The coming back

A few minutes after midnight and only a couple of days for the beginning of the new year. I am listening to Virgin Radio online. I'm at my parents' place at my hometown. I have been here for around a week, and it feels good but at the same time it feels kind of weird...

You may spend some months abroad, you may start a new life far from the previous one but it's surprisingly easy to summarize to anybody what that new life of yours entails. It takes just a few minutes to do so and then everything comes back to routine. I can enjoy routine for a few days but then I get bored of it...and NYC comes back to my head.

This week I have spent in my hometown so far has been nice. I have seen my relatives again, enjoyed Christmas dinners and lunches, received gifts, partied with my friends... things that I have missed during my time in NY. Although my time in NYC so far has been awesome, even better than expected, I have missed these little things and it's always nice to come back to where you belong.

I have also had time to visit the city where I lived for almost four years before heading to Stern last August. It's just been a 2-day trip but it's been intense and I've had the chance to see again my friends from my previous job and my friends from outside work too, to sleep again in the apartment where I used to live during my last two years, to recall memories, sensations and feelings, for both places and people...and in the end I have come back to my hometown cracking a bittersweet smile: great memories and happiness for seeing those people again on the one side, and a feeling of general sorrow for leaving once again, on the other.

I have only been abroad for four months, which is is not a lot of time. But I have realized that lots of things have happened in the meantime (I was aware of almost all of them but talking about them directly with those involved is completely different from an email): friends who have got married, who are now engaged, who are going to become parents, who have new boy/girlfriends, who have split up with them, who are thinking about changing jobs, who have moved to new places....only in four months!!! It feels like many more things happen when you look from outside.

On Wednesday night I was having a drink with some friends and one of them suggested that I should try to give an additional input to the blog, essentially in terms of things that I may be learning from all these experiences I am going through. Well, at least I will try to do so...

Just a beginning. I want to be able to maintain what I have now with my friends, but not only for the first four months (that has proven to be not very difficult), but also as time keeps going by and I spent more time far away from them. I have to engage myself and engage them in doing so. And, in the future, once my Stern experience is over, I want to be able to feel the same way about the friends I have met - and will be meeting - in NYC.

It's been a little philosophical post (I promise I ain't stoned!) but it's almost the close of the year and that's not a bad time to think a little deeply.

Ciao

See u NY!!

Half an hour past midnight. My last whole day spent in NY in 2006 is gone. It’s been a long one but also a productive one. I have had an informational – great way to close the year – with one of the partners of at a pretty new company that is a kind of hegde fund investing only in movies. Everything she has told me about her job sounds great. It would be a great job, no doubt about it. They may be recruiting some spring interns so let’s see…. The rest of the day, now that classes are over, has been devoted to my new apartment, coming and going, buying stuff and so on. I’m almost done, though, and it feels so good!

By the way, talking about jobs, I have to say that I have received two invites to banks’ closed lists. One for IB in London from a bulge bracket bank (it’s funny because I didn’t even apply and I guess they liked my profile after seeing the resumes of the people in the finance club). The other one for a rotational financial program at a big American bank to work in-house. The latter is the only banking program I applied to and I have been lucky to make it into the 12-people closed list. It is not the most seductive alternative to me (you know I am more interested in other stuff, but it could be a good back up….)

But, as I said before, tonight is my last night in NY this year. Tomorrow around 6 pm I will be flying back to my city. It’s a weird feeling. On the one hand, I really wanna leave to see my friends and family after four months. On the other, I think I could happily stay in NY to walk around, going out and stuff.

Looking back now, I can’t help throwing out some thoughts about these last months and their impact in my life so far. It may be too soon to conclude anything but there are some things I can say as of today. The summary is straightforward: I couldn’t be happier. I am so glad that I had the guts to take the decision that I took about quitting my job and going for an MBA. I am so happy that I chose Stern and New York City among the alternatives that I had. I have been lucky to meet great people and to be very good friends already with a few of them. However, there are still some question marks, essentially the ones concerning my professional future: what to do and what not to do, whether to forget about risk aversion and try to do what I really like or to pursue a more traditional and secure path, etc. These are not small things. Actually, they are the very big things. Some light will be shed on this during the first half of 2007.

And a lot of some other things will be taking place in 2007. I am confident that everything will be great, even better: some very interesting elective courses, parties, a new home, girls, Jack Daniels….in a nutshell, more NEW YORK.

Ciao

Last efforts

Hi there! It’s been around a week without much time to do anything, and that includes post writing. Hectic days at Stern for first years, rushing from one place to another, trying to find time to study for the last exams before leaving for the Christmas break. I guess that’s the best summary for this past week.

The week has not been that bad at school, though. My accounting exam was slightly better than expected and I think I did better than in the midterm (it was not to difficult to do so…) and the stats exam was just ok…only if I don’t take into account that I submitted it to the wrong email address (it was an exam on the labtop) when I finished and that I only noticed it around seven hours later when I checked my email and realized about a bounced back email….damn!!! Fortunately, I think it won’t be an issue in the end…

Tomorrow is my very last first term exam, the finance exam: options, yield curves, swaps…. I can’t take much of anything anymore. I just need to chill out a little bit. On Friday I went out with a girl that I met a couple of weeks ago and I found myself “desperately” asking for a drink!!! A shot of my dear Jackie played his part. It sounds like Nicholas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas, I know, but it was just one in my case…well, just two, actually.

