Reflection

Sounds travel up to our balcony quite readily from the street, especially at night. For some reason, it reminded me of how much older I am as compared to most other students, with several going out to the bars for St. Patrick's Day a couple of days ago. I happily spend time at home, finally finishing 200 or so flash cards for finance so that I can have some peace of mind at being more or less caught up with the material, even though I have a load of practice problems to do.

I'm putting on weight with the stress, but am staying focused and will do my best, despite feeling less than prepared for the papers I have to write yet this weekend. There's only so much that one person can do, and I've learned that if I state the obvious in my papers, I'll get points for setting up the problems effectively. Too often early on I felt that I had to start with a much higher-order idea before getting rolling, but just as life requires a foundation, so does a good case analysis.

At least I don't have to go war in Libya, right? Silly Democratic voters we were, thinking we were getting an innovative hybrid vehicle for a President, but it's clearly just the same old Chevy. I thought to myself earlier, "even if there was a fraud line I could call to report him, the automated voice would say 'please deposit $1 million to be connected to a representative'". I'll post that Who song on my other page for that... just another rich man's war, protecting those oil interests. I could go on, but will calm the nerves with some other study before bed.

Pastor Martin Niemoller, please know that many of us heed your words, and that we speak up for others. We may not run things, but dammit, we are trying.

Rant

I hate Managerial Finance.

After failing the midterm and being determined to pass the class on the force of sheer spite, I spent much of today and will spend the first part of tomorrow making flash cards that I can read on the train and the bus to and from school. The professor, while a great teacher in class, has made it clear from the midterm that you had better know everything, becuase if you don't, son, you are screwwwwwed.

I studied like a madman for my Management Accounting final a few weeks ago and knew everything that was asked on the final, going with my gut hunch and spending extra time on a couple of items that ended up being central to the exam. I stunned myself by pulling an A- in the class, leaving my school Internet account page up for half an hour, convinced for a time that I'd received someone else's grade, that they'd correct it and I'd get the B- or C+ that I had been expecting. But no, there it stayed, and there it still is.

I'd said that I wished the M.A. class lasted the whole term, but at this point I am joyously taking my A- and running. Hell, I can learn more on my own time any time I want to. But the sad truth is that yes, I am judged on the grades I get; I still have no internship for the summer and am fortunate that I have a chance at working at school full-time in an expansion of the part-time work that I've only just started. And the M.F. class is one where I truly don't give two sh*ts about the material, as though internalizing it would align me with the sh*tlickers that go on to Wall Street (and here, Bay Street) and become "financial analysts" and ten other versions of boring and pointless that I cannot imagine doing.

(Look at me being decent and censoring! Proof that all is not lost.)

In four weeks, I'll never again have to care about bond valuations, the new present value of anything, the present value of the capital cost allowance tax shield... it goes on and on. I brought the textbook with me to skim on the train while I ran errands and two separate people commented on how "interesting" the book must be. "It's my weakest subject", I responded in both cases.

Not for long, though. Not for long.

Involuntary meditation

Dinner's ready on the stove, a simple meal of alphabet pasta and inexpensive sauce. I've had to learn a lot about how to eat well on a budget, and wish I would have learned that lesson much earlier in life, but can't go back and redo that, so will keep doing my frugal best going forward. I still have an internship to apply to and a paper section to write, with the dim hope of getting to some managerial finance reading before bed.

I've been under so much stress of late that I literally cannot think at times, and my mind draws a blank when I consciously try to think of something. It's as though my mind is keeping me from freaking out about things, trying to help me keep moving with the stress of a new part-time job, the 9.5 hours-a-week that the job takes that I desperately miss already, but which is providing me with valuable Canadian work experience.

I spent four hours today trying to apply for my Off-Campus Work Permit, including the train ride to and from school in which I brought my laptop along to do readings for the paper section I'm responsible for. I'm glad I went to school, though, as wrestling with the scanner and trying to get legible passport and study-permit grayscale copies, plus the system time-outs with the CIC website, easily would have cost over $40 with all the time I spent on it. And after all that, it wouldn't accept my U.S. debit card or the one credit card that I theoretically still have space on. In short, I'll have to request a special form that CIC has to mail to me, then I bring that to my bank with the $150.00 payment. Hopefully it won't delay the processing and I'll still be on track to be able to work full-time starting mid- to late-April.

The joys of being international, one step at a time. Dinner!