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Flying with time

It seems I just got here and next week the flight will take me back. The most worrying thing is that I have five finals before getting on that plane and the amount of studying is still pretty much at zero. I guess being a banker ruined my studying habits and I now do not believe in the mystique of studying in advance. I have a feeling the memory may fail me and so the afternoon before does seem like a really appealing studying timeframe for me. The truth is, it is not worth to do much more for what I am aiming for. Harvard has thought me one really good thing by now, one thing that will be crucial for every single exam I sit through: being top of the class is being too much of an over-achiever. More of an over-achiever than trying to get into Harvard itself. It is not that cool. Being top 10% is something that should only happen if it comes out naturally. The odds of that happening here are way lower than in most places I have been before. As such, after striving to be in that top piece all of my life, I now know that the marginal benefit is lower and lower as time goes by. Moreover, I would not mind the small marginal benefit if it was not for the so high marginal cost that makes my NPV so negative (yes, I am taking a finance course). And that cost has been growing exponentially. Time is at a premium here and, as someone close to me would put it, sleeping just takes too much time. So I guess I will enjoy the ride through the finals, fly my way around them and try to start putting some bags around the Christmas tree as we go!

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