Oog. Today I met Muriel, went to QI, played some basketball. I played OK, need to let myself be more aggressive on rebounds. This one really tiny girl named Yuki was getting lots of open shots because my teammate wasn’t really marking her, and she was pretty good. So at one point, I switched over and wrestled the ball out of her hands. I felt a little bit bad, wasn’t sure it was fair, told her I wouldn’t have tried but she had made so many nice plays–I guess what–she was grinning like a loon :)Someone finally respected her ability and hustle and played some proper defense :) That made me happy.
Came back home and worked for a bit. Then I had my Jane Street phone interview. Following the advice of Waitzkin, I zeroed in on an activity to prepare my mind that I knew I really enjoyed–trying to do goofy tricks with a frisbee. I walked and jogged around outside catching the disk behind my back and way up in the air. After about 15 minutes of this, I made myself a big cup of tea and vegged out at my laptop reading XKCD before I got the call. And it worked! I went into the interview with confidence rather than the butterflies I’d been having all day.
The interview went pretty darn well! I solved two math puzzles, making some algebra errors but altogether being really quick coming up with how to formulate the solution. I got to ask the fellow, Sawyer, a few questions at the end–he’s not a HR guy, he’s a quantitative modeler/ market researcher :) (Btw he took the Putnam when he was in undergrad, a math guy.) The internship dates would be flexible and the pay would be quite good, AND I’d get to visit one of their other offices (Hong Kong or London) for a week. Man, fingers crossed. I’ll hear about the outcome in a few days.
After that I went out to Holy Cow with Alexei and played a lot of foosball. Then, for some reason, my motivation totally fell apart. I tried to work on exam practice and just couldn’t focus. I felt a little deflated. Not sure why.
So I watched half of Gladiator, which was pretty entertaining. Then I cleaned my room, put in some laundry, and hit the hay.
Gratitude Journal
- Yuki grin
- Good interview!
- Movie was fun! Change of pace
- When I came down to the kitchen after the movie, there was a rad party going on, a guy with tinfoil taped on his head :) Bizarre.
Todo
- Just frickin’ email Fratallocchi. Why not?!
- Look over the other two sample exams, two down, two to go.
- Smile in the light of day, peer boldly into the darkness
- Stay inflated and creative, remember I don’t have so much to lose