Week 7

Short hours last week, long hours this week. Well, I had to get pick up Delphi and get my codes working, so...
Well I didn't quite finish everything as I had hoped, but managed to get a significant part of it done.

I'll be moving to another desk on Monday, and had my presentation today. Somehow I got quite nervous this time round, I mean, everyone is bound to have some kind of anxiety when it comes to formal presentations, especially with directors assessing your performance. But I'm normally quite calm, at least I'll somehow manage to put up a relaxed front. Today I kinda stumbled on my words and was perhaps caught out in some pronunciations (c'mon I'm not a native speaker). But I could answer the questions and everyone told me I did well. Two directors told me, "well done", so I guess I have to take that as a positive sign. Or rather intepret it as, "well done...you screwed yourself". To be honest, I could have been much better in my explanation if I wasn't feeling so uncomfortable (yeah everyone says that ex-post).

Things are getting more competitive now, though we're (quant interns) still a pretty close group. We've been actively speculating on the number of vacancies and frankly I don't think everyone will be offered a job. Some desks have recently hired full-time analysts, though there could be vacancies in other offices. Spoke to my manager and he mentioned he could put me in touch with the HK office if I'm interested...probably that implies he's not taking me. But yeah HK wouldn't be a bad place to start with. And there's another director who visited us from NY, apparently he's looking to add a team member. Things are sort of hazy at the moment, not really sure what's gonna happen. But I guess at the end of it, even without a full-time job, I can look back and see how much I've learnt. I guess I'm already quite fortunate...there are tons of people outside looking in, hoping to get a taste of quant work.

Anyway, this week has been excellent. Met up with some friends, and had a cook-out last weekend actually. Probably gonna just chill out in the sun this weekend before starting on my last rotation. It's been quite an interesting summer.