~ the road is life ~

verbal pyrotechnics
Monday, March 10, 2003
03:55 p.m.

oh, by the way, i got an internship. funny how i forgot to mention it. the biggest event in my recent life.

otherwise, i'm getting bored again. somewhat settling down to study the teeniest bit (macro).

my pre- and present-exam syndrome seems to have reared its head again: a combustible mix of boredom and reluctance to study, which results in freakish behaviour, symptomatic of my innate insanity.

in plain english... i'm starting to take up stupid during-exam projects again. the recent one being my online, web-based 'company'... a child born out of one of the (now virtually non-existent) Ludham BS-sessions.

raleigh
Saturday, March 8, 2003
07:08 p.m.

hmm.... have been somewhat bored. been trying to get a firefighting job over the summer (sept-oct) in the US. but it seems like they're only recruiting US citizens. besides... i rather doubt they'll have positions for only ONE month.

so i decided maybe i should volunteer on a research project-type thing. since wei song is going for one. - how cool!!! but they cost the earth, honestly! so i think it's really not worth my while. i might as well use the £1000++ to spend a month or more, travelling in a third world country. rather than spend 2 weeks doing research... not including the flight there some more!

so anyway... i decided to check up raleigh again. it was something i considered doing before. but i balked at the cost. and i didn't think i'd have the guts and thick-skin to go and ask people for money. i'm too shy for the whole fundraising thing. but now... i think that i can shore up a tiny bit of money from my summer internship which can contribute to the expedition. plus... i think i'll be more brave and sociable enough to fundraise after my internship. if not... well... it's high time for me to become outgoing and sociable enough then! after all, these are essential skills in the working world. i can hardly expect to excel and progress far if i'm always going to be a wilting wall-flower!

now the main problem is finding the time to go on a raleigh expedition. i clearly can't go this summer. and all non-summer dates clash terribly with my academic year. and i can't go next summer either i don't think. cos the the expeditions run from july-sept... and i may have to start work at once. unless i can arrange with my employer (hopefully i'll have one) to defer my start date.

OR i could go for the 'TeachFirst' programme. do raleigh before that. THEN start work. hmm... we'll see how it goes. hopefully everything works out!

a little piece of heaven
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
10:40 a.m.

Studied in my room yesterday. What a joy is was! It was warm and cosy, and i felt really quite happy. it's such a different, heart-warming experience.

I hadn't been in my room much recently you see. For the past several months, my room has become little more than a hotel to me. I'd been too busy with work and applications and all that stuff, so my room went to seed. i couldn't even see the floor! one had to pick one's way from one end of my room to the other. and i was always too knackered to really do much besides falling into my bed at night. the little studying that i did, i did in the library or the kitchen. it didn't help that my room light was really romantic (read: dim!)

anyway, this past weekend, i made some effort to organise part of my room. and i changed the lightbulb to a brighter one. so yesterday i sat in my huge swivelling armchair at one corner of my room, with my clothes rack behind me and everything else around me, and i felt like ariel (yes the disney mermaid) must have felt in her treasure trove. :) it's quite a nice, homey feeling i must say. must spend more time in my lovely £75/week room from now on.

hula-hooperoo
Sunday, February 16, 2003
01:13 p.m.

am at school again. this is the life of a no-lifer. chillin' in the library is as a substitute for a social life. bumping numbly from place to place, task to task.

*technically* am down here to study. read up principles of finance and do my assignment. but have just been on the net for the past 2 hours + maybe?

i'm getting really rather bored of the quietness of my life. even the voices in my head have fallen silent. NOT APPRECIATED, YOU HEAR THAT? jeez... abandoning me like that. some friends! as usual, i'm just one blank. this has been the case since like... the academic year started? This is just too much man. i've run out of things to do. i've read 'Bridget Jone's Diary', 'Fear of Flying', re-read 'Unbearable', made an abortive attempt to read 'Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek' (will read it fully some other time, when i can truly do it justice), gone through 'Liar's Poker' and 'Barbarians at the Gate', read 'The Economist' weekly, and 'FT' daily... apply for as many investment banks as are realistically possible and energy permitting... i've finished all of Carol's vcds over the winter break... jap, hk, korean (except for one really abysmal one)... you name it, i've watched it! i've gone through incredible amount of trouble to get season 9 of 'friends' and blew it all on one day. and now i have nothing else to do! i have no interviews coming up soon, so i can't use my spare time to prepare for them... i have so much time on my hands...and i have read all the books i have here with me in London too recently to re-read them... so it seems like i'll just have to study. dammit!

i feel like kicking up my heels and having a good time. except that i can't have a good time until i get an offer. CONSTANT VIGILANCE! and even after that, i'll have to dig my heels in and study. hmmh.. over summer i had a feeling *something* was coming up. some momentous change was about to happen. and even at the beginning of michaelmas term... i thought i had that feeling. but now it has disappeared. i have no intuitive sense of what the near future will be like. strange. hopefully something good is in store.

