Rain, job, life update

My blog lacks life updates.

I've been going through an awkward phase for the past two years. I've tried not to be all philosophical and Generation Why-ee on the blog. But every time I start writing life updates, things get 'philosophical' and Generation Why-ee real fast. So I delete everything and post some Instagrams! This is me inside a tree.

Here's what's happening. 

London is wet and chilly. Summer hasn't arrived and I'm not sure it will. June was the rainiest June since 1910, and we received 3x the monthly rainfall average in the first ten days of July. For as long as I can remember, the ten day weather forecast has consisted of rows of gray clouds with the occasional red lightening bolt.  Last week I couldn't find my raincoat and refused to buy another one, in protest. (I've since found my raincoat, thank goodness.) It's yuck. I know it's hot in the States, but I would give a little toe for sun and shorts and the sweet relief of a cold beverage. I like London when the sun's out. But the sun's rarely out. And in the never ending rain, it's soggy, dirty, and gray.

One quiet Friday afternoon at the bank, my dear colleagues were googling each other and stumbled across this blog. As they clicked through, I was mortified. I was also very thankful I choose not to discuss my job (in detail) online. If you ever have questions about investment banking or my role in the industry (is that vague enough?), please email me. My internship ends mid-August, and then I'm meeting Hannah in Italy for a few days of traveling. And then… no idea. 

I mean, I have ideas. Lots of them.

I've been busy applying for jobs, interviewing for jobs, worrying about jobs, discussing jobs for a few months now. My strategy targets the continental United States, London, and Australia. I'm covering all my bases. The search has its ups and downs. I love the rush after a good interview and the hope after applying for that perfect job that I'm overqualified for (which happened once, and 24 hours later, I was rejected, but you know… the hope in the beginning was great). I enjoyed writing my first four cover letters, but now I begin every cover letter by opening Word and grumpily typing 'JUST GIVE ME THIS JOB.' 

When I'm in a good mood, it's exciting 'having options' and being young and talking about the future. When I'm in a bad mood, I'm convinced I'm going to be broke, alone, and cynical forever. And if you send me articles about the bad economy, god help you.

I've come up with a system to help me deal with uncertainty. I list all my options and highlight the pros and cons for each.

Some examples.

No job, sleeping on my sister's dirt floor pantry in Alabama 
Pros: sunny weather, being near family, biscuits and gravy
Cons: no money, no friends, no Dave

Or,

Interning for free at a nonprofit or comms agency in Colorado 
Pros: sunny weather, work experience I want, Shelley lives in Denver
Cons: no money, no family, no Dave

Or,

Working in finance in London 
Pros: money, Dave, being in the same place for 1+ years
Cons:  the *&^**%&*! rain, professional angst, I miss my friends

Basically, I will enjoy and benefit from being anywhere, somehow.

Fun things I've done lately: a girls weekend with church folk, staying out til the sun came up, eating lots of pasta and pizza, reading good books. Tonight I might go to a surprise birthday party, if I convince myself to change out of my sweat pants and venture back outside (lame, I know). Next weekend we're going to a friend's wedding in Oxford. Then the Olympics, then Italy, and between now and then, I've got four days off to squeeze in.  

Life ain't too terrible.

mb

Follow your dreams

Investment Banking:

True Stories of Hope And (Mostly) Despair

Follow Your Dreams

It's Monday morning, but I'm feeling good.

On top of that, today is a senior manager's fifteenth anniversary at the bank!  Free cake for all!

We're standing around eating cake, congratulating the senior manager on her fifteenth anniversary at the bank. She waves her hand in the air, getting our attention.

"Thank you, Bob and team, for the bottle of wine," she says.  "Actually, most of you don't know this, but it's been fifteen years and ten months since I joined the bank. After ten months, I quit to travel and follow my dreams... of course, inevitably, I came crawling back!"

Everyone chuckles and takes another bite of cake.

I die inside.

Linking with love: photo of tall building

A new series...

Investment Banking:

True Stories of Hope And (Mostly) Despair

Never Get Up

It's 7am. In that half awake dream state, I hear Winston Churchill say,

        Never ever, ever, ever, ever ever give up. 

