Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Ad hoc

I wonder if anyone is still here.

I am emerging from a month of nonstop, mind-numbing class and travel. All I want to do is sleep and realize with glee every half-hour or so that I'm not in class. It feels good.

Jim Cramer's Mad Money has been on TV the last few nights, as it is every night, and I've been home and able to watch it. But right now I could care less. I don't want to watch it. I don't want to hear about stocks. I don't want to hear about the economy. I don't want to hear about oil, or China, or the housing bubble for the umpteenth time.

It's OK, though. I've been in this frame of mind before - enough times now to start to recognize it. Unlike ten years ago when I used a theatre class project to symbolically burn posters and memorabilia from a play I had just produced, so worn out was I with caring about it, there will be no bonfire of textbooks in the backyard's fire pit. I did that once, too - burn a Physics book. Should have saved it, for the third time I took the class some 7 or 8 years later.

No, this time I recognize this for what it is: a break in an intense relationship with something I do care deeply about. A hiatus. A shifting. Not an abandonment. I will have my nose in Bill O'Neil's book again soon enough, and that subscription renewal to the Journal is already sitting sealed in an envelope. But I also recognize that I will not be a stock analyst, or a financial genius, or a lawyer by the time I'm 35. And that's fine. Check a few more things off the damn list.

I still watch Squawk Box in the morning, but am only half-interested in the news. It is more fascinating right now to watch the dynamic between Becky Quick and David Faber. I think that Becky feels like she has something to prove - like she's nervous about being at the table with the big kids. David is smart, charming and at ease, and seemingly always finds an angle to something that puts Becky on the defense. When this happens - which is often - the rest of the table, including the guest host (who is a man 99% of the time) devolves into a rowdy boy's club of sorts. Even when David's not there, Becky speaks so quickly and scripted that she finishes her speech, takes a breath, and the dead air swallows her whole. So I feel sorry for Becky, because she's probably pretty good at what she does and pretty smart. But she comes off as desperate, because the people around are just, well, better.

Maybe I'm sexist. But I don't think so. Maria Bartiromo could kick my ass.

Happy summer, everyone.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

If we build it, they will come, Agentdisco. Learning about business and the economy can get tedious at times. Especially when nothing really happens. I heard a Foxnews pundit the other day say (commenting on Pres. Bush's Tuesday speech), "News is about change. If nothing is changing, then there is no news." In regards to the economy or other related topics, it does seem like there aren't big changes. And if there were, who cares right?

I'm in a similar situation as you. I've just finished a securities class and feel like I need a couple of weeks to just clear my head. I don't want to think about it for awhile. And yet, at the same time, I find myself reading the economist, checking the daily news, and looking at financial sites still. I think I'm like a junkie. I love the strategy of looking at the implications of a decision or policy. I always wonder how that might affect my future. To me that's fun.

Good post, Agentdisco. You'll be back in the saddle in no time.