Home straight

For a good beginning – a linguistic puzzle. What’s the English for wyjęty z życiorysu? No dictionary can help translating this concept of busy period in which one cannot lead a normal life. So what? Subtracted from life? Taken out of lifetime? Written off? Simply lost or wasted?

Regardless of what correct translation is, the fortnight which started yesterday enjoys such status. I’ve just entered the final stage of my CFA level I exam preparation which has lasted since late March this year. The exam in its substance is not very difficult, but the size of curriculum a candidate has to master and time frame allotted to answer all tricky questions make it a challenge. I sacrificed an equivalent of my monthly salary to sign up for the programme and buy the books and spent several hundred hours sitting for it (if paid for which as for doing overtime I would have earned more than my car’s market value today), so a failure would be a considerable pity. Nevertheless I am prepared for the worst scenario and if it materialises, the world is not going to end, yet I’ve taken precautions to prevent it. I don’t fail to prepare, but this doesn’t mean I don’t have to be mentally prepared to fail.

I’m going to spend the coming days going over mock exams and revising the whole curriculum (3,000 pages, over a hundred formulas…). I initially planned to train before the exam by emulating the exam day schedule, i.e. cracking two exam sheets a day, as I’ll have to do on the exam day. This would require six hours spent doing tests plus additional time spent checking and reviewing answers and would terribly wear me down. The first day of exercising proved I should divide this by two, unless I want to come to the actual exam totally exhausted. So the revision schedule has been reset, so that I don’t end up weary and burnt-out on 1 December.

The coming time will be an experience of seclusion. I’ve taken ten days off work (paid), my phone will be switched off during working hours to preclude anyone from the office from nagging me with calls, the car will sit in the garage and won’t congest ul. Puławska during rush hours. Apart from down-to-earth activities I’ll focus on studying and taking physical exercise (a visit to the swimming pool in Piaseczno every second morning is a must) to give my brain enough oxygen to work at full steam and prevent me from putting on weight, while being fed by my mother (although it wouldn’t hurt to make up for at least one of these three kilograms lost in October and putting my on the verge of being underweight).

The experience of solitude confirms, again, I’m not cut out for working, nor spending time totally on my own, nor for academic work consisting in poring over books and taking details into pieces. Not a wonderful time, yet anyone who wants to achieve something in life must go through such phases.

Apologies in advance if I don’t post next Sunday and keep your fingers crossed on 1 December.

Prudent Student ;)

Red tape – a student’s bogey...

After the morning trip to my school, took almost in vain. In vain I deluded myself that I’d manage to fix a date of my BA final exam (PL: obrona – deliberately I don’t translate in literally, the words ‘defence’ and ‘defend oneself’ sound confusingly). It can be done only after all lecturers deliver the exam protocols to the dean’s office, what in my case won’t occur earlier than on 30th June (all the attempts of speeding up the process were fruitless). Then I'll have to wait for Pani Małgosia to tap the grades into the internal system and then close down the last semester and give me a credit. Yesterday I talked with the friend of mine, who studies at UMK in Toruń. For no apparent reason she doesn’t have her MA thesis graded by the supervisor (PL: promotor) nor reviewed, but has the date of her final exam already set for 14th July. I finished writing my thesis in February, had it graded in March and put it in on 5th May, I also know I’ve passed all exams and know the grades – doesn’t matter – I won’t catch through…

To boot, to receive the diploma, I’ll have to lay down my student card – that means I’ll be deprived of the status of student and all my rights (including discounts, mostly fare discounts) will be taken away from me for two months (August and September). But it’s going to shape up, it has to (either way I can also ship out, not recommendable).

The only formality I got on with was the clearance slip (PL: obiegówka), all the departments put their stamps on the card, so I’m clear with the school…

After a supposedly free week I suppose I fell victim to a procrastination (BTW – the next example of young Poles willing to show off with their English, they came up with the word ‘prokrastynacja’, instead of calling it simply ‘zwlekanie’) not in terms of learning but other stuff to handle. I put everything what could wait back to these weeks in the second half of June, so I’m still running errands – good for me – I never could spend my time idle, at least I’ll enter the second half of the year without a ‘list of things to do’ piled up relentlessly . Although the final exam and bureaucracy which enrolment on MA studies involves won’t let me have such quiet summer holidays like last year (combining internships and learning English).

SGH authorities should think seriously about renaming our school into “Warsaw School of Officialdom” (Szkoła Główna Biurokratyczna). Candidates would know what they’d be in for, it would render the main thing student tussle with there – not learning but legwork, paperwork, getting to grips with WD, etc.

Victory!!!

I’ve planned to write about something else, but the evening news of the results of enrolment on Master’s Studies took me aback. To my surprise they managed to announce them before May break… Admitted!
Load off my mind, at least I’m exempted from the entrance exam, now I only have to brace myself for dealing with bureaucracy…
I congratulate mostly the 86 ones who got in with average (of grades) higher than mine. For all of us it should be the day when our efforts are finally appreciated…

PS. I’ve noticed that some of national flags all already hoisted, before Labour Day…
1st May – Labour Day, the Bank Holiday being allegedly a legacy of communism, today nobody cares about marches and rallies and nobody pays tribute to the representatives of (hard) working class
2nd May – Since probably 2004 Flag’s Day, in People’s Poland Caretaker’s Day (Dzień ciecia)
3rd May – restored in the early nineties, an anniversary of enactment of Poland’s constitution the second in the world and first in Europe.
But now, above all the period of joy, taking three days off to have nine-day-long vacation (once in a few years), picnics, barbecues and so on…

Live it up! Grumbling comes on Monday!

Looking down at....

At my schoolmates… I took this photo during one of the most significant events taking place in my school – Marathon of Consulting Companies…


Sorry for the poor quality – it’s taken by my low-end Nokia (it’s time I started carrying the camera in my rucksack, btw – the last time I was just about to snap a picture I realised I had forgotten to put the batteries in), at the climax of the day – so called “szybki numerek”. Droves of people contending for a new notebook, trying hard to crack the numerical puzzle. Ambitious, career-minded, determined… What else? What do they pursue? What are their “elusive” goals? Are the ready to play foul? Hopefully, the answer to the last question is negative, but one should attempt to portray an average student of Warsaw School of Economics.
Why does the Consulting attract students like no other branch? Why do I find it so off-putting – is it only a predilection on swimming against the tide?

“Consultant is someone who borrows your watch to tell you the time” Excuse me, do you have the time?