THANK everyone for a wonderful stay in Chicago. You all rock. Go you.
Charles Mingus rocks.
I had a funny day at work last thursday, another long conversation with my boss where another dimension (literally) of my job which I had been previously unaware of was revealed to me. So much to learn, so little time. It's somewhat ironic that after all these years I'm ending up as, basically, an engineer. I was always different from most of the other mathy/technical people I knew, much more "theoretical" and pure-math minded - a number of my professors in high school had me pegged for a math professor, as did my family and most of my friends. It's fitting that I trade exotics in the interest rate space, pretty far out there on the theoretical/intuitional side of things. I am however, a trader, different from a "quant" (researcher); at the end of the day, I need to make money (the equivalent of an engineer's bridge remaining intact), and I am far, far, far more grounded than most researchers are forced to be. It seems to be a good fit for me so far - I have a personality which is better suited to one-week or shorter term problems than things beyond that horizon (though I'm also pretty certain that my intellect is aligned in exactly the opposite way.) Whether or not this is my "true calling", I'm very well situated - surrounded by great people, with a great "team" dynamic (I realize this sounds like management rubbish, but it happens to be true) and a willingness to spend time on junior members and bring them up to speed. The people are also generally more interesting than, well, the stereotype of Wall Street.
I've decided to start reading again, which I am doing. What do new yorkers who work crazy hours do for books? The NY Public Library is apparently never open and rather annoying to get books from. I may just start buying books and amass a collection, but having stacks to browse really makes choosing books a lot easier, and, well, I miss libraries. I think I may have to settle for reserving books online and going downtown to one of the central libraries to get them (they're open a bit later than the ones up north.)
You should all see the movie "Zorba The Greek." That's all for today, I'm off to bed.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
13 years ago
3 comments:
Mingus does rock---"Money Jungle" is one of my favorite albums. I think Cachao is my favorite jazz bassist, though. You should check out John Zorn. Who doesn't love Ornette Coleman, the Boredoms, Mike Patton, avante-garde Jewish music, etc.?
About your work: what do you think pure mathematicians pay rent with? We need to make money at the end of the day as well! But we use our power for good, not evil. --Sam
you can reserve and download ebooks on line,
if you have a ny public library card
So I saw the last part of Zorba last night. The last scene was worth sitting through the rest of it. It was really sad/disturbing when the "Woman w or wo a goat" was killed, though.
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