My Hero...Sigh

See this guy? This is Chris. Followers of the blog may recognize him as the GQ guy fleeing the scene of the gas leak. He’s my hero. FDR, Bill Russell, Hugh Hefner…make room for one more. See, Chris and I took Cases in Financial Analysis together. I passed. In fact I did well. Because of Chris. ONLY because of Chris. He was in my group. And I don’t think any of my other groupmates would be offended if I asserted that he was pretty much our entire group.

He carried us. Well, at the very least he carried me. And I feel bad about that. I feel like I was just a weight around his neck all semester. I wanted to understand and he always patiently explained. But I was like the kid who is kicking and punching the lifeguard in the face as he’s being dragged from the pool. I’m sure it would have been so much easier for Chris if I had just resigned myself to the fact that I was being rescued and gone limp. Or really, if I hadn’t jumped in at all.

I’ve been Chris. In my undergrad, I’ve totally been the Chris. There were certain subjects I seemed to catch onto pretty easily and scholarship pressure had me pretty motivated to succeed. So I’ve carried the group. I just never thought I’d be on the other end of that. But I was in this class. It was awful.

This class I’m talking about, Cases in Financial Analysis, turned out to be one of my favorite classes by far. Dan said he wished he could take the class again and I totally agree. It’s basically a David Lynch movie. First time around you are exposed to great stuff, but you know there are depths that you are just not diving deep enough to reach. Chris is swimming around down there. Aline, too. But not me. I’m in the shallow end with floaties and earplugs. Still, I learned SO MUCH. (See that? I capitalized it. I must be serious.) This class gave weight to my MBA. It made me feel like I know business. Like I know it more than the day-trader scientists I play poker with. Beyond the mechanics or theory that anyone can just look up. This class gave me real insight. Real analysis and valuation skills. Real understanding. I totally have a crush on this class.

Dr. Schallheim, my professor, was great. For one, we had a dunking booth at the end of the year at some festival thing and Schallheim was handed a ball, turned, and nailed it. No prep, no hesitation. Got’er done. What a stud. But if he parents anything like he teaches, I feel for his children. Seems like his idea of swim lessons would be tossing the kids in the pool and diving in after them just before they drown. That was the class. He frequently left us to our own devices when working cases. Lots of mistakes, lots of “wasted” time, lots of frustration, lots of learning. Classes like that are great on one condition. Don’t have more than one per semester. If you have a schedule full of Schallheim and Schmidt, well, good luck with that.

Lots of aquatic references in this post.

One more thing. Why Yogesh, a guy in my class, is just rad…he’d thrown 8 balls at the dunking booth. Missed all 8. Some quite badly. He shook his fists, clenched his eyes shut, and declared for all to hear, “My blood is boiling!” Then he bought 4 more balls. Hit, hit, miss, hit. Well done, Yogesh.

Know what? Aline's gonna be pissed when she sees I cropped her out of the pic.

Well, I’d better get back to looking for an internship. And yes, it’s probably too late. Crap. I’m assuming no one will be reading this over the summer so I’ll probably stop posting until the fall. But it appears they’ll have me doing this again for year 2 so if you enjoyed reading it, check back. And if anyone has any questions or issues they’d like me to blog about over the summer, leave a comment. I have a feeling I may end up with an uncomfortable amount of time on my hands.