“At age 16 or 17, I had wanted to be another Einstein; at 21, I would have been happy to be another Feynman; at 24, a future T.D. Lee would have sufficed. By 1976, sharing an office with other postdoctoral researchers at Oxford, I realized that I had reached the point where I merely envied the postdoc in the office next door because he had been invited to give a seminar in France. In much the same way, by a process options theorists call time decay, financial stock options lose their potential as they approach their expiration.”

- My Life as a Quant, by Emanuel Derman

That, is eerily and very unfortunately true.

Expressed in a different way, is how in Pixar’s movie Up, the pages for “Stuff I’m going to do” in Ellie’s adventure book were intentionally left empty and full of promise when she was a child, but were later filled in (probably when she approached death) with pictures from her wedding and snapshots from day-to-day activities. The movie romanticised her simple life, but it too made the point of how promises of grand adventure eventually degenerate to naught as we realize our mediocre, non-high performance lives.

About a month after tossing the mortarboard, I’m facing it too – I too am a stock option losing time value. I enter the working world as an enthusiastic fresh graduate, a greenhorn in the field but eager to discover and correct every imperfection in the current systems and operations. I dream about making radical contributions and going to graduate school. Yet I can’t help but see myself, in years to come, as another one of my jaded seniors, shunning responsibility, being contented with the status quo and seeking only to complete assigned tasks even if it means cutting corners. Maybe, I won’t make it to graduate school.

In the culture I was brought up in, envy was taught to be avoided like a vice, while contentedness is  wise. We were also taught to respect traditions and our seniors, and that humility is a well-liked virtue. Should I then, settle into a life of contentedness and simplicity, and abandon the exhilaration that comes with greater purposes and accomplishments? If the answer is no, how then do I go about seeking purpose and making a change?

I’m an idiot.

That’s the sobering fact I learnt today, after not being able to score 2 extremely easy papers. When you’ve been in QF for a while, you kind of take for granted that you’ll get killer papers, and that no one else can do them too. It’s also well known that the marginal benefit from studying is very little, because unless you have a flair for the math and do some hardcore studying (read: tear through many books written in greek and know theorems with strange names by heart), you’ll never get it. Especially not when there are other courses and other committments that are more urgent and where the results are immediate.

That’s why we always laugh at the impossible to comprehend notes and the insane amount of work that QF gives us. But when you can’t even do the simple questions, it’s not funny anymore. To add insult to injury, it’s an open book exam where I had the answer right in front of me, but when I attempted to do the question myself, I make spastic algebraic errors even a secondary school student shouldn’t be making – and I submitted them undiscovered.

What’s left for today is bitter disappointment. I disappointed both myself and the professor with high expectations for me. He’s a professor I really respect and whom I actually care to impress, but I only disappoint him again and again. That’s the problem with over-promising, I’d much rather stay low profile and do well in my own way.

Making stupid mistakes in exams may be a small thing, well, everyone does from time to time, and I don’t have the delusion that I won’t. But not being able to answer simple conceptual questions quickly and accurately feels terrible – how can I call myself a QF major if I don’t get my fundamentals right? (Actually, it applies to accounting too, except that I’m only an accountant by training, and don’t envision calling myself an accountant – ever.)

The past 2 terms have been a joke – I think I’ve just been muddling through. I really need to get my act together, quit wasting so much time watching TV and entertaining silly interests, and get down to grinding through the math and setting my finance fundamentals straight. I should learn programming proper too. I need to stick to my goal of getting a good masters in financial engineering, which means I need to get myself enrolled in one and get someone to sponser it. That also means I need to prepare myself for it and do well enough at work to deserve a scholarship.

My job in risk will be demanding, and the department’s ties with my professors mean I really cannot afford to screw up. And I don’t even want to settle for mediocrity, so I seriously need to buck up. When I’m left with just 2 accounting courses next week, there should be no excuse for not spending more time and effort on finance. 

Ironically, after the exams, I realize it’s time to hit the books.

Studying math, to me, has always been like reading a story book without going into the literature. As far as I’m concerned, math is a tool that can be used to solve problems, not as a study of abstract concepts and rigorous arguments.

But now, I pretty much need to study math in all its abstraction before having a clear idea of how it can be applied. That’s like walking into a war zone without knowing which side I’m on, or even why I’m there in the first place.

