January 03 2008

Dear online community,

I am sad. I am bored. To add to my misery today is the coldest day in winter thus far, in fact the temperature outside right now is 19 F though with the wind chill it feels like 7 F. Its 3 38 PM right now, which is practically the hottest time of the day usually.

Plus I am frustrated about the pathetic effort I have made for blogging or anything of my choice. I haven't really gone to the gym, or read as much as I would have liked to read. I am still addicted to the things that I should not be (sorry we are not close enough for me to tell you). I still die for caffeine and soda- the two things that I thought I would quit, for my zits sake.

The one thing that I have done is read silly things. I am into my 3rd novel now, though that is a behavioral change that I admire. Its engages more and lasts longer than television. Plus its fun and might improve my linguistic abilities.

Ok thats all for now. peace

No more midterms

Hi,

I am so glad this week is almost over. It was so stressed and hectic that I don't even remember half of it. To begin with, I was stressing too much on the 2 midterms that I had this week. Implications: Did not study as I was too busy worrying. Then as always 2 nights of 3-4 hours of sleep continuous 7-8 hours of studying before exam, which includes on the train, in the shower, in my dreams, (yes I do that, and pretty soon some freak PhD student will prove it).

Finally I am a free man, no more midterms for a few months now, I am done with all of this semesters. Yay!! But I want to get into trading, and I know there could not have been a worse time, especially since I am based in NY right now. We are on the brink of recession and the stallwarts of wallstreet are peeing in their pants and I want to get into the game. Oh well the world is a strange place.

So, to get more of my wallstreet experience I am sitting here at my internship which I came I did not come for on Tuesday and seems like my boss has forgotten that I was going to come in today, since I have been waiting here for almost an hour, ok ok 45 mins, but its still a significant amount of time, given that I come for 3 hours only.

I think this blogging thing is helping both my english writing and my typing skills so I think I am going to continue with it for a long time to come.

Computer Crash

Namaste,
The worst thing that could have happened in my life, has happened yet again. I know I am not naturally tech savvy but this is ridiculous, my computer crashed. Yes, it did, its like the nineties all over again, and this time also, like always, I have no back up of data. I am trying, actually Ravi Bhaiya is trying and I am pushing him, to recover the data, but chances are dim at the end of the road.
Anyways keep you updated
Varun

PS. I won 10$ again Pakistani on a cricket match played in Guwahati on Monday India time, (feeling really happy and relieved) YAY!!!

Work procastination

Ola,

I am back again, dont worry thats all the Spanish I know, and this will not turn into a hispanic forum.
I am at work and my boss is on a break, tell me how does that make me feel? Real loser especially as I am paid less than 5 $ an hour, this is child labor man. The sad thing is I am doing it voluntarily and I can not compaint because of that.
In reality I enjoy this work, it is so different from working in the silk business though as of now that seems more exciting, its a welcome change to see another work place and to be in front of people who do not look at you and think he is the boss's son, because in this place I am not the boss's son. The cool thing is, in National Securities Asset Management, where I am working, no one is the boss's son. I am the unfortunate enough to have a boss but all others are independent workers here and do not have the boss-employee relationship thing going on. Also I think office politics is minimal as they do not cross their paths everyday, but I might be wrong as I have been here for just 3-4 weeks and do not have informal discussion with anyone.

Ok I have to go back to work.
Peace

Update 3

Hi,
I am sorry for being lazy. Developing new habits is not so easy for me especially when I am not sure the habit I am getting into is a good one or a bad one, since I have been doing this so infrequently I dont know if I enjoy this or think its a waste of time. I guess time will tell...

Life is really slow and sad when you promise yourself you will not party and actually keep it. Well I didnt tell you guys about my promise right? So here goes... I had taken World Cultures Africa last semester which was when I was stupid enough to try thinking like white kids and chose something that I thought was interesting and I would enjoy. Bad idea!! Not that the lectures were bad and the prof. and the TA were both really nice and good speakers which was pretty useful in the sense that it could have been worse than it actually was. But the point is the theme was overtly depressing, Africa, subjects covered included diseases, female circumcision, politics, neo traditional societies, war, etc. All important and go a far way in defining the state of Africa but not very exciting. Especially nothing like the movie Blood Diamond which was my iniial inspiration anyways. To make things worse my professor was the head of anthropology department at NYU and has been teaching for over 40 years, he was convinced that his subject was not taught through exam. That implies that we had to write papers almost all the time. Something, that you are aware, I detest.
So ending up, I wrote my final paper 3000 words twice but was not happy with it and ended up deletign my files thinking I will screw my way out of class, as I knew he was not teaching this semester and I could easily lie saying I had turned it in. So I dug the hole even deeper. Recently my professor contacted me and told me to turn them in, so I promised myself no partying till papers are done. So that was that.

