Hello family, friends, awkward acquaintances, and creditors. It's been a long time since I've seen/spoken to many of your and I am reaching out to let you know that I would love to hear about what's going on in your life as well as to share some stories from mine.
I am now living in New York City, pursuing my life-long dream of becoming a Broadway actor. I have the equivalent of 4-5 part-time jobs with the same company (a financial services firm called Novantas) that pays the bills. Novantas is a consulting company of less than 80 people (over a ¼ of which are about my age) that helps large banks develop long-term strategies and price products such as Certificates of Deposits or Money Market Deposit accounts.
My job as an analyst is to look at your records to see if you have been funneling money to terrorist organizations, and then segment your and all of the other accounts by a variety of other metrics. Working alongside me are my two office mates Alex and Jon. Alex is a fun, outgoing, chain-smoking, Ukrainian/Australian, Yale-graduate who blasts Euro-dance hits music in the office over itunes, helped bring European sensation 'Gunther and the Sunshine Girls' to America for the first time, recently converted to Islam after spending the summer in Pakistan and fervently believes that she has never lost an argument. Jon, on the other hand is a laid-back native of Detroit who's 'randomness' is at least on par with mine. For example, last week he came into our office with a stopwatch, talking about a study that said in order to sleep as soundly as possible at night, one should be standing for at least 10 hours a day. At any point in the day, which required sitting, Jon would click his stopwatch off and then on again when he stood up. He is currently adhering to a 'Caveman diet', which he discovered on a web-blog, that eliminates grains, long-distance endurance exercise and a number of other things that the Paleolithic people lived without.
I recently finished writing my thesis on Nationalism in response to cross-border mergers and acquisitions activities in Europe, and finally graduated (after five years) from Penn. Most of you may not know that I spend the following summer at the Betty Ford clinic recovering from my thesis and overcoming addictions to ginko balboa, aspartame, and cheetos. However, had I been able to make alternate summer plans, here's what I would have done:
My cousin Peter was studying abroad in Argentina, so two days after hearing Jody foster gripe about Ronald Regan during the Penn graduation ceremony (at least his movies were better than Flight Plan or Panic Room), I hopped a flight to Buenos Aires. I stayed in an awesome house with a prime-time location which I shared with a Spanish Senora, Frank from University of Richmond, 4 Argentine girls and two British girls. Peter had previously served as a Marine safeguarding the Embassy, so we spent a lot of time with the current Marines on-duty and were on-occasion chauffeured around in the bullet-proof suburban from nightclub to nightclub. We experienced almost everything Buenos Aires had to offer including: eating steak, kayaking, eating steak, partying, eating steak, visiting historic monuments like the casa rosada and the Evita musem, eating steak, and visiting the World's only religious theme-park (straight out of the Simpsons episode where Flanders opens one--- seriously, it's there).
Upon returning stateside, I toured up and down the west-coast with my college friend VJ before ending up in Stanford for my 5th and final (for a while at least) season at ID Tech Camp (or nerd camp as all my friends in leveraged finance —*cough cough*--call it). This was one of my favorite years at camp and by far the most fun. I taught both Video Game creation and Digital Video and Movie Production classes during the week and spent the weekends around Palo Alto or at the beach in Santa Cruz. Watching old movies at the Stanford theatre renewed my interest in classic films and rock-climbing with my friends Spooky, Chile, Montreal and Slick on our nights off was the beginning of a hobby I currently enjoy.
