Day 174

Yesterday was a pretty long day. I got up early to pack and finish getting ready for my trip to mount vernon.

I had finance. We got out tests back and I did alright. I didn't miss any one problem completely, just a little bit on multiple questions. One of them was especially frustrating because I had misread the question. This was frustrating because I'd reworked this problem three times, but none of those times did I catch that I'd misread it. Oh well. I think I can still pull off an A in the class, but I'll need to do very well on the next exam and final.

In life contingencies we talked more about the expected value of a portfolio of identical policies at given points of time. The basic idea is that the closer you get to the payout date, the higher the expected payout us for the insurance company. But early on after the policy starts the expected gain is very high. The implication is that most of this early profit has to be saved to ensure that the death benefit is available when it is needed.

After class I took Dustin home and then headed to Mount Vernon! I don't remember too much excitement. I stopped in London, Ohio to get some coffee at gas station. It claimed to have Jamaican blue mountain coffee. But it tasted nothing like it. I got to mount vernon around 240 and decided to see if any of my professors had classes. It just so happened that Dr. Whitaker was teaching number theory, so I paid them all a visit. I tried to sneak in, but my friends saw me and started laughing. Dr. Whitaker turned around and said "Joel Pagano! How are you!?" all surprised-like and things. I said that I was doing well. He was quite a bit thrown off. At the end of his lecture we had question and answer time with Joel. Mainly Dr. Whitaker just asked me things about grad school and recommendations for soon to be graduates. My best advice was to buff up your resume with volunteer experience. Anything that will set you apart from everyone else. And for future actuaries (which I think was just Courtney) I highly recommended taking exam P before going to grad school. After class I sat around and talked with Lindsey and Courtney for a while. They were avoiding soccer practice, and I was happy to help.

Then I went to the math department to talk with Dr. Noonan, but he was not there. I had a book of his to return. So i wrote him a note and put both in his mailbox. And talked with Sheryl about life. I've realized that I'm just really bad at answering the "how have you been?" question. I mean... What am I supposed to say besides "grad school is hard" and "I'm engaged"?

Kimmy was still in class so I went to go find Adam and Tyler. They weren't in their apartment so I just chilled with Tyler's little brother. We watched some classic war movie on TV. When kimmy was out of class she called me and we found each other. Woo! We went to go see our friends in academic support. Deanna was gone, but we were able to talk with Deborah. Then we went to Birch F lobby and made dinner. Well, heated it up. I'd previously made meatloaf and mashed potatoes. It was tasty.

After dinner we went to Kmart. Kimmy wanted an FM transmitter, but they were too expensive. So we looked at movies for a while, but didn't get any. So we came back to her apartment and watched a movie. When it was over we had a great discussion about education and the family structure. It started off with my frustration at the class I'm teaching, which is similar to the frustration she has from doing SI. And then (as our conversations often do) we talked about everything else that's even remotely related. It's very nice to have such stimulating conversation. I don't get that very often.

Then we went to the 586 and got food. Joel was working so I gave him a fantastic over the counter hug. After food and things I went to Zach's apartment and hung out with all those people. They were watching a movie. So i joined. James and i actually ended up talking about some of the same things Kimmy and I were discussing. So that was all sorts of goodness. And then... I stayed up way too late and went to bed!