A New Beginning, A Reason For Living?

As promised, I have returned ( months later!!). Much water has flown under the bridge since I last wrote. I have done it!! ( Legally Blonde style) Ok, I graduated last month. Went crazy doing nothing for a while after that. But that is that. What I am going to write here is about another event.

Sunday 04.16.2006 - An unusually cramped up flight carried me to the Big Apple. Chicago was left behind - an easy good bye. I guess there was some sense of urgency inside me to get to NY for no obvious reasons. Sometimes I really wonder if I am becoming increasingly detached from several things. Or may be, I am just getting better and better at convincing myself of the appropriateness of the changes that take place around me. Anyhow, NY welcomed me, atleast I would like to think so. Entangled lives, sultry summer breeze, perfectly happy faces with slight frowns. This city is fascinating!

Monday 04.17.2006 - Though I have lived most of my life as a small town girl, big cities have always had a way with me. Yet waking up to the concrete picture of sky scrapers in this city was not exactly thrilling. I think we are most easily intimidated in the mornings just after getting up from sleep. Still under the mist of slumber, realty does not quite take the form of what's known as material facts. Buildings look like unreasonable desires. Already moving files of men and women on the street below carry the expression of unforgiving competition to survive. I jerked myself off these thoughts and started on my "convincing act" again. I have to think of all the good things. I am in the biggest city of the world joining one of the biggest firms in the whole of banking industry. I am entitled to the possibility of such a future that many would envy. I was starting to feel better under the hot shower. Took a train to WTC. It really makes you sad to see the patch of land where once the celebrated twin towers stood. Human nature is rather queer. Now, no one so much asto looks at the direction of the destroyed buildings. I guess sometimes once the healing is complete in mind, the scar of the wound on the body doesn't bother us anymore.
Newyork is the city of dreams. Everyone has a story here. And everyone has a dream. Stuggle is not just to live but to live big! And the one place where these dreams are bought and sold is known as Wall Street. Everything has a price here and everything's got a market. Curse it as materialistic, mechanical or heartless, this is the place where the ultimate human creativity of "making money" is celebrated and perfected.
All my enthusiasm melted like snow at the sight of a bunch of speakers waiting at the podium and a pile of printed material stacked at each participant's desk at the orientation. We were sitting in groups of 5 and to add to my depression, I was the only lowly Sr. Analyst in my group of VPs and MDs. Somehow I made it through torturous 7 hrs of presentations, speeches and filling out of forms etc. Just when I thought, I was done, my boss hailed me to trading floor. Much to my happiness, I was given a system far from boss temporarily as they needed to set up a place for me ( I am not yet ready to work you see:D). After half hour of talk that I would like to call a "healthy mixture" of encouragement and discouragements, I was introduced to about 20 people on the floor of which I remember none. Gilles Dellaert is my boss. A very endearing person. Constantly eating and very thin. I told him he reminded me of Brad Pitt in "Ocean's Eleven" where in every scene, he keeps eating. Even when he had taken my interview, he was eating! I have three more members on my team - Dare Hunter, Damian Lewandowski and Jeff Hoffman. They came across as really nice people. One can not trade right away. Learning the practice comes as the first step. I am to work closely with both traders and structurers to understand the details of credit derivative business. The entire team ( all the people I mentioned before and Olga, Ritesh, Shlomi and Bryan) is very enthusiastic, hard working and smart.

At about 8:30pm, I finally headed home hungry and tired but hopeful. There are long days of work to look forward to, but somehow that does not upset me. May be I am turning into a workoholic or may be I am trying to hide myself in work and forget other complicacies of life, whatever it may be, I am sure that it makes me happy to think of being productive and working with some really smart people and learn a myriad of things. So, may be for all I know, someday while floating with this crowd, I will come ashore and make a mark which won't be lost. A reason for living?