But oh yar.... good news... we've bought a hula-hoop. i've decided to hula-hoop for 30 minutes each day... been getting positively flabby recently. i look at myself in the mirror and actually feel like gagging. that has never happened before. so clearly... it has reached a critical stage of crisis-proportions! the only problem is... i don't know how to hula-hoop. i started off hula-hooping for 15 minutes yesterday... not to have too ambitious a start you know... and i had to pick up the damn hoop every minute cos it kept dropping down. but i think i'm improving marginally! and i've actually been feeling quite inspired to jog recently. i think i shall start once the weather turned warmer.

since i have nothing else to do... besides studying... i think i shall make it my pet project to start exercising to look good. in prepation for the summer y'know. no matter what i'm doing... where in the world i'll be... i've decided that i'm going to deck out in full summer gear and soak up all the sun i can get and store it all up for the bleak winter months. i can't wait... i can picture myself already... walking in the sun, lazing about... i can almost feel the warmth on my skin. i'm really quick sick of this whole winter thing... layers of clothes hiding layers of blubber.. shored up to guard against the winter chill. urgh!

enough is enough. sunshine, here i come! :)

efforts
Saturday, February 8, 2003
02:25 p.m.

I'm at uni now. Specifically, in the library. Studying with Nishit. I have to make efforts to start studying. Think I shall be dragging myself out to the library weekends to study from now on. Feeling quite demoralised though. Been feeling rather demoralised lately. So many things to do, so little time, and almost no will, strength or energy. It seems wrong when you let your entire worth as a person be determined by how many banks call you for interview, when the banks' judgements are so subjective. I shall have to raise my spirits. In January, I felt really confident somehow, like I was going to be an investment banker. I could feel it, could imagine myself striding down the thickly carpetted corridors of some high-powered bank, where millions of dollars flow through every minute of each. I saw myself in that role, I could see it. And somehow, I knew that that was my destiny.

Recently though, I haven't been feeling like that. I've been feeling much more down. Uncertain. Depressed. Everyone seems to have been called by a milliong banks for interviews, left right and centre. Many have gotten to the second rounds. And one bank I applied for... Deutsche... has bloody invited every damn person i know for an interview, bar one guy (Barcap King), and has even offered Zhaotan a full-blown, honest-to-goodness internship! With a subtantial compensation i may add! And it didn't invite me! Is my BS-ing skill so bad??

anyway, I've lost my confidence for quite a long time.... several weeks. And today, I'm feeling even more anxious about my second round SEO interview. And more demoralised than ever.

But anyway, I've decided that I have to pull myself out of this hole. Today is the last day I'm going to be depressed. Tomorrow onwards, I shall rouse myself. I can I can I can. I know it. If not me, then who else?

I know how important it is to have confidence and believe in yourself, even when all the banks don't seem to. Perhaps, it is even more important then. I know I can make it. I know I will make it. It's a fluke so far. The good thing is... while I haven't had good news from any bank (interviews, except for HSBC, which has accepted *everyone* it seems, to the final round)...I haven't had any bad news either (outright rejections). And no news is good news isn't it?

But I have to bolster myself for the rejections that will probably come all at once. And then I'll feel really depressed and worthless. But I think I'm preparing myself *too* much, that I can't even function properly now. I think I might as well only get depressed if and when I get the rejections. After all, no point suffering a blow to my self-esteem twice is there?? Also, I must must must remind myself that I have a worth that cannot be estimated by mere investment banks, soulless, money-machines, all of them! :) Hah... an obvious case of pre-emptive sour grapes! *grins*

I will be fine. I am a wonderful, capable person. And banks will see that. If not, their loss. When I'm rich, powerful and influential, I'll annihilate them! ;p

affirmation
Saturday, February 8, 2003
02:19 p.m.

I am an investment banker. I am an investment banker. I will get an investment banking summer internship. I am an intern at an investment bank. I am a natural at it, the obvious choice for an investment bank. I am I am I am.

another year
Tuesday, January 21, 2003
06:33 p.m.

yet another year has started. the one which will be the twenty-first of my life.

a new year! a fresh beginning!

this year i made no resolutions. not a single one. probably the first time ever. or maybe the second. i think i didn't make one last year either. after all, why set yourself up for failure? why come up idealistic, high-falutin commitments, just so you can break them? breaking resolutions is no longer novel.

i've become a cynic i think.

this year has been madder than ever. it seems like my life spirals more and more out of control as the years go by. aren't adults supposed to be cool chillin' cucumbers? level-headed, not a hair out of place, with everything under control?

recently i've been surviving on less sleep, less routine, less security, and more blind faith, more uncertainties. not that i'm really complaining i guess. i feel blessedly blank and empty. and it's been getting marginally better this past week. at least now i have time to breathe, and to *look* at my academic work.

my complaints are my usual litany: boredom, lack of a love life, lack of excitement, routine. the blessings i count remain the same: no disturbances (emotional and otherwise), no feelings.

i seriously think 2003, or post-summer-2002, is going to be characterised by uneventfulness and by a void in my emotional life. after all, if nothing can move my soul (this year, it seems like nothing can or will), then nothing can disturb my equanimity. therefore, if not exactly delirious with joy, i have at least the comfort of silence in my head and my breast. is this the elusive... contentment?