Reporting from Workstation 9

Happy new year everyone!
This will be the first new year I celebrate without my family:(
Here's hoping this year holds better prospects for all of us.
Enjoy!!

A lot of kids these days feel disillusioned by the kind of work they get after they graduate, even before they graduate. Corporate is not very cool these days, it seems.I don't know if the majority in all schools feel this way, maybe it was just Stephen's and the like. There were few who were very clear of the value of a high paying job. Say Shraddha with the Merril Lynch job. She was undoubtedly thrilled. If I had gotten I'd probably spend a lot of time mulling about, is this all there is to my life.
At this moment you ask me, I have no issues working at any place, as long as it involves a good amount of economics. In some way. An economist at a Investment Bank would be as ideal as a teacher of economics. Sort of like i've chosen my life partner and intended to stay faithful to it. The other aspects regarding hours, or work pressure or existence of the glass ceiling, currently don't matter to me.
I've also seen cases of people very interested in finance feel disillusioned before hand. Sort of like me in my undergraduate days..except I didn't know too much finance.Haha. Anyway now, from a research point of view I think Finance kicks ass, only I am still not mathematically strong to brave the courses. For example, in economics we take linear approximations and they work quite well for most variables. In finance, you deal with variances and volatility. You move to second and third order..which is good stuff. No wonder Indians and Chinese are big in that field..apart from the Jews and Russians and East Europeans..But ofcourse, how well a 'quant' chap can realize his knowledge in Practice is doubtful. Quite fascinating little story about LTCM. Or best is you could just stick to sermonizing and conjecturing, in research papers. I've seens my profs. They seem quite content.
Anyway the point was, lot of discussions going on among economists, how good is the life of say an investment banker.
Here's a link..http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2006/12/a_theory_of_inv.html

A challenge to lose my loser status:

I was watching some videos of Mariah Carey and Neil Young today. What hit me was the power of their voices. Whatever the pitch, they 'carey' it so well. And I've also instated "Heart of Gold" as my song of the month, and "When we believe" By the powerhouse Houston and Carey. What brilliant voices.
I also am kicked about my new job. TA to this Nutty Professor. Asian Monetary Policy. Should be fun..
Anyway, now to the challenge I've set myself: A friend working in London was telling me about these really cool places in Singapore. I shamefaced-ly denied knowing the existence of them. When I told him, I hadn't been to Chinatown, that was the last straw. I could not help feeling a little 'pathetic'(refer to last post) and have wowed to make good use of this week. After I'm done reading a few books and attending some MAtlab courses, I am definitely visiting that famous Bar on top of that hill(I didn't know there was one in singapore!),and win my reputation back... and visit the Zoo, the Bird Park and Chinatown if I fit that in...

PS:Exams Done! though it's not as great a feeling anymore..

Eccentric.
My classmates are eccentric.
After the term exam one went back to watch a chess game. One looked up rentals on the web. One played some computer game. One went back to working on his thesis. After a lot of convincing, one agreed to play frisbee with me in the room. That put me under eccentric. No I think pathetic. Shwetha contributed that word.
But they are all adorable.
Today I learnt that one of my friends dad made hydrogen at home to fill balloons that he sold during the Chinese Spring Festival. Hydrogen balloons. Isn't it dangerous? Apparently not so. We then worked out the equation that his father used to produce it. Aluminium+Sodium Hydroxide+ water. The balancing of the equations took some time, cause we were all rusty with our chemistry. But I think we came up with a possible equation. One even drew out the electrons. Fun. I used to like chemistry a lot.
I enjoy it here. The discussions range from everything to anything. Today we heard Edmund Phelps phone call interview from the Nobel Academy. It was interesting to hear him say things that are quite familiar to us. We also discovered our Prof(who has gone to attend the Nobel Prize Ceremony in Sweden), spoke very much like him.
We also plan to catch the live broad cast of his speech. If only we can figure out what Central European Time means. It's apparently one hour ahead of the Coordinated universal time. WTF is that? Is the GMT outmoded?
Anyway, I rediscovered Michael Jackson today. And India's Inflation no longer has a unit root. It had one sometime back. Hmph! Empirical modelling can get on your nerves.
Also only recently I've discovered the wealth of econ blogs on the net. Phew. To go through even a few of them...But what a blessing! Economics is made so much more relevant by them( to us..not in general)
Also I abandoned "the Gospel according to John". Wasn't as interesting as Friedman's 'Free to choose'.Don't think the book had much of chance with me anyway.
Gupta, if you ever find the time to check ma blog...My Blog wishes the DOODE a very Happy Birthday!

My shot at attaining eternal life..
I read a few pages of a novel before I go to sleep every night. Usually Wodehouse. And I mean a few pages..about 15 pages at most..cause I'm usually very tired.
Yesterday I realized I'd finished the books I had. And I needed something to read. I thought about the game theory notes i had, and quickly put that thought out of my head. And then I looked around.
My roomate is fairly religious(and according to my standards, very). She seemed to have many books of the religious nature. There was one small book that caught my eye, called 'The Gospel according to John'.
The little book is only for non-believers in Christ and is gauranteed to make a believer out of them. It tells us about the miracles Christ performed. I read the first 10 pages. I'm still cynical at best.
A better analysis will be done sometime next week, when I'm done with the book and more importantly done with my term exams for which I should be studying at the present moment. Until then..