know whether my decision to graduate early is for the better or for worse. All I can do is to trust and to have faith.
My parents were also in pittsburgh last weekend. I was really excited for them to be here because it's not really often that my parents come here for a visit (and it is most likely my dad's only chance to get to see the city too). I tried to bring them to places which I usually go to here and play a large part of my life here, but couldn't go with them to all the places because I had a final to study for. I hope they enjoyed their visit here :)
While waiting for my flight to take off on friday night, I managed to finish reading the book "Monkey Business". It's basically an account of the investment banking life by two ex-investment banking associates and having had the experience firsthand myself, albeit very briefly, over the summer, I could really identify with their stories and it was really amusing to read their perspectives haha. The classic example was that of one of the associates who had to write the first draft of the executive summary for a pitchbook. By the time the draft had been revised multiple times by the vice-president, senior vice-president and the managing director, the final version looked exactly like the original draft! Except with the addition of a few graphs. Which showed that all those multiple revisions were basically useless haha. Fortunately, I did not really get the chance to do pitchbooks over the summer; I was involved in live deals instead, which were even better. But I'm sure I'm going to get to do at least one in future haha. The book also reinforced the fact that many people don't actually know what banking actually is and how the life is actually like, and you really need to be in the industry to really know what banking life entails.
Speaking of which, I have accepted the offer. At least that's one thing off my mind, for now.
I never thought I'd need you there when I cried
And the days feel like years when I'm alone
And the bed where you lie
Is made up on your side
When you walk away
I count the steps that you take
Do you see how much I need you right now?
When you're gone
The pieces of my heart are missing you
When you're gone
The face I came to know is missing too
When you're gone
The words I need to hear to always get me through the day
And make it okay
I miss you
I've never felt this way before
Everything that I do reminds me of you
And the clothes you left
They lie on the floor
And they smell just like you
I love the things that you do
When you walk away
I count the steps that you take
Do you see how much I need you right now?
When you're gone
The pieces of my heart are missing you
When you're gone
The face I came to know is missing too
When you're gone
The words I need to hear to always get me through the day
And make it okay
I miss you
We were made for each other
Out here forever
I know we were
Yeah yeah
And all I ever wanted was for you to know
Everything I do I give my heart and soul
I can hardly breathe I need to feel you here with me
Yeah
When you're gone
The pieces of my heart are missing you
When you're gone
The face I came to know is missing too
When you're gone
The words I need to hear to always get me through the day
And make it okay
I miss you
A friend recently put a line from the song as his nick, and the song has been stuck in my head ever since.
Pulled off my second all-nighter in 2 weeks, doing my marketing case and numerical methods homework the day before they are due. This time, I slept 1 hour earlier at 6 and decided to skip my marketing class. My roomie pulled an all-nighter too and I think this is the first time both of us have pulled an all-nighter together. Haha.
Feeling very cranky as a result of the lack of sleep and I've been drinking lots of coffee too. I think I may just have had an overdose of caffeine. Haha.
Today is the first day here that it is actually cold, and I feel really cold. I guess the summer days of 30+ degrees, which make it seem like I was still in Singapore, are behind us now. Somehow, there seems to be a sense of emptiness inside. And for the first time this semester, I feel homesick.
-2 homeworks (one of them is a case report) due tomorrow (last time this happened, I ended up staying up till 7am!)
-meeting with my professor tomorrow to discuss my final presentation on thursday (which i have to prepare for)
-final presentation on thursday, which is worth 40% of my grade
-office hours on thursday (luckily, i have prepared the homework solutions)
-a midterm and a homework due on friday
-grading to be done by friday
-final exam on monday, which is worth 65% of my grade
-another 21370 homework due this friday, which means grading another set of homework
All I can say is..ahhhhh!!!!!
On top of that, my parents are coming this Thursday and they will be here until Monday morning. How am I going to spend time with them and yet finish all my work at the same time? Well, I tried doing one of the homeworks ahead, but I'm still left with a lot of catching up to do!
Oh well. I guess...just do it! And not think too much without getting things done. And I really should tell them soon that I'm going to sign.
Found out on Friday that the Denmark girl in my ODI class is actually the girlfriend of my professor who taught me last semester! Was very surprised when I found out about it haha.
Have had a tiring weekend, with tennis and grove city shopping. Time to get back to work again, and this coming week will be my really bad week. Oh well. Really need to be disciplined with my time management and I am really determined to plan and manage my time really well this week.
I have never been the sort of person who work purely for money or motivated by material compensation, so how do I justify making my decision based on the compensation package. I guess like it or not, it will eventually come into play at some point.
Back to work! Monte-Carlo Simulation midterm tomorrow! And my parents will be coming this Thursday! I'm really looking forward to it :)
Anyway, I had thought that this week was going to be a slightly relaxing week, but evidently not. The week started off with 6 hours straight of classes (no breaks in between) and I had to rush to finish grading and run over for experiment after that. It really felt like I was always rushing all the time and was really relieved when I finally managed to come home haha. I had thought that I could start a few of my homeworks early, but didn't have time to. And grading is taking up a much longer time than expected. It is really hard to decide the breakdown of marks and I feel quite bad deducting points off little mistakes even though I thought it was necessary to do so.
On the agenda this week: Grading by tomorrow, 1 homework due Wednesday, ceremonial speech and internship panel on Thursday, ODI group meeting, catch-up on work due next Monday, a big decision to be made and grove city on Saturday! Looking forward to end of the week..I can finally go shopping again! =)