Before First Day

New life starts soon. Next Monday will be my first day at work in Manhattan NYC. Three years ago, I never thought I could make it from Midwest to New York. Even this has been true for almost a year, I still do not dare to look back--it has been quite a ride.

Still feeling proud.

I have ready my suits and ties, make it a perfect first day.

My Movie List

Movie is a new format of learning. Sometimes, a 2-hour movie could "change" your life--or at least inspire you in some way. I hereby list the movies that inspired me the most:

Godfather trilogy (1972-1990)
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Dead Poets Society (1989)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Forest Gump (1994)

Which movies inspire you the most?

As Life Continues

It is hard to believe I haven't written any blogs since last year September. And as it is always true, the moment I stop writing things, the moment I stop moving forward. Blogging here is like keeping a diary, it records my current status quo. It is also a mirror, sometimes we need to look into the mirror to see who we have become.

Another benefit of keeping a blog is that you write it down, then it is done. What I am now is not what I was one second ago. What I put down on the paper is no longer my thoughts. I can laugh away my older immature posts--because I have moved forward. It is actually good to know that my older posts are immature or naive, as it is a proof that I grow little more mature.

For the last four months, I have been busy with my last year in college. Not like any typical senior, I am taking two degrees, that means double course work. As mathematics courses move into a new chapter, I find myself very much trapped into it. I spend tons of time, but I don't really enjoy it much. Part of the reason is that it is hard, harder than any other finance courses. But when I looked back, I guess the reason I choose to double major pure math is because it is hard. So I am not breaking this commitment, I will take it as a practice--sometimes you have to do something you don't like to do.

I really want to start to work. In front of me is a whole new world, a world to be discovered. It is very exciting to know my new start date is moved a week earlier. Even just a week.

On Privilege and Hard Work

A job offer can be a very significant thing in a person's life. It is not only a contract between us and our employer, but also a contract of the life we are very possibly to live in the next couple of years. It means financial stability, it means new goals, it means the first step into the real world. 

As everything has its two sides, so does a job offer. On the other side of the coin, a job offer can be a stopper for the hard work that we have kept for years; it can be a ticket to the comfortable and worry-free college life that we have always been dreamt of; it can be a reason for not taking any further steps or risks in this familiar yet unknown world. 

In order to prevent myself from falling in this trap, I write the following behavior standards down as an alarm for myself.

1. Never pay attention to the job offer again, as if I had never received it

2. Study as hard as before, but with a focus on preparing for the real world work environment (this does not have to contradict with 1 since preparing for the real world itself is always necessary)

3. Utilize the summer internship experience to find more potential opportunities

4. Be humble all the time but be confident about what I have achieved and learned during the summer

5. Be a beginner and open to any knowledge, don't be restricted within the job functionality

We are on this long long journey of life, thus any significant events will look insignificant if we look them back 70 years later. I believe there is no single event can alter a person's destiny, which can only be made up by his or her personality. So the perfect state of mind is always thinking him or herself as a beginner. The best travelers always pack himself with little or no bags, because they are always ready to start a new journey. 

Solitude

Solitude.

Sorting Things Through

Officially, today is the end of 2013 spring semester. Some reflections are due. I write them down here as a conclusion to my past semester as well as evidence that I never stop thinking. The reflection will be divided into two parts—academic and non-academic. The reason for this arrangement is because while I am still in school, I am still a student. So academic achievement is still my priority, everything else comes second.

1. Academic performance: 

I did well in finance courses, but not so well in mathematics. When it comes to finance, no matter it is investment course or derivatives course, my heartbeat would increase and thoughts move fast. I can really say that I begin to enjoy my finance concentration. I love my derivatives teacher. She engages the whole class and let us challenges really hard problems. Through the course, I did not feel any pain or boredom, only continuously being enlightened. I certainly enjoy intellectual challenges, but a boring teacher would really get me. In contrast to the derivatives teacher, one of my investment teachers has a boring, heavy note-taking and old teaching style. I fell asleep several times during the class when I was extremely tired. This did hurt my final grade! As a result, I did not get As for this sequence. Now I know, next time when I run into a class with a boring lecturer, I will especially pay attention to this course since I might fall asleep during the class! 

Mathematics is painful. I did not enjoy the over-complicated proofs of why 1-1=0 or why there are infinitely many nature numbers. Some might do, but I am not. Adding mathematics to my course portfolio is a liability but not an asset. It hurts GPA and consumes large amount of time. But on the other side, mathematics is useful and sometimes can be interesting, especially when I can utilize the knowledge in some complicated financial models. I am not fortune enough to have the ability to love pure mathematics, but I would find other ways to embrace it—in some more practical ways.

2. Non-academic performance:

Spring semester is a harvest season. I am offered an opportunity to intern in one of the best finance firms in the industry—JPMorgan Chase. In my country, people acknowledge it as “摩根大通”. It actually starts tomorrow and ends until mid-August. The next three months are going to be one of the best times in my entire college life. I am excited about it. But again, good things always accompany bad things. I might give up preparing GRE for graduate school, which adds uncertainty to the near future when I graduate. But one the other side, my heart tells me graduate school is not a good option for fresh college graduates. Many Chinese students simply rush to the conclusion that a graduate school would save their lives, but they forget the cost—not money, but opportunities. Graduate school would be good if you know where you are going for, but it can be very misleading if you are still not sure what you want to do after coming out of school. Maybe I am being judgmental again, but ask your heart: are you going for the graduate school for the sake of the brand of the school or you really want to learn something there? I reserve my answer here, because it is such a simple question.

3. Conclusion:

I am happy that I went through hell safe and sound this semester. I did not lose my physical health and mental health. I did not try to kill my roommates and in fact we become brothers. My next goal is 5k. I am going to do it in three weeks. GPA is a constant distraction; I will fix it next semester. Right now, I will put 200 percentage of my energy into work. Let the following 3-month be the most rewarding experience ever.

Last, I have been disconnected from the social networking world for a while. Part of the reason is to avoid wasting time on meaningless stuff. But this time I come back with some new realizations and understanding of this world. I will talk about it next time. I welcome any kinds of comments and critiques, and I would love to know your thoughts and share my experience.

Rethink on the nature of this blog

I found a very interesting argument by my friend Zilong. As he searches for the nature of his blog, he says the nature of his blog is to write down his thoughts and just be. What comes out of it does not matter. He continues arguing that “the thoughts are no longer mine once they are out there. By the time I finish typing a sentence, I have already evolved. “

These arguments help me rethink the nature of my blog. I have been shying from writing down many of my thoughts which I presume to be too naïve. Gradually, I lost the happiness of continuing writing blogs. In fact, what I have to be shy from? Not only few people know this place, but also this is the place where my maturing is witnessed. So let this place be full of naïve and immature thoughts, because by the time I look back on these words, I should be glad to see how I was formed and shaped.