Warm and fuzzy in my bed, I'm relieved to hear those encouraging words because yesterday I cried a lot and worried that somehow, against all odds, I was going to be trapped in finance forever.

Over and over again I hear,


       Never ever, ever, ever, ever ever give up. 


       Never give up.  Never ever give up.

I smile sleepily. I won't ever give up. My fuzzy thoughts float from Winston's advice to last night's Homeland finale to the morning light and the cool breeze quietly slipping through the window. I roll over and snuggle deep into the covers.


      Never ever, ever, ever, ever ever get up. 


Some time later, it dawns on me that Winston's words have changed. Over and over again I'd begun hearing,


      Never get up.
  
      Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever get up. 
      
      Never. Get. Up.
      
      I am never getting up.



I'm awake now. I think about calling in sick. But eventually I get up. 


I go to the bank.



Linking with love: photo of a bank

23 Things I Learned When I Was 23

I learned that...

1. Having a tan looks and feels good. I thought I'd embraced my whiteness. Then this summer I got a real tan. And it looked good. And I miss it.

2. Minnesota is a beautiful state.

3. Driving solo for eighteen hours is not a good idea.

4. Pleurisy is the inflammation of the lining surrounding the lungs. Pleurisy burns and hurts a lot.

5. New Orleans jazz is groovy. 

6. Mardi Gras is gross and awful, especially when I'm desperately searching for a taxi at 4am.

7. Alabama has all sorts of funky homegrown festivals that I haven't discovered. 

8. I love bike rides in Grand Teton National Park. Okay, so I love most things in Grand Teton National Park, but I didn't go on a bike ride until my last week. It was one of my favorite afternoons of the summer. We discovered a hidden country store with free gingersnap cookies hot out of the wood-burning oven!

9. If I don't ask, I probably won't receive.

10. Being brutally honest to the right person relieves guilt and makes problems more manageable.

11. Blackberry produces mediocre phones. I'm sorry I cheated on you, Apple.

12. Extra exercise gives me more energy than extra sleep.

13. Six-foot live Christmas trees smell nice, but they're a pain in the ass to get rid of.

14. The City of London is its own separate city; it even has its own police force and tax code. 

15. I may prefer the countryside to city life. But I reserve the right to change my mind always.

16. I'm high maintenance, just like my dad said I was. I thought he was very wrong, but then in the middle of a serious relationship, I discovered he was very right.

17. It's almost always a good idea to meet up with friends I haven't seen in years, even if I think it might be awkward.

I learned how...

18. To skip a rock (sort of).

19. To ski (sort of).

20. To use London's bus system.

21. To crush garlic cloves so that they're easier to peel.

And why…

22. Grown ups don't do extracurriculars... 9-5s make you tired.

And what…

23. P&L, ETD, OTC, and CDS stand for… profit & loss, exchange traded derivatives, over the counter trading, and… I can't remember CDS, actually. I'll get back to you on that one.

Oh!  And the first thing I learned when I was twenty four:  how to make amazing lentil burgers.

Happy Lent(il)...
mb

Thoughts & Ireland photos

So many evenings I'm power walking through London's business district, headed home, bundled up in my trenchcoat and scarf, zig zagging through business suits and shoppers and bicyclists, and my mind is overflowing with thoughts. Questions, goals, guilts, revelations, confessions. And I consider blogging some of them. But I've become self-conscious about saying too much online. Honestly, I've become self-conscious about asserting an opinion in any forum, be it over dinner with friends or at work meetings.

You'd think I would become more confident and articulate as I got older, not less.

Maybe doing it in reverse isn't bad.

To break the blog silence... here are some things on my mind.

(a) Just DO something is one of my current mottos. I get easily overwhelmed and I'm learning that committing to small concrete actions is the only way forward. Taking a job at an investment bank - just do it. Running for 15 minutes - just do it. Reading with kids once a week - just do it. Praying for a couple of minutes - just do it. Calling a family member - just do it.

