Move fast

I haven't written here for a while,... Got bored and tired of it again.

So how have I been doing? Well, the thesis is gradually progressing, Most of the preliminary work is done. So it's off to the races now. Just get some results and hope they are relevant.

On the poker front, I've had two good results, which have pumped my bankroll to about 300 dollars.

But that wasn't the reason I wanted to write here again.

The reason I wanted to write is that I'm scared. For the first time in a long time I'm scared about something I can't control. I imagined greece failing, and perhaps causing some fallout. I imagined perhaps Portugal failing and causing fallout. But I had imagined that we would able to save Italy. or better, I believed that at some point we would be able to stop this crisis from getting worse, stop the fire from spreading. We didn't. Or better, they didn't, I never had a say in it.

I am scared that if this problem doesn't get solved in a few days (say by monday) we'll be in deep trouble. Not the small things that have been happening so far, but as Christine Lagarde warned, the fear of losing an entire decade.

But more than anything, I resent the fact that everything takes so long, while it should go fast. Greece got into trouble 2 years ago. and problems are still getting worse. I voted over 500 days ago, and still don't have a government. I would like to ask the people in charge one thing. Do it fast. Wether this entire thing can be solved and one year from now we'll be laughing about this and looking at a strong economic revival and a good economic outlook for the future, or wether it's going to blow up in our faces and we'll experience 1929, and the history booke will barely remember the 2007 crisis. Do it fast, end the uncertainty,

Do it fast. I am 23 years old, I have time. I can get beat down, and wait 10 years, 20 years,... But do it fast, so that we now what I have to plan for, what I can expect, and also, if it will crash anyway, the faster it happens, the faster we can start to clean up, and the faster everything will look vaguely recognisable again.

Perhaps some advise. When my room get's slightly messy I have to coax myself to clean up, it doesn't go easy: I don't like it. And I can't work in a structural way. I'm constantly thinking maybe I should first remove the dirty glasses, mahybe I should first clean the table top,...

When it gets seriously out of hand an it's more a health hazard then a room, the solution is the following: get out of the room, and open the door, and simply do the thing that is closest to you, and work your way through the room.

It's time to quit thinking about what to do. Cut everhywhere and cut deep to save and pay off debt, or get the printing press running, and order some more presses to make it go faster, but stop tinkering around in the margin. Remove every obstacle there stands between here, and a good economical situation and do it without fear. If we push too far, we can rectify this later, but waiting will only make the job way harder.

progress on the thesis front.

So far I've only been conducting a literature study. Partly due to the fact that my promotor is on a two week holiday. But these two last days I've brought tohether everything I learned into two experiment proposals, so that on monday, when he's back, I can show him what I'd like to start doing.

hopefully this means that I get to put on a labcoat and safethy goggles next week.

new and strange skills.

One of the PhD students at the lab where I'm working, fell with his bike yesterday and in the process completely twisted the component that guides the chain back to the front of the bike. Today he asked me to assist him in repairing his bike, and to be honest, I've never even tried to do a thing about a bike. I haven't even once in my life put a chain back on when it accidentaly comes of. But, in a few minutes, I managhed to get the component back to it's original position plus a few bends, and ghet the chain back on. It's not as good as new, but atleast he can now drive the bike around again.

I finished Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and this might very well be the first book in my life that delivered a better movie. I found it very hard to follow the track of the book, even when I had alreadhy seen the movie about 10 times, and could use that as a reference. Perhaps it's just one of those books you have to read two or three times, but I much prefered the Rum Diary.

On the poker front things are going steadily along, atleast I hope. Two sessions of 8 gave me one FT finish (9th :s) and one other ITM finish, so I'm down over 25$. But i still think I'm doing all right. We'll see how it evolves.

poker: first stage complete

Yesterday I played the last session of 6 sng's. In total I've played 96 now, but my profit's are large enough to be profitable even if the next four wouldn't pay off.  Therefore, starting tonight, I'm upgrading to playing 8 tournaments at a time.

