This Futures in Finance resume book is doing some good. Just got another e-mail saying that I've been selected for a first round interview for Summer Fixed Income Analytics with Lehman Brothers. According to the job posting, the position deals will programming, something I am quite comfortable with/love to do.

Met Han Chun at Eujern's (my networks partner) birthday last night and he said he is also selected of Bank of America first round but for a full time. Definitely he'll get something considering his awesome GPA and hard core courses he's taken in both ECE and finance. But one thing that I really need to improve is my interview skills. I think I have to meet with my career counselor next week to polish things up.

The thing is that this interview thing is organized by CMU's career center and according to Han Chun, these investment banks will not cover our travel expenses. There'll be a pool of companies that day interviewing in CMU's Wall St. campus. Going to be a busy day for me then.

Still waiting for more such e-mails.

I want to change my star.

Insane Week

After a very much easy past 2 weeks, this week is a storm. Here's how:

Monday (today): Optimization Homework
Tuesday: Nothing due
Wednesday: Optimization exam, 2 Matlab homework due
Thursday: Networks Project 2 due at midnight for early bird extra credits
Friday: Embedded Systems quiz #3, Macroeconomics homework #4 due (Trying to ask for an extension considering how busy this week will be)

Procastination leads to depression.

Thanksgiving break was awesome. I barely touched school work with all the cooking and poker that went on. Played with Hassan, Dilo and King almost every night. Won an awesome 9-hour game on Tuesday. I lasted till 7 a.m. to become the winner. On Thanksgiving, I won the game against the usual gang + A and Eric. Also, I made the best dish for the Thankgiving pot luck. It was more popular that the two turkeys. I bought a leg of lamb from an middle-eastern butcher, marinated it over night lots of garlic, tomato paste and olive oil and slow-roasted the whole day on Thanksgiving.

Will be in NYC on Dec 21/22 for an interview with Bank of America for its Summer Techonology Analyst position. I must prepare very hard for this one. Cheng Hau, if you're free do come down from Boston and lets meet up with Max and I in Manhattan.

On another note, I am slowly letting go a few weeks of emotional ups and down. Sigh. Thought would never got into this state again but who knows, A's the one who really got me after Daphne. Probably I was over sensitive on what went on and entertained a naive inner self.

Anyway, girls come and go. My mum told me this. Fact of life, isn't it?

I was with King and Roxanne (both graduate students) at Hemingway's sipping the establishments special mixes such as Sex on the Beach and Long Island Ice Tea. Roxanne was not much of a drinker. After drinking a quarter of her "Koolaide", she got dizzy and said she needs something to eat. She dug into her hangbag and took out...a Mandarin orange. Freaking hilarious.

Roxanne was telling us about one of her classmates who just got pregnant. The thing is she has been sleeping with her boss for a month. She too has a boyfriend of seven years. Who's the daddy? The boyfriend offered to raise her unborn baby. He is such a saint.

Orgasmic. Checkpoint 2 for Networks passed. Average 6 hours every evening with Eujern for the past week seems to start bearing fruit. We're now aiming for the competition stage.

I met my advisor this afternoon who happens to be my embedded systems professor as well. Was a motivating 20 mins meeting. She said if I am interested in distributed systems or computer systems in general, I should not leave CMU without taking the hard core Operating Systems design class. She praised me for taking Networks which helps to build a background in distributed systems. Registered for courses today but unfortunately on waiting lists for the graduate courses that I intend to take.

Plan for the incoming Spring semester:
ECE courses:

• 18-549 Distributed Embedded Systems (my capstone design for my ECE degree)
• 18-396 Signals and Systems (need to know some signal stuff)
• 15-498 Special Topics: Distributed System (not the real hard core D.S. class but at least it should be a good intro for me)

Non-ece:

• 21-270 Intro to Math Finance (I kinda like taking math courses. so one per sem suffices)
• Theories on Foreign Policy (on waitlist but high chances in getting in. Ms. Skinner is one of nation's top foreign policy expert who has been appointed by President Bush to the National Security Education Board)

Another hectic week. I had foreseen this week coming from my planner. Two all nighters. One for my networks bittorent project 1st checkpoint. I stayed in the clusters till 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning. Even Starbucks was already opened. Last night stayed up till 5 to study for embedded system's quiz that I screwed up eventually.

It's the weekend so I had to celebrate. On the way back home, I saw Brian walking slowly across. Not his usual self. He said he doesn't want to waste the free time. My impulsive decision brought us to Phi Bar (CMU's unofficial college bar) with Zane and Alex. Beer was cheap. $4/pitcher from 4-6 p.m. but it was not so fresh especially the Guiness. Old keg. Miss the fresh and crisp German beer.

It will never work

At this level of interaction, nothing will ever happen.