Done with..

Exams! Yes, even though I am in a job, I have to write exams. In any case, they are done! No more exams for the next couple of years.

La Vie

I sit in my office writing this post. What does that mean? Nothing deep, just that I have some time to spare. The training program is winding down. I have passed all my courses, which is actually a big deal as 6/17 failed, and had to retake. Writing 3 exams in Investments, Options and Accounting, after a month of preparation, is a pain in the derriere. I didn't know a debit from a credit when I joined the job. Finance was this weird field whose point of existence I really couldn't get. See, its the only profession that doesn't produce anything of its own (e.g. Steel makers make Steel, Law firms make legal documents, Financial firms manufacture money?!). I wasn't even sure why I had quit my Ph. D. program.

See, I had no real problems with my Ph. D. I found my research interesting. We were developing computational methods to wade through the flood of experimental data that current high-throughput methods were producing (the days when you stare at the test tube for 2 weeks for something to happen are over!). I liked my advisor. I had a fairly fun social life. So, no real complaints. However, I was bored. A Ph. D. might be a number of things, but fast paced it is not. Also, I tend to lose interest quickly with most things. So, for fairly random reasons I got this job, and decided to take it up.

Then, life wasn't boring. It was the opposite of boring. Ok, not the opposite of boring but crazy. The opposite of crazy is sane, so technically life was the opposite of sane. In any case, I survived and learnt a fair bit about finance. For example, I know that Sarbanes Oxley is this new totally hep accounting rule, that is forcing companies to spend billions of extra dough on accountants, and give employment to all the Keshav Patels down in Bangalore. Then, as I said earlier, I wrote my exams. Didn't do that well, for the reasons I mentioned earlier, (usually I ***@#@ hate excuses, but an exception had to be made, or I have to dent my self image, and assume unto myself a less capable persona).

Then, lady luck decided to throw some change my way, and I found potential employment in this group that pays me to study nice problems. And so the tale comes back to the point where it started. Thus spake Zarathustra, throught Nietzsche, for no specific reason really.

In other breaking news, winter has arrived. It snowed a bit last week. So, the jackets and pullovers and skull caps and mufflers and gloves and snow boots and thermals are out. I live right by Lake Michigan, and as I walk back home from work, I feel like one of those heroes who against all odds, continue to trudge through the dark, foreboding, wind swept, snow laden fields, not knowing what miseries lie ahead of them, never slowing, never yielding, showing no fear, whatsoever.

Random Comments

- I saw Science of Sleep. A sweet idiosyncratic movie. Has Gael Garcia Bernal of Amores Perros and Y Tu Mama Tambien fame. It is weirdly humorous and bittersweet. Its a French production, so there is quite a bit of people speaking French. As you might think, its more on the arty side, and not a mainstream blockbuster type release. The Illusionist rocks too. The story is totally tight and gripping. The Covenant is a piece of shit.

- Science of Sleep has made me want to go back to France. I want to listen to people speak French. My French is too horrible to speak in, but is decent enough to pick up stray words and decipher meaning. And, I sorta like listening to people speak French. I want to go back to Lyon. Cathedral Fouvier. Perrache. Saone. Frankfurt will also be fun. Europe looks so classy in the winter. Darkness descending, with lights here and lights there, snow falling over the cathedrals and narrow lanes, shapes moving in the shadows.....you feel like you are in a WWII movie.

- I am likely to find employment with an exotic derivatives group. Usually, when nobody knows wtfigo (what the fish is going on), complex math comes into the picture. There is a lot of complex math in this stuff. Most earth shaking financial catastrophies (Barings for e.g, when Nick Leeson vaporized a tonne) come from the folks engaging in random fun with derivatives. Derivatives are like stock, except that you can make ginormous bets putting up close to no cash => lots of people get baited doing stupid things. The average lifetime of a derivatives trader is 3 years, in the business that is, I wouldn't think he commits suicide.