Jeeezaaaz, so much happenin'!

Where to start? I would not be exaggerating if I said we just went through a pretty freakin' HISTORIC week in the world of finance. Some are calling it a pivotal point in the history of finance. Remains to be seen. Here is what has been happenin':

-There are no more pure US Investment Banks. Just read that statement again. Wow!

-Oil went up $25 today alone (before settling down). Gold is back in the 900s and the US$ took a whooping. All in all a crazy day in the markets.

-It was a holiday today at MIT. Why you ask? "Anti-Suicide day". Yup that's right. Earlier this decade some undergrad kids could not take the stress of the first year and hence solved the problem by jumping off the roofs. So the school decided to issue pass/fail in the first year for undergrads. And have more than one 3 day weekend every month. So the holiday. I'll take it.

-Last week was fun. Andrew Lo (fin prof at Sloan) had a trading competition for interested Sloan students on Friday. You can form teams from your class and trade with each other using a Sloan designed interface. They were trying to create a market using all of us to demonstrate how things work. My team was pretty good. We turned $10000 into $31,500 and ended up 7th. The team that came first had $35,000. We should won it but I made a mistake at the very beginning that cost us more than 10K. I placed a "Market Buy" instead of "Limit Buy" that ended up screwing us. Oh well, atleast it was a good experience. There are some sharp kids in my class.

-Our Econ prof is not exactly helping me considering that my Econ is weak. I think my Macro-Econ is pretty solid but Micro is weak. And we have Micro-Econ this semester. Our guy is pretty smart (I hear he is under 30 and a prof of econ at MIT which is not too shabby). Luckily some of my team members are good with Econ.

-I keep meeting interesting people in class everyday. There is this kid from Brazil whose dad owns an energy company and just won a contract to supply wind energy in Brazil for the first time. This kid and his brother (a Sloan Alum) are going to run the wind farm! How cool is that? I am trying to organize a trek to Brazil to visit the farm. Nothing like visiting a new technology firm and see it from the time it is starting.

-I have to make a serious decision on whether to worry about grades or not give a hoot. Like for example this week, we have this great conference called "Emerging Technologies Conference" at MIT which is going to bring some pretty freakin' cool innovators in different sectors to campus. Of course the talks I want to go to clash with my class schedule. I am like, screw it, why should I care about grades. I am here to learn not fill my GPA. Let's see what I end up doing.

Here is the link to EmTech, lots of great talks
http://www.technologyreview.com/emtech/08/schedule.aspx

-My decision on career choice post-Sloan is still pending. I am still talking to different people in the areas that I am targetting and have decided to give myself 2 more weeks to decide.

-On the ironic side, we have the artists formerly known as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merril Lynch coming to campus in 10 days for recruiting informationals. I am signed up for them but what do you think the odds are that they will be canceled.

-On another cool side, I am part of the organization committee for the MIT Energy Night to be held on October 10 at the MIT Museum. I have been put in charge of picking cool renewable energy outdoor displays. I have been given freedom to pick whatever I think is appropriate. So far there has been interest from GM to display their Chevy Volt and from Honda for their FCX. Both dont use any gas. I am trying to get a solar panel display as well. Should be fun.

-oh yeah, we are partying quite a bit as well. I am spending money like it's nobody's business! I need to get hold of my expenses.