Anyone who has done this will understand my need to grumble. So please allow me to say, 

This is painful.

If only I could find a book that explains financial mathematics in prose (i.e. plain English, not Greek), even if every mathematical proof needs to be written with a 5,000 word essay. If only the book also links the significance of every math concept to its financial relevance. Or better, if only I’d wake up tomorrow with a full appreciation of the beauty and elegance of the mathematical language.

Fulfil my Chinese New Year wish, pretty please?

The craziness that is work will end for a while. No tearful farewells, havoc parties or emotional speeches, just plain lifting a load off my shoulder; both metaphorically and literally - the Dell computer with its humongous charger is a real big burden.

It has been fun. Tough, lots of complaints, lots of problems and work impossible to do without some superpowers. But I learned a company, heard much about an industry, met lots of people and made my first trips to Korea and Japan. I dined with management, presented at corporate meetings and even got to demand work from people I shouldn’t be ordering around. This company is crazy, they forgot that I’m only an intern, while other less enlightened companies forget why their criterias for picking scholars are different from those for administrative clerks.

There will be no break though, until I’m successfully jobless after graduation. There are things planned for the rest of my time in school. Looking back, I realise that ever since I started working at the age of 18, I’ve worked (intern/temporary/part-time) in 4 companies and for 3 individuals (on separate occasions), all within the span of 4 years while being a full-time student. People ask, what do you work so hard for? Are you that hard up on cash? Do you know you’re never going to be able to enjoy yourself once you start working full-time?

Actually, I don’t really think I work that hard. I complain a lot but I really do secretly enjoy loading on the responsibilities and cramming my schedule to the point that I’ve not had a break for almost 3 years. It’s really just plain greediness. I want to do everything and learn everything at once. And mostly, I just want to keep myself occupied – most of the jobs I’ve taken up are really quite menial, I’ve never had anything important enough that my decision can cripple a company, but I still pick them all up anyway.

What have I learnt? Nothing that I can immediately list down or elaborate into paragraphs.

Still, I have learned much. I know, because sometimes I realize that ideas come to me and I’m able to understand concepts and the deliverables expected from me much easier than people who have less work experience. Coworkers and bosses who belong to the older generation are sometimes surprised by what I know because they never did know such things when they were my age, at a time when internships were not as common for undergraduates.

I don’t have the delusion that I’m better or smarter than others. All that I know, I have simply, very accidentally and naturally applied bits of skills and knowledge picked up from experience. I happen to think of things and understand things faster because I’ve had some rather diverse work experience and have interacted with people from various backgrounds and with different specialties.

I’ve realized that, no matter what the nature of the job, whether or not it challenges you intellectually, does not limit your ability to learn from it. I don’t say this merely because it’s difficult to fault logically. I say it because I’ve personally experienced the effects. And because of this realisation, I know that I will continue to pick up small job opportunities, however “irrelevant” it is to what I really want to do, so long as it doesn’t take up too much of my time or affect my priorities.

Small jobs aside, I disagree with people who think that expectations for something more than the norm is too high an expectation for our full-time jobs. Sure, opportunities may be limited by the job market. But how will we find better ones, if we settle for what is the market average. Aren’t all of us money-savvy finance students obsessed with getting that alpha and beating the beta? Shouldn’t we demand even more from the investment of our time – time that we can never earn back?

Whenever there’s an opportunity for a simple part-time work experience that will take up part of my free time but not affect anything important, I’m not picky, I can be adventurous about what I do. After all, it won’t be a bigger waste of time than idling. But if it’s a full-time job that will prevent me from doing what I really want to do, I don’t want to settle for the average alternative. I believe that I should know and maintain my expectations, and find something close to them. If there are really no opportunities, then I’ll have to plan something and work towards making it possible.

I never believe those who say that taking a longer route is an unnecessary waste of time. I also never believe those who say that there are better ways to spend my time than an “irrelevant” part-time job. Well, maybe you have more important things to do, but for me, I don’t want to go into my full-time job being an ignorant green-eyed graduate with little/no work experience and be mocked by less well-educated coworkers who can do much more than me. I also don’t want to limit the scope of my experience at a time when I can still maintain many roles and responsibilities at once.

You say, you don’t have the luxury of long holidays once you enter the workforce. I say, you won’t have the luxury of enriching yourself and picking up diverse sets of skills once you leave your schooling life.