Thats all for today,
Peace

Hi I am sorry for not taking time out for updating the virtual world about my really exciting life. My sincere heartfelt apologies.
Ok so lets catch up now, here is a list of recent happenings in my life:
I finally gave my FA midterm, thought I aced it, but actually I didnt, not a lot of people did. I know that is not an excuse, the sad thing is that I did not commit a mistake, my concept on how to solve the problem's critical step was wrong and hence the my grade suffered. But I did not hit rock bottom, and must be around the average so that's some consolation.
Similar disasters happened with InfoTech and OrgComm which has virtually destroyed my dreams of 4.0 GPA and revalued my expectations to a 3.5.
The new solution I learned for multiple choice questions is that even if an answer is right, but some other option in the given options is a "preferred answer" then the answer that you think is right, is actually wrong because the other option is also right plus it is preferred. God Bless America.
My typing speed has gone down drastically because I try to avoid typing in everyday life and since I broke up with Sneha no one makes me type for hours on MSN Messenger anymore. Yes I use MSN and not AIM, if you have a problem you know where Bill (Gates) put the X button on ur browser. For apple users, I am sorry you are already doomed.
I have to right an email for OrgComm right now, and was pretty slow at it, hence I decided that I should vent my emotions a little bit.

I had to pick a major, which is a really important decision but I am still not sure. One thing I am sure about is that marketing is not going to happen. Other options Accounting and Management are somethings that I will use the most in my professional life but neither of which are rocket science and something not spending so much money and time learning. That leaves me two options, Information Systems and Actuarial Science. I have decent background in both as I did C++ for 2 years in high school and am still a decent programmer and I am India (hello we invented zero) so Math is in my blood. Actuarial is really tough and boring but I think I might survive. I know I am not going to crunching numbers for most of life, but it will be a useful skill to have. Computers and Internet are not a thing that is going to happen in the future, it has already happened in the present and in the future its going to life blood of existence. So it would not be a bad idea to be more handy. Though Stern IT program is not engineering and I will not be as good as most engineers but Math at NYU is the best and my actuarial degree will and should be really valuable.
Man this shit is more complicated than i thought, may be I will email some of mentors and ask for advice and see what they say. I guess that is not a bad idea.

I think I should get back to my work now.

Take Care
Varun

PS. Please visit my website and for those of you who have a website and can post a link to one of your friends online please link to http://varun21shah.googlepages.com/home

As I need to get my page indexed on google with search words varun shah and the more links I have on the website the better my page rank.
Please it is a heartfelt request. At least visit my website if nothing else.

Today I had an FA midterm, it was easy stuff, not a lot to study and I dont think I did bad at all. I can't say good because its the STERN curve, so you know one silly mistake and I might not get an A. So lets hope for the best.
Also I am shocked at how intricately twisted question can be made out of a simple concept. Especially if its a multiple choice. Damn these Americans, sorry for you patriots but its true. I think I should have learned that after my SAT exams. The bloody options are there to play with your mind. I used to think options makes things easier as they are out there, and you do not have that many to choose from, but now I know, once you read all of them the devil inside your brain pops up and whispers, " May be that one is right as well." And you say to yourself, "Damn you I am screwed." Trust me on this, you are much easier answering direct questions as then you land on the softer side of things, and the professor has the option of being kind to you. Which in case does not exist since you are right or WRONG. By experience, I can say multiple choice questions have confused me of some of my concepts of which I was much clearer before.

Anyways have to go now to study for Information Technology though that should be pretty easy as well.

By the way for those of you who find this uninteresting please close your bloody browser right now. For those of you who think you can add on to it, please do you are more than welcome.

I am just doing this as an advice from a friend to improve my written English. Lets see if it works.
Best
Varun