One of my most memorable moments at camp occurred on the patio outside one of the dorm houses during one of the weekly talent shows, when Montreal and I decided that we needed to spice things up a bit. After conspiring together, Montreal snuck away into the house to make a few preparations, while I informed the show organizers that I wanted to perform the night's final act. A few bland knock-knock jokes and boy-band serenades later, the MC handed me the mike and I announced to the crowd of counselors and kids that for my act, I would be breaking a world record, and would require a volunteer from the audience. The kids went wild, all yelling for me to choose them, but quickly quieted down after learning that the record-breaking feat would be too dangerous for a camper. I asked the campers which counselor they wanted to volunteer and the shouting restarted. After selecting one counselor, I announced that I would in fact need 2 volunteers. 10 rounds of shouting and cheering later, I had ever counselor (who was not a judge) on-stage along side me, and I revealed what world record I had determined to break. Our objective was to fit 12 people (including myself) into a 16in. by 16in. square that I had marked-out on the ground next to the house. With eyebrows raised suspiciously, the counselors followed my instructions to link arms with each other and form a circle around the small 16x16 square. I had the camp director and one other counselor step into the middle of the square and told the rest of the group that on the count of 3, we would all stand on our tippy-toes inside the square, with arms linked, leaning our torso's away from the square so that everyone could fit. Slowly, I counted down from 3…2….1…., when at that moment, my accomplice Montreal dumped an enormous Gatorade-container full-of ice-cold water on the circle of counselors from the third floor of the building. The chain of arms held-strong as gallons of water gushed down on the camp-director and then ricocheted off her body onto the surrounding counselors. The campers went nuts as Montreal and I broke the world record for most counselors dunked at once.
So now I'm living at 319 East 75th street Apt 6a, in a cozy studio on the Upper East Side. I have a bed, a comfy air-mattress, a couch, and an exercise mat, so in all I could sleep 6 people comfortably. I'm mentioning this because I would love to have you come visit/stay with me anytime! I work a tad during the week, but if you would like to explore NYC and not drop the dough on a hotel room, I have a (3rd) world-class exercise station (see walmart.com product called "The Power Tower"), and a subscription to blockbuster online that all guests may enjoy free of charge. There's a dude in a cart down the block who serves a continental breakfast, and a dry-cleaners in the building who speaks Mandarin and nothing else. So please, come visit, drop me a line, or put me on your Christmas card list- I'd love to stay in touch.
Un abrazo,
Jeff
Halloween Costume this year: American Gladiators
I am now living in New York City, pursuing my life-long dream of becoming a Broadway actor. I have the equivalent of 4-5 part-time jobs with the same company (a financial services firm called Novantas) that pays the bills. Novantas is a consulting company of less than 80 people (over a ¼ of which are about my age) that helps large banks develop long-term strategies and price products such as Certificates of Deposits or Money Market Deposit accounts.
My job as an analyst is to look at your records to see if you have been funneling money to terrorist organizations, and then segment your and all of the other accounts by a variety of other metrics. Working alongside me are my two office mates Alex and Jon. Alex is a fun, outgoing, chain-smoking, Ukrainian/Australian, Yale-graduate who blasts Euro-dance hits music in the office over itunes, helped bring European sensation 'Gunther and the Sunshine Girls' to America for the first time, recently converted to Islam after spending the summer in Pakistan and fervently believes that she has never lost an argument. Jon, on the other hand is a laid-back native of Detroit who's 'randomness' is at least on par with mine. For example, last week he came into our office with a stopwatch, talking about a study that said in order to sleep as soundly as possible at night, one should be standing for at least 10 hours a day. At any point in the day, which required sitting, Jon would click his stopwatch off and then on again when he stood up. He is currently adhering to a 'Caveman diet', which he discovered on a web-blog, that eliminates grains, long-distance endurance exercise and a number of other things that the Paleolithic people lived without.