Back to the good old times of shooting. Felt really excited to (finally) receive the email on resuming of air rifle trainings since… stopping for exams after the first 2 trainings (technically only 1 for me, didn’t go for the second).

So lazy Oiying got off the couch and out, travelling 1 hour+ to CDANS. I thought I was going to be late. Contemplated taking a taxi as the bus was nowhere in sight. Decided that it was a silly thought, and it was proven stupid when I arrived. The range was still dark even though I wasn’t early and for a minute I thought I got the date wrong. Since the holidays started, dates and the day of the week have been meaningless to me, unless of course, if there’s some movie to catch on TV and I still missed Legally Blonde.

Anyway, very few people turned up for training and the beginners’ clinic but I still met a few people I know. I hope I get all their names right this time.

I cleverly recorded down the gun numbers me and amanda used the last time, but stupidly forgot to remember which one was mine. So I randomly picked one, turns out my short finger couldn’t reach the trigger and after the coach adjusted it, my weak finger couldn’t pull it. Add the bad trigger to next-to-zero training and I got (no free banana for guessing) very bad shots.

Coach said, “I’m sure you’ll pick up pretty fast.” Yeah. It would help if I have my laogong back. I miss 503810!

Though I’m sure he’s happily married to someone else now.

After a short but tiring fling with this (I hope) not-my-laogong-to-be, I went home, 1 hour+ again. Glad to know there will be regular trainings in January, gladder to know there will be a chartered bus from school but not so glad to know we have 2 trainings before the first “friendly” “for experience” competition. Those words aren’t very encouraging, although they had good intentions.

—

It’s so easy to record down chronologically what happened during the day, it’s so much harder to write down thoughts. I reread what I typed above, and almost bored myself with my uneventful, uninteresting day.

I joined air rifle again with mixed feelings.

For one thing, I miss shooting. People ask, “Isn’t it boring? All you do is just aim and shoot!” Yes, it is. I won’t deny that it’s not boring, when you are standing there in the lane and carrying out planned movements over and over again. But I’ve stayed with it. After 4 years of it in secondary school, I thought I wouldn’t choose it again in JC. In fact, all of us shooters thought so, but all of us joined air rifle again. It’s the same now. I miss it.

You don’t know what you miss, until it’s taken away from you.

Maybe I’ve no distinct hobbies, I’m not overly passionate or obsessed over anything. Maybe I learn to like something when I have it. Maybe I can’t appreciate it till it’s lost. And maybe, I still wouldn’t appreciate it as much as I would like to, when I get it back.

I guess I can’t really say I love shooting a lot, because if I do, I would have worked harder for it. I’m lazy, I get bored easily, and I detest practising to perfection, anything for that matter. It makes me hate what I do. I’ve spent 6 years in air rifle, and I am still here, only here. My little achievements in air rifle could barely justify the amount of time I was in it, the excellent coaching I had and the good equipment and support from the schools I had all along.

I’m guilty of this display of lack of interest. But yet, I would say, I love shooting and would really want to get back into it.

On the other hand, I wanted to try out something new. Go-karting, archery, fencing, some art or music club… But with the attraction of the new and unknown comes the the fear of the new and unknown. It’s always more comfortable to do something you’re good at and sure of. Still, if I could commit myself to a bit more, I would like to try that, some time.

Then again, the well known can also cause fear and uncertainty. After 6 years in air rifle, I know too many people in the field, the coaches, the friends. Teammates who are doing much better than me now and the coaches who have helped and taught me makes me feel ashamed of being so mediocre. The stress of competitions past that still seem to linger in the range and the competitiveness of the air rifle sport in general also deters me. Although CDANS is much further away for me, I feel more comfortable going there, as it is part of my memories of more relaxing, enjoyable time play-shooting with my friends, when we were still new to it and pretty much trying out shooting by ourselves.

Moreover, I doubted the new air rifle club. Where are we going to train? What guns are we going to use? Will we stand a chance at all in the competitions?

Nevertheless, when the email came about the newly setuped air rifle club, I jumped at the opportunity and join it, despite the distance, despite my fears and uncertainties.

And I’m glad I did.

—

Little things that made my trip today:
A girl playing solitaire on her mum’s PDA.
An old couple walking on the pavement, the balding, greying old man in singlet and shorts holding the hand of the limping old woman.
A young guy and girl discussing unimportant things loudly on the bus.

The heartlands again.