Reading: Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis

I wonder whether this would still seem amusing just as much as it did in 1985:

“Could you tell us,” said a young fortune seeker, “whether the firm has considered opening an office in an Eastern European city? You know, like Prague.”

Like Prague! Had the speaker been anyone beneath the level of executive committee member the room would have erupted in spitballs, paper wads, and howling. As it was, unnatural sounds came from the back row, as if a dozen young men were choking back their ridicule. The thought of Salomon Brothers in Prague had possibly never occurred to anyone in the seventy-five-year history of the firm. Such is the spark of creativity generated by the presence of a member of the executive committee demanding to be asked questions. (p. 57)

Unfortunately, I think it would (although not at Salomon Brothers)…

Here comes my depression

Businessweek’s article on the future generation of i-bankers.

I have been hearing that a lot of these banks are only taking one student from Harvard.

[...] Yu says she has had to sacrifice her hobbies of playing keyboards and ultimate Frisbee to complete her club obligations.

What an amazing news to pop up in your RSS reader at 2.30 am, just after you finished the second six-hour block of Saturday-studying. Pythagoras, Plato, Aquinas, Kant, Nietzche, Homer, Byron, Goethe, Apollinaire, Kafka, Kundera. Motivations, influences, and works of those and dozens of others are blending together in your head. What for?

In summary, your chances of joining a bulge-bracket firm are slimmer than superslim unless you have a history of being a member of an elitist club at an Ivy League school.

Gettysburg doesn’t have such club. Yet. Neither does it have a debate team. Hm…

And why is everyone so obsessed with ultimate frisbee?