10 things I've done (that no one else I know here has)

[fluffymark]

1. Written a disturbingly popular computer game.

2. Been interviewed by lead traders and very important people at several top city banks while I had bright pink hair.

3. Represented England and Britain at the card game Bridge.

4. Got sent on an all-expenses paid trip to Chicago on a flight costing several thousand pounds purely for a job interview.

5. Graduated with the top first of my subject at Cambridge, with a mark well over 10% ahead of the next person.

6. Fallen in love with someone on the steps of the Sacre Coeur in Montmartre.

7. First to explain and simulate the capture and migration of protoplanets into resonance only weeks after the first such planetary system was discovered.

8. Ordered two dozen t-shirts with the slogan "Sex and Chocolate" on the back.

9. Given up chocolate for a whole year.

10. Performed onstage as the Good Angel in the Seven Deadly Sins Fashion show in a venue squashed full of hundreds of pretentious goths at Whitby.

I think I'll stop there, I won't even go into some of the more embarassing things I've done....*cringe*

Oh, I won't be at the Oakdale tonight - my boss has demanded I attend a work dinner, so no beer for me. *sobs* If people are going to be there tomorrow, I may pop in then instead. *hopeful*

Comments

[arkady.livejournal.com]

I shall be there tomorrow but not tonight.

[fluffymark]

Excellent! :)

[andrewwyld.livejournal.com]

Impressive, dude. Impressive.

[fluffymark]

*largebow* Yours are more impressive, I think. But yep, thanks. :)

[andrewwyld.livejournal.com]

I disagree, thinking yours to be more impressive, but the mutual admiration is definitely a good scene.

[fluffymark]

Is this is the point I now pretend to be gay now, darling? ;)

[andrewwyld.livejournal.com]

Feel free, sweetheart.  I'll just power up the cattle prod.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

The urge to write slashfiction about the two of you is overwhelming.

[andrewwyld.livejournal.com]

Whelm it with all your might, dear girl.  There's more than one use for a cattle-prod.

[fluffymark]

Indeed! *prod*

[rainbowskye.livejournal.com]

All perfectly believable except no. 9 - who could do that?!!

[fluffymark]

I was a fool. What can I say? *gesturespathetically*

[