Run-ins

Not with the law, just with familiar faces. I get the impression that I run into friends and acquaintances in the city more often than most. Maybe I happen to know a lot of people in the city (between high school, college and random NYC kids), or have good recall for faces (but I assume this is part of everyone's DNA), or maybe my other friends avoid these same people whereas I like to at least say "Hi". I think what it really comes down to is that I generally keep my eyes peeled - be it for familiar faces, girls (mainly), interesting stores, and things to climb/jump over (second only to girls).

So yesterday I was longboarding to the park with Scotty Callahan (Scoot over! Sorry, Scoot just getting started) to toss the Frisbee on the Great Lawn. Right as we were about to enter the park on E 90th Street I ran into a fellow Princeton guy, who was in the fraternity I pledged freshman year. Less than 5 minutes later saw a Cap '07er who was running the loop. We finally start playing frisbee and Cooper shows up to throw the disc, after I ran into him on the walk home from the subway an hour before and invited him to join. Later than night I was going to meet Cooper at a coffee shop for a mind bending chess match. I got there first and (this doesn't really count, but c'mon!) surprisingly found his girlfriend Catherine (I think that's the right spelling) sitting there studying for the bar exam. That's 3.5 people. Not bad.

Wednesday, the previous night, I was meeting Scott and a couple other Princeton guys for what essentially turned into a taco eating contest. Saw a Princeton girl catching a cab outside of Grand Central, spotted a girl from high school inside Pinkberry (or a knockoff, can't even tell) near Union Square, another Princeton girl a block farther along, and finally a guy who used to go to the Saw Mill (my hometown gym) back in the day. 4 people all within 20 minutes. And I was on the phone with mi madre for a good portion of it.

Off to Philly in a couple hours to chill with Mr. Joe Cho and friends.

Call me Shakespeare

So I haven't posted on this bad boy since 'Nam and thought I'd do some CPR on this bitch (sorry for the vulgarity, but it felt right).

I have a few things I could post, from life thoughts, to trip writeups, to videos of the moment. Instead, I'll continue from where I left off and post another poem. I wrote this for our good friend Travis and recited it at his birthday party back in January. For all you that are familiar with this character, I think you will enjoy my words:

Oh Travis McMichael
Ray Allen's disciple
Despite a career path estranged
[He] has a J always in range
Whether he's ballin' or burnin' one down.

Funny thought

Girls who work in finance so they can
dress like they work in fashion

May be better than
guys who work in finance
because they don't know where else

You're probably asking yourself why I have such a lame title

First off, shout out to TDS for getting me to start one of these things. I think Joe Cho started this whole idea of questioning what we're doing and where the world is going sophomore year with his 'Corporate Matrix' theory, so he deserves some credit too.

What I have planned for this blog is a place to basically express my unhappiness with the realities of life and how little choice you have with regard to your future without serious intervention and active lifestyle decisions. For those of you who know me, it is quite evident that I am a generally happy dude, so this isn't any sort of communist rant. Rather, I hope to explain some of my feelings on what life is, how it is perceived by me, and maybe how it should be.

So two weeks ago I started working at a financial services consulting company. We basically do business analysis for financial services companies, assessing risk and helping large companies better manage this risk. I went to Princeton and majored in finance/operations research, but the closer and closer I came to graduation and 'the real world' I began to realize that, however trite, the biggest risk is not taking any. Going to Princeton, majoring in finance/economics, working at a consulting/finance firm, and coasting through life living comfortably sounds pretty great to a lot of people. However, there is little to no risk in this sort of life, no matter how difficult any of those things may be.

And with no risk, there is little risk premium, as they say in the business. Risk vs. Reward. Low risk --> low reward.

Following that concept, I just feel like taking risks right now. I wanna throw it all on fucking red. I'm 21 and for some of the people that I graduated with, I can already picture their lives for the next 20 years. They could very well be happy with that life, but it's depressing. I initially wanted to title this blog 'Should I Jump', but figured that if it got combed through by NSA or something ridiculous like that, I would get taken away in the middle of the night by men in either dark suits or white lab coats.

'Should I Jump' is obviously metaphorical. Should I move to colorado and try a new climate, new lifestyle, new people? What's the worst that could happen? I could fail miserably, bring back some ridiculous stories about my failures and come back to do the same exact thing I'm doing now. What's the best case scenario? I could find my life's passion, fall in love, change the world. But the point is that its really hard to jump off something incredibly flat and safe when you don't know what is necessarily at the end of the rabbit hole. And although as consultants/financial engineers/economists we may be trained to evaluate the risks of businesses, portfolios and other entity's assets, we rarely look within ourselves to evaluate our own future, risks involved and how we should go forward in order to maximize (if that is possible with human emotions) and enrich our lives through venues other than money.

This is why I decided to call it 'Risk Analysis'. It will be somewhat of a self analysis that you can play/read along with as I start work, change my home, make new friends and keep reevaluating who I am and where I want to be.

As you can tell, if you made it this far, I have trouble focusing on a specific point (this pertains to things other than my writing as well, such as sports, girls, work, etc...), but I'll try to keep these posts somewhat focused from now on.