Fuck! Screwed myself up today. Mridul informed me at short notice to come down to Lower Parel and meet, and I like a fool, acted on impulse agreed and went all the way to the station before I realized it would be a fucking pain in the ass to carry on with the commitment. Fucked myself, fucked Talwar, and fucked Mridul in the process. 100/- bucks and more importantly, 1 hour wasted. Entire CFA studying mood screwed up.

Lessons learned:-
1) No meeting friends on weekdays.
2) No locals on weekdays. Minimize locals on weekends also.
3) Do CBA BEFORE meeting the person.
4) CFA comes first. Never forgo CFA studies for anything else except death/ family.

Learn fucker ....

virulent - full of venom/malice
reticent - silent
surreptitious - doing something clandestinely
in limbo - in uncertainty

Today Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the last two remaining investment banks, filed with the Fed petitions to become holding bank corporations. With this Wall Street, and investment banking as we knew it, have come to an end.

ruction - an unpleasant row
rancour - a deep bitter hate
pervasive - widespread

"If the rat hits the side of the cage and gets food, then it hits the side of the cage and gets electrocuted so you don't really know (what to expect.)"
-NY State Senate, regarding the Fed's bail-out policy of financial institutions

This part of my life is called "Latency". Having fucked myself up in IIT, I have become the one-minute-too-late man: the one who has always been just a step short. I know shit, I am willing to work 26 hours a day, I am willing to divorce myself from everything (even myself) to wed myself to finance. But my fuck-ups in college have got the better of me.

But thats only for now ...

And thus in one night Lehman is no more. And I am unemployed ...

astute - cunning
dilettante - a person who studies the arts
outlier - the tail regions of the curve for a normal distribution ( read lesser mortals)
burgher - a resident of a Scottish burgh
sobriety - soberness
machiavellian - politically unprincipled, crafty
omniscient - knowing everything
canard - french for duck
non-sequitur - latin for does not follow
segue - to make a transition from one thing to another
apposite - highly pertinent/ appropriate
purvey - to circulate
extraneous - external
internecine - internal conflict

- Got from Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker.

"You want loyalty? Hire a cocker spaniel."
- A trader leaving Solomon Brothers.