I just finished reading Hells Angels by Hunter S Thompson, and now, I'm going to do what I said a few posts before: I'm going to start reading : Fear and loathing in Las Vegas.

slowlhy but steadily

After playing 78 tournaments, I'm havving an ROI of about 10%, so probably by next week, I'll be upgrading to playing 8 rather than 6 tournaments at a time. (I'll also be having a larger 23" screen then, whereas now, I'm working with a 17.3".)

In my mast post I said I was going to read fear and loathing in las vegas, but in the end I didn't. I decided that I would read the rum diarhy first (also by Hunter S. Thompson) I thought it was a great book, and can only hope that they make a good film out of it. For it would be very easy to ruin, by taking it just a little to far. Anyway, after reading the rum diary, I started reading Hells Angels. A book (bhy Hunter S Thompson) about the famous motorcycle gang. I like the sthyle it is written in, and the way how, at the same time, Thompson succeeds in making them seem way less harmfull then the media apparently described them, and at the same time make them seem dangerous beyond belief.

Furthermore, I'm still working on my literature study...

I did it!!

No, I did not write a book.
I just got the results of the exam I took 2 weeks ago, and I passed. So that means I only have got to take 2 courses this year.

I finished reading catcher in the rye yesterday. I quite liked it, although I would have liked a different ending. I'd have liked the kid to actually head west, and maybe come back a year later, or even a few months. I didn't like him giving up on his ideas in a second. Although perhaps it is clear through the entire book that the main character lacks perseverance...

The next book I'll be reading will probably be Fear and loathing in Las Vegas. by Hunter S thompson.

In poker, I think I'm doing good. after about 60 tournaments, I haven't made a profit yet, but In total I've reached 6 final tables so far. (9 players, so 5% of the players gets there.) 2 fourth places are the best I've done so far. but I suppose that's just a matter of time.

Also, out of 10 sessions of 6 tournaments I've only failed to cash twice.

I spend eight hours working on my masters thesis again. But that's the boring stuff, ofcourse. While I was supposed to be working on it, I read an interesting paper by Prof. Paul de Grauwe.

http://www.econ.kuleuven.be/ew/academic/intecon/Degrauwe/PDG-papers/Discussion_papers/Governance-fragile-eurozone_s.pdf

 (I only found the link in a blog post by Paul Krugman) I once took a single class with De Grauwe, in which he explained about the European debt crisis, slightly less then a year ago now, and this paper actually repeats what he said there, albeit in a slightly more fundamental way. It's the first time that I've really seen the true problem the PIGS countries (and in fact all European countries) are facing due to the Euro.

Anyway, when I got home, I played not one, but two sets of MT SNG's and made a profit in both, nearly eclipsing my losses of yesterday. Then I read a bit further in Catcher in the Rye. I've finished the first  6 chapters, and I stand by what I said yesterday: it reminds me very strongly of "on the road"

perhaps that's because they are only six years apart. I really like the style. Whereas most books are going forward at a gentle pace, these are books which someway make you feel as if you're going 100 mph on a winding road.

After I had read the sixth chapter, I wanted to get out of this room for a while, and so I decided to go and take a walk. It was a short walk, but a very useful one. As I was walking, I was trying to describe to myself, what I was thinking, what I was feeling, in that very same style as "On the road", and I realised what I had realised quite a few times before. I can do that. I've been writing for most of my life. Even won a local prize when I was about eleven or twelve years old. But nothing ever really came of what I wrote. I've written a novel, a monolgue whihch is supposed to be acted, not read as a book and a few poems. But none of them ever where good enough to send to a publisher. (Now that I think of it, one of those poems actually was a laureate at a poetry competition held by the faculty of literature, a friend of mine who actually studied at that faculty had send something in as well, but didn't make it to laureate status, eventhough she had described my entry (which she had read before I had send it in) as "trivial". But anyway. I never wrote something I was comfortable with sending to a publisher. But describing tonights walk to myself as I saw it unfold, in that particular style made me feel as if perhaps I could do it in that very typical style. This idea will probably die a silent death, but who knows, I might give it a try one of these weeks.

Anyway, I'm going to get to bed, have to be in the lab in a little under nine hours.