However, the curious thing about this week has been the physical part. I “had to” do some physical work: moving. Hell, it was tough. My calves still sore…It’s been definitely too long since my last visit to the gym. On Friday evening, before becoming aware of the stats issue and before begging for a drink, my two flat mates and me pushed three carts full of books, clothes, tv’s and some other stuff for 15 blocks and then took all the stuff up to our new place. Then we also had to move two beds and a couch from a guy’s place into a van and then into our apartment. What you don’t know is that our new apartment is located on the third floor of a building without elevator. Do you guys know how much a 3-place couch weighs? Probably you don’t but I can tell you that quite a lot….just try to move the one at your place and then just think about taking it to your neighbor’s place three floors up…The best thing is that we’re done with the worst part of the moving and only some minor stuff is waiting to be moved.

Time to go to bed. I can’t believe that I’m only a few hours away from the finish line….
Ciao

Staying in

1030 pm Saturday night and I don’t have a beer in my hand ready to be chugged before heading over to a nice venue. I can’t f*^*#@ believe it!!!

It’s the first Saturday like that since I arrived in NY four months ago. Actually, it’s the first weekend I’m staying in both Friday and Saturday. No, I ain’t sick, I just need to study: Accounting (next Wednesday), Stats (next Friday) and Finance (the Monday after) are just around the corner and I am afraid I am not ready for them…yet (hopefully!).

So, I am gonna go to bed soon, I am gonna watch a movie on the labtop and then sweet dreams, little boy, before waking up early tomorrow morning to continue with accounting. It’s the course I’m most worried about. In the other two I think it won’t be an issue to get a B but with accounting I will struggle, no doubt about it, even now that there are three days still to go.
This blog must account for all the stuff while in NY and this weekend is, somehow, historic. I just hope it won’t repeat but the odds of staying in next weekend are also pretty high. Sorry, no nice drunken stories this weekend….!

Anyway, time for a movie, or maybe just to sleep…

Ciao

AC

It’s 2338 and I have just come back from beer blast. I was not supposed to go but once you get there you are sucked in and I have had three nice Sierra Nevada beers…I am not much into bud lights and stuff… I paid fifty bucks at the beginning of the term for all the beer blasts up to the Christmas break (instead of paying nine bucks for each of them) but in the end I have only attended three. Bad deal.

But today it’s been a very nice day. I have been to Atlantic City with some of my MBA mates and our strategy professor. He knows some people at Harrah’s, one of the biggest casino companies in the world. We have had the chance to meet some of the managers and to get some insights about what the casino business is like. Pretty amazing. AC is not Vegas but it’s been more than a good beginning for a fresher like me.

Needless to say, after the reception and the Q&A session we have had some spare time… and yes, I have lost my gambling virginity. I had already played slot machines and stuff but I had never sat around a table to play seriously. And today it’s been that day. After receiving some accelerated classes on the coach to AC and after watching my friends playing for a while I have withdrawn $200 (my initial budget) and I have been able to play for more than an hour at a table where the minimum bet was $15 (although most of the time I have been gambling 20+)… Concentrated, thrilled, nervous, and with a Jackie&coke close to me. I have been cleaned up but it’s been so much fun. I am definitely into it and now I am ready to go to Vegas some other time!! It is amazing how you make lose a lot, then recover and then lose again. Some of my buddies have made some good money (one of them around $800 although there's been a point where he was losing more than $300). The best thing is that I have not been blinded by the game and I have been able to stick to my initial budget. And the euro is strong now, so no need to worry about the loss! Anyway, another experience to talk about.

But the best experience will be tomorrow, when I start reviewing seriously for my accounting final exam…Time to sleep now.
Ciao

Cold

Winter is getting closer. It is cold outside and everybody says this is just the top of the iceberg, it will get much colder. Damn, I still have to buy a proper winter coat. I am definitely gonna need it soon. The forecast is that tomorrow morning we may have the first snowfall, although it would be a light one. I’m kind of excited about my first snowfall in NYC ever. People also tell me that I will be fed up with it very quickly…

Sunday evening and once I am done with the blog I will start studying for my tomorrow’s Firms & Markets final exam. It will the first final and it’s not supposed to be a very tough one. I hope so b/c with the hangover that I have from yesterday’s night it is gonna be tough to keep my eyes open.

Today is a big day b/c I can say aloud that I have an apartment. We have signed the lease agreement earlier today and we will be moving there in January. Alphabet City in the East Village, cool! The landlord has allowed, though, to take our stuff and furniture before coming back home for Christmas. It is awesome, once I come back to NYC after holidays I will have my own place!!!!

It’s been a nice weekend. Thursday I did not sleep at my place…, Friday, after visiting CNNmoney and talking to some of its people, I stayed in to work hard on Saturday on my Strategy final take home exam (I have already turned it in – it’s the only course where I may get an A…fingers crossed), yesterday night one birthday party in the Upper East Side and then all the way down and farther east to Brooklyn, for another birthday party. I arrived to the second one pretty late and most of the people were gone (great advertising from my friend running the party!) but I had a good time with beer, nice music and some “freestyle”. It was the first time I saw it live and it was really good fun. It’s amazing how some guys can improvise rimes on the spot. Then (well, after 45 minutes waiting for, and then riding on, the subway) back to Manhattan to take some sleep.
The only bad thing about this weekend is that I have finally realized that I have gained some kg. Just a couple of them or so..this is the price you pay for eating pizza, burgers and crappy food...

The week ahead is gonna be pretty intense. The other finals are getting closer and I have been lucky enough to set up a couple of informationals (at a big Japanese media conglomerate and at one of the biggest sports representation and events firm) and a job interview for a spring internship at one of the American professional sport leagues. Knock on wood!!! I’ll keep you posted.

My feet are getting cold. Should I study in bed? Sounds appealing but not a brilliant idea, I guess… I would fall asleep even before opening my notes. Ciao