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!
I see signs saying we are not afraid. Londoners are tough and endured the bombings of WWII. But those Londoners are hardly the same as the ones here today. Yes people in general are resilient, more than we think we can be when looking outside out. That is anywhere in the world, not just in London. And truth be said there is merit in not letting fear control our lives and terrorism win. Well I just walked into the district line, 5 stations away from Parsons Green and I am afraid. I am not shaking, crying or running away. But I am afraid mostly because it is all so natural. Life must go on I said, as I decided I was not going to cancel my lunch and avoid the tube. But that is what makes it scary. Life goes on and in an effort to not be afraid we recklessly do not change our habits and rely on the stats that more people die on the road then on terrorist attacks. Reality is, the law of probability does not matter because terrorist events are binary. So I think about my frie...
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