Jacked Up

Hey all,

just finished a run up Gellert and did my pushups and situps.
P: 19
S: 26
Not bad but I was supposed to do it yesterday so I actually had an extra day to rest. its coming definitely. i can almost do thirty in a row now haha, thats like 20 - 30% of my goal with 4.33 weeks remaining. I can do it. I have to.
Ive met some really cool people since ive been here. Gunter and Martin are pretty awesome and Im taking a class with them. Its financial market risk analysis or something like that. basically the prof puts everyone in small groups and gives each group a question or a news paper article from the business pages and we have to explain what the article is about in front of the class. My group had to speak about the repurchase agreement between OMV and MOL two energy firms in Hungary. I dont konw Ive never heard of either of them, let alone what a repurchase agreement is. but thats the best part. they dont tell you what to do, they give you the problem and you have like 10 minutes to figure out the context of the article, what the certain financial instrument is that they are talking about and then explain that to the class. luckily i arrived late and was too far behind to contribute to the discussion. the class is totally a win-win for me because everyone else (well some other really smart/informed people do) seems to know just about as much about the subject as I do. Its a crash course in market analysis and i dont have to do well, haha, pass fail rules. the whole thing fits into the theme that Tristan keeps harping on. Make money by not working. I dont know if i should be more cautious of these crazy beliefs but im in budapest. anything against the grain is just part of the experience. In addition to taking this financial risk course (where I learned that Porsche, in a sneaky short selling scheme, managed to make a heap of money off of Volkswagen's investors by holding on to all the stocks they needed to buy when the stock didnt fall thereby raising the demand for the stock and the price even more. Porsche made 1 billion dollars selling cars last year and six billion on the stock market. you might want to check that, just to be sure) I'm taking an E-Commerce course. The two classes are part of a European system called CEMS which basically means the course meets standards of quality instruction high enough to be recognized around the world. Tom, a polish-american student told me this today after our super lame Success to Leadership class which I immediately dropped at Tom's insistence. he said that the prof will rot your mind and turn you away from other, better leadership courses. He then told me a bunch of books I should read. one of which was Jack Welch's 'Winning'. He wants to be a US Senator. I'll make sure that I keep him as a contact. So I'm in those two classes with super smart European kids who are destined to dominate the world. After the finance class we went to a lecture given by the president of CIB, a bank in Hungary. He was mostly quite boring, limited in his public speaking abilities, but what was interesting was his cynicism of the our global financial future. apparently, CIB is the least pessimistic bank (in other words, most optimistic) in hungary he told us, but he has no faith in the future economy globally. "When I see the events that have taken place globally, and that are affecting us locally I can only be pessimistic about the future," he said with a reddening face. I am kind of concerned with the health of the Hungarian forint, I have money sitting in a deposit for Rent here and if i get it back in four months and its worthless Ill be pretty pissed. I'm not sure how to protect myself from that occuring. Im sure some of my financial buddies could figure out a way to hedge the market and reduce the risk... I'm taking "The Art of Persuasion" also. today I was given a role play in front of the class where I had to sell a girl in the class a 1000 euro Armani suit (which was imaginary). I could give her a 5-10% discount if I sold some accessories with it. I sold her a skirt, not a suit, and a pair of sandals for 1000 euro. the prof asked me if i have any experience in sales. i told her i shouldve done better. That should be a fun course. I'm reading 4 Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss. Hes a guy who before he was thirty figured out that no one needs to work for works sake. He explains that 9-5 is completely arbitrary and that all of the important things in your day can be completed before 11 am leaving time to enjoy other things that youve always wanted to do. He limits communication to 12 and 4 pm and eliminates all useless information. im not exactly interested in becoming a cold person at work, but his philosophy is fun to imagine. He advocates two months of work with one month to do the things you want, dreamlines instead of timelines, and that people dont need to be millionaires to behave like millionaires. for example, he figured out he could afford an aston martin, write a bestselling book, learn a new language and something else cool by following the less-is-more approach and maximizing your strengths. ill let you know how it goes. I played foosball last night with Trevor and these insane Hungarian guys. they lit us up but were gentlemanly about it. gotta respect those hungarians.