#32. Committees, CFA, and Co-ed Softball (Tuesday, August 9, 2016)

#32. Committees, CFA, and Co-ed Softball (Tuesday, August 9, 2016)

What was your best day…of succeeding at multiple important things?

I knew this day was coming. Tuesday, August 9th, the day the CFA Institute said they’d be sending us the exam results for the Level III exam we wrote in June. (The CFA is this common but highly-regarded professional finance designation that you get after passing three notoriously painful exams.1)

But not just that. At work, there was also a senior committee meeting that day – where the most substantial policy recommendations get recommended and (hopefully) approved. And this project I had been working on for the past six months was on the agenda.

The first part, the policy committee part, went really well. I only had five minutes at the end to present my stuff, but I made the most of it. Both of the managing directors liked it, and it got approved without any questions. Excellent.

As for the second part. Well, I needed to access my personal e-mail. And that was blocked at my institution. So after work I ran over to the public library2; but since I hadn’t used a library card in over five years, my account was disabled and I kind of had to ask/beg one of the librarians to let me use their computer for a few minutes. And so I logged on, and…

I passed. But it was a pretty close call. Whereas for past exams I had scored in the top third for each section (except Ethics, which was a pain in the ass); for this one, I scored in the middle third for more than half the sections.

But that was it. I was done. No more 300 hours of studying in the middle of spring for me. I was now a CFA charterholder3.

So I walk out of the library in bliss. And next, I have to meet Madison Schmidt outside her apartment for her to drive with a few of us to the co-ed softball game – as part of the league that a bunch of people from my institution, her, and some criminal lawyer acquaintances were doing this summer. I make the ten-minute walk to the area, then I hear her call out to me. She’s just walking her dog Bridget outside; so I join her in making the rounds and chatting for twenty minutes as we wait for the others to show up. (Note that I had a pretty big theoretical crush4 on Madison at the time, so it’s a pretty fun twenty minutes.)

Then, on the way to our softball game, David (#53), Gordon, James, and I explain to Madison the wonders of the Pokemon Go game we’ve all been playing; and she is dumbfounded that such a thing could even exist.

Side Note: The summer of 2016 will forever be known as the summer of Pokemon Go. When Niantic released this new mobile game that had you venturing onto the streets and parks (and less savory areas) to catch those cute little creatures. And for a few months, it completely exploded.5 There was one spot in the city, Dick Bell Park, this cool little peninsula next to a big beach and yacht club, which had three “hot spots” for finding Pokemon. So on any weekend afternoon, you would find 100+ people (me included) gathered on that thin strip of land catching Pokemon on their phones.6

And we promptly lose, as usual, by some severely lopsided score7. But, as usual, we all had fun, drank a lot (even though the rules forbade us), and then went out for wings and more drinks afterwards.

A perfect day in a really, really good summer.

  1. Also, the exams are curved so that only the top 50 percent pass each time. The Level III exam is held only once a year; so if you fail it…you gonna wait another year.
  2. Note that I was still using an old Nokia flip-phone at the time.
  3. Well, not exactly. I had to get two more years of requisite work experience, submit my application to the Institute, get my two professional references, get accepted by my local CFA society, and pay my annual dues…then I could call myself a CFA charterholder. (That happened in 2018.)
  4. Theortical, as in, I would have had a crush on her, if I was actually interested in finding a girlfriend at that time.
  5. Which Niantic squandered in a colossal way by refusing to fix a simple bug that prevented the tracking of new Pokemon, i.e. the entire purpose of the game.
  6. Once I got yelled at by an old man on his bike for parking in a “restricted” spot (because everywhere else was taken). He then ranted to me for about five minutes about “you kids and your stupid Pokemon Go nonsense”.
  7. We end up going 0-12 for the season. Though, to note, I was by far the most improved player on the team. (Despite my lifelong fanatical interest in watching baseball, I couldn’t even hit a slow-pitch softball the first two games.)