I recently finished writing my thesis on Nationalism in response to cross-border mergers and acquisitions activities in Europe, and finally graduated (after five years) from Penn. Most of you may not know that I spend the following summer at the Betty Ford clinic recovering from my thesis and overcoming addictions to ginko balboa, aspartame, and cheetos. However, had I been able to make alternate summer plans, here's what I would have done:
My cousin Peter was studying abroad in Argentina, so two days after hearing Jody foster gripe about Ronald Regan during the Penn graduation ceremony (at least his movies were better than Flight Plan or Panic Room), I hopped a flight to Buenos Aires. I stayed in an awesome house with a prime-time location which I shared with a Spanish Senora, Frank from University of Richmond, 4 Argentine girls and two British girls. Peter had previously served as a Marine safeguarding the Embassy, so we spent a lot of time with the current Marines on-duty and were on-occasion chauffeured around in the bullet-proof suburban from nightclub to nightclub. We experienced almost everything Buenos Aires had to offer including: eating steak, kayaking, eating steak, partying, eating steak, visiting historic monuments like the casa rosada and the Evita musem, eating steak, and visiting the World's only religious theme-park (straight out of the Simpsons episode where Flanders opens one--- seriously, it's there).
Upon returning stateside, I toured up and down the west-coast with my college friend VJ before ending up in Stanford for my 5th and final (for a while at least) season at ID Tech Camp (or nerd camp as all my friends in leveraged finance —*cough cough*--call it). This was one of my favorite years at camp and by far the most fun. I taught both Video Game creation and Digital Video and Movie Production classes during the week and spent the weekends around Palo Alto or at the beach in Santa Cruz. Watching old movies at the Stanford theatre renewed my interest in classic films and rock-climbing with my friends Spooky, Chile, Montreal and Slick on our nights off was the beginning of a hobby I currently enjoy.
One of my most memorable moments at camp occurred on the patio outside one of the dorm houses during one of the weekly talent shows, when Montreal and I decided that we needed to spice things up a bit. After conspiring together, Montreal snuck away into the house to make a few preparations, while I informed the show organizers that I wanted to perform the night's final act. A few bland knock-knock jokes and boy-band serenades later, the MC handed me the mike and I announced to the crowd of counselors and kids that for my act, I would be breaking a world record, and would require a volunteer from the audience. The kids went wild, all yelling for me to choose them, but quickly quieted down after learning that the record-breaking feat would be too dangerous for a camper. I asked the campers which counselor they wanted to volunteer and the shouting restarted. After selecting one counselor, I announced that I would in fact need 2 volunteers. 10 rounds of shouting and cheering later, I had ever counselor (who was not a judge) on-stage along side me, and I revealed what world record I had determined to break. Our objective was to fit 12 people (including myself) into a 16in. by 16in. square that I had marked-out on the ground next to the house. With eyebrows raised suspiciously, the counselors followed my instructions to link arms with each other and form a circle around the small 16x16 square. I had the camp director and one other counselor step into the middle of the square and told the rest of the group that on the count of 3, we would all stand on our tippy-toes inside the square, with arms linked, leaning our torso's away from the square so that everyone could fit. Slowly, I counted down from 3…2….1…., when at that moment, my accomplice Montreal dumped an enormous Gatorade-container full-of ice-cold water on the circle of counselors from the third floor of the building. The chain of arms held-strong as gallons of water gushed down on the camp-director and then ricocheted off her body onto the surrounding counselors. The campers went nuts as Montreal and I broke the world record for most counselors dunked at once.
So now I'm living at 319 East 75th street Apt 6a, in a cozy studio on the Upper East Side. I have a bed, a comfy air-mattress, a couch, and an exercise mat, so in all I could sleep 6 people comfortably. I'm mentioning this because I would love to have you come visit/stay with me anytime! I work a tad during the week, but if you would like to explore NYC and not drop the dough on a hotel room, I have a (3rd) world-class exercise station (see walmart.com product called "The Power Tower"), and a subscription to blockbuster online that all guests may enjoy free of charge. There's a dude in a cart down the block who serves a continental breakfast, and a dry-cleaners in the building who speaks Mandarin and nothing else. So please, come visit, drop me a line, or put me on your Christmas card list- I'd love to stay in touch.
Un abrazo,
Jeff
Halloween Costume this year: American Gladiators
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