My old trusty laptop is so old that I can't even get a memory upgrade for it :(

Hoping to get a better performance I lugged my 4-year old laptop to the store and bought some memory. However, it appears that the memory I bought is incompatible - I think it's something to do with the memory speed. The speed supported is 266mhz (?) which is really old, and I could only find 333mhz (?). I guess I need to return the memory and get them to special order some old memory for me. Troublesome.

Just another boring weekend. I managed to sleep my Saturday away. Up at 8.00am, asleep at 10.00am, up at 12.30pm, asleep at 3.00pm and finally up at 6.30pm.

I managed to do pretty well for my 1000 Critical Reasoning, Test III scoring 19/20 :)

Despite hardly touching the GMAT for the past week, my sentence correction has improved. I managed to do Questions 126 - 150 from the 1000 SC set with only 1 mistake - I forgot the idiom "believe X to be Y".

May Questions 126 - 150 are easy questions, but nevertheless, it feels good that I've improved. Next, to get a perfect score of 25/25 (I divide and make my own little sets of 25 questions per set).

So, at least, it's something concrete to show me that I am improving.

Princeton Review called me again asking me to enroll into their GMAT course. They have been calling me regularly, every 3 weeks of so, and I refuse them each time as the course is not guaranteed to improve my score. However, lately they have been saying that they are willing to issue a letter of guarantee stating that my score will reach 720 and above if I attend the course. So, I'm waiting for them to actually pen it down and send it to me. So that's an interesting situation, to see whether they are willing to stand up for their services. Maybe I'm being a bit unreasonable, but really, I have no intention of signing up for the course when I could use the money for a Maths course, or some other worthy cause.

It is a wonderful thing to be able to sit at the computer, with just music and the GMAT to keep me company. Honestly speaking, I could probably spend hours and days just doing that. There is a sense of accomplishment when you get each question correct or understand where you went wrong. However, there's more to life than the GMAT and funky music, so let's get on with it!

First up. I've decided to do and online maths course with the University of Illinois (Urbana Champaign). With a weak (read - non :P) quantitative background, it would definitely be in my favor to complete a quant course. Of course, nothing less than an straight A is expected.

However, I'm stuck in a timing situation. Given that I'm starting on the NetMath course, I would only complete it end of September (it's a 17 week course). Tuck's EA rounds are usually in October along with the 1st round for other schools. So I'm a bit tight on time there. Taking into consideration that I intend to hit the GMAT one more time for posterity, I haven't much time to set aside for the GMAT.

Throw in a new job that is probably going to be very demanding in terms of time.... I'm going to be really tight on time.... regardless, onward ho!

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After reading some psychology book, my mother has brought to my attention that she believes my drive to attend a top b/school is possibly the result of low self esteem brought about by depression. :(

I do wish my mother would stop making conclusions like that.

Do depressed people attend b/school?

Investment banking here I come!

However, not to do any of that sexy investment banking and finance stuff... but instead, to do advertising and promotions for the bank.

I rejected the bank's first offer to do private banking as I was not comfortable in a sales position and was not confident of being able to bring in the money and being a top performer as I do not have the necessary networks and contacts. My performance would be compared against people with an existing client base. So since I am not confident of being a top performer, then why take the job? My belief is simple, if you're going to do something, you better aim to be a top performer, or else don't take the job.

So I shared my feelings, and my ambitions to do corporate finance or return to advertising and marketing. Lo and behold, the bank decided to offer me an advertising and promotions position.

i) Small start-up department - easier recognition, easier communications with the top management and more opportunities to take on different projects

ii) Investment bank - comes with the benefits I would be getting at any other bank

iii) Job scope - something that interests me...

So I'm off!

I'm a bit depressed that I'm only hitting 70% for my Sentence Correction and Critical Reasoning. I definitely need to push it up to the 85% mark.

Well now.

My girlfriend and I broke up, citing irreconcilable differences:

i) My permanent state of unhappiness with the world and always wanting more.
ii) My need to compare myself and benchmark myself.
iii) Living in my own little world of the GMAT and MBAs.
iv) Different priorities, goals, morals and such.

I guess, I've been expecting it to a certain extent. But never now, as things had taken (or so it seemed) a turn for the better. Conversations were good, we were looking to meet up and we were having fun.

Guess you really never know when.