(b) For the past year, I've been concerned that I'm becoming more frustrated, cynical, demanding, and whiny than I've ever been. A few weeks ago, I had a revelation that maybe this is because historically, things have always come easy for me. And I've continued expecting everything to be easy... work, relationships, happiness, money management, public transportation, writing... No longer! Now, my expectations have changed. Now, I expect most things to be difficult. This way, I always have my game face on. I'm always ready to work hard.

That's the theory, anyway. I sure it's flawed.

(c) Reason #34 working for the investment bank was a good choice: I've volunteered more hours since September than I did in three entire years at college in Auburn.

(d) Most days, I feel like such a sell-out working in a bank... but it helps my sanity to spend time reading with middle schoolers and working on charity projects where everyone looks like a dirty hippie. It reminds me of life outside the corporate world.  Often fellow bankers are working alongside the dirty hippies, and that reminds me that (some) bankers want to save the world, too.

(e) Reason #209 I hate being a grown-up: knowing that you're ordinary and despite your third grade goal, you're not going to become the first female president of the United States of America.

(f) I love reading fiction these days. The last two novels I read were amazing. Read them: The History of Love by Nicole Krauss and The Glass Space by Simon Mawer.

Dave and I went to Ireland last weekend. It was pretty sweet. Beautiful blue skies, chilly autumn air, delicious comfort food, good books, seaside rocks and green hills to climb...

A great place to stay in Northern Ireland: Heathfield Farm

It's a great location for exploring major sights; the rooms are lovely and comfortable; the host, Heather, is friendly and has good travel trips; *and* she cooks such tasty breakfasts, which include several kinds of homemade bread (like the hobo that I am, I kept pieces of fruit bread in my pocket for snacking throughout the day).

I love Ireland. You should go there.

On a final note, a big happy birthday to both my parents. And... congratulations on the upcoming move to Italy!  I look forward to "going home" on the weekends...

Z is for zed

Yesterday someone asked me what code was invalid. The invalid code was 3TZ and normally I would've said, 'Three, tee, zee.' This time, however, I paused, then replied: 'Three, tee, zed.'


Z is pronounced zed here. I don't know why, and I don't like it. Having lived in the UK before, zed isn't new. But my willingness to conform is. At least when it comes to work speak. Goal 1: sound like I know what I'm talking about (fake it til I make, say zed like the locals, etc.). Goal 2: know what I'm talking about (this is harder). Ultimate goal: be an autonomous, competent part of our team. WHOA DREAM BIG.


On Thursday, some intern girls and I headed to Bond Street after work for Vogue's Fashion Night Out, hoping to run into Gwyneth Paltrow and score some bargains. I was tired and starving, as I am every weeknight these days, and to our pleasant surprise we discovered many designer stores were serving free champagne (the nice stuff I can't afford!), cocktails, and delicious finger foods. I enjoyed nonchalantly walking through a couple boutiques, sipping my champagne, pretending I could afford £800 coats. But for the most part, I sort of felt like Anne Hathoway in The Devil Wears Prada - everyone was skinny and impossibly well-groomed and -dressed, and I hadn't shaved my legs in a few days and was wearing flip flops. 

London is new and I feel like I'm playing a part in a play. Sometimes it's stressful. Like at work when everyone's joking around and I need to ask a question but don't want to feel stupid or interrupt the jokes. Or when I'm walking down the street and the wind's blowing and my hair is frizzy and all in my face and I'm fumbling with my purse and umbrella and Oyster card and I feel clumsy and Anne-Hathoway-in-Devil-Wears-Pradaesque. But it can be inspiring, too. It's like a new school year, except even newer, and I have these first few months to build a different life.


I love weekends. Enjoy yours!

Try new things: investment banking

Today I finished day 4 of my investment banking career. I've learned a lot. That being said…

"Pure arbitrage involves buying cheap securities and selling rich securities (or derivatives on those securities) in such a fashion that the two positions are perfect offsets for one another. This may involve buying a coupon Treasury and selling a strip of Treasury zeros."

What?

I'm looking at two graphics that apparently illuminate this point.

Not helping.

You'll be happy to know, however, that I do have a basic understanding of what my department does on a day-to-day basis. We're in prime brokerage and alongside risk management, we deal with hedge funds. Hedge funds are really big, sometimes risky investments, and clients borrow money from us in order to fund them. Our risk management team issues each client a margin, kind of like insurance for us in case the client goes under, based on a variety of factors related to the client's stability and the nature of their portfolio. The margin increases or decreases daily, depending on the fluctuating value of the client's portfolio. In prime brokerage, our job is to monitor the margin calls - who owes us what - and ensure that clients pay us before the close of business in London. We work closely with teams in Hong Kong, New York, and South Africa, too. So when I take over accounts, I'll be like, "You haven't sent us the 130 mil to meet your margin. Are there any problems?" And they'll be like, "Sending $140 million to account xyz now, thanks."

No big deal.

Right now, I'm harassing IT for access to the billion computer programs and shared folders I'll eventually need and learning some dull but essential (or so they tell me) daily tasks that I'll take over next week.

I like everyone on my team. They're friendly and aware that I come from a finance-free (and mostly number-free) academic background. Many of them did, too, and apparently I'll learn everything I need to know in the coming months. But if anyone can explain "going long" and "going short" and short versus long positions, please email me. Three guys have explained it already - it seems like a very basic investment idea - but I just don't get it.

Least favorite thing: professional footwear. I've been wearing bandaids since I started.

Favorite thing: lunchtime. Working all day makes me hungry. Last week I had lunch with fellow employees and interns every day… meat pies and Krispy Kreme, paninis and coffee, Japanese noodles and salmon rolls.

D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S.

Unfortunately, this week, I've started to bring my lunch. Today was peanut butter and jelly. (Excuse me - jam, not jelly. Jelly is jello here.) Meh. I'll have to get more creative if I'm going to resist all the amazing ethnic restaurants 30 seconds from my office.

P.S. 


Culture shock notes.


One, English pb&js don't taste like American pb&js and two, London has been true to its stereotype thus far: cold and gray. I'm trying to cheerfully adjust, but geeze, it's September! I shouldn't need a trench coat!

Mountains, banks, & cheesecake

Today I'm waiting on UPS to deliver my passport and UK visa. And then I'll buy a plane ticket, hopefully in time to avoid the hurricane.

The past two weeks have been chaotic. But chaos energizes me. I kind of love it. A few days ago, after I'd applied for my visa, I started getting stir crazy. By noon on Wednesday, I'd almost booked a plane ticket back to Wyoming so I wouldn't miss Signal's annual Christmas party. (It's an old tradition, having Christmas on August 25 when everyone is together. It started in Yellowstone, but we do it better.)

Taken from here.

I miss the mountains. I miss my mountain friends. I wish I could stay there forever - or at least for the rest of the season. 

But London awaits me!  

Can we pause for a moment to count the ways in which London is the complete opposite of mountain life? 

Restaurant work, investment bank. 

Hiking boots, high heels. 

Black bears, black taxi cabs. 

Millions of trees and less than half a million people in the entire state of Wyoming; millions of people and itty bitty green spaces. 

But I love city life. It'll be nice to have dozens of ethnic restaurants in my neighborhood, to walk everywhere, to catch buses, to see shows and museums and street theater, to stay in on rainy days with a cup of tea, listening to the comforting hum of the street below my window. And pubs. There are pubs everywhere. And meat pies. And bookshops.

I'm also excited about working in an investment bank, primarily because I never, ever thought I would ever work in an investment bank. A brief explanation: I'm part of a business internship program that helps Americans find jobs in London-based companies. Technically, it's not a "real job" because I'm not getting a paycheck, but practically, it's a real job. I'll be working full-time in the bank's risk management department. Didn't I major in English and history? Yes, yes, I did. Do I know anything about finance? Not very much, no, but I have been paying more attention to NPR's finance features. That's a start, right?

I think this job will be a huge and satisfying challenge. Lots of people quit jobs like these and embark on round-the-world journeys and call that the adventure... I'm doing it in reverse. And if I'm awkward and awful in investment banking, if I hate it after 12 months, I can dislike - and avoid - the industry for the rest of my life, knowing that I gave it a shot.

Kind of like I do with oysters.

And who knows? Maybe investment banking will be like cheesecake. I thought I hated it for years, and one day I tried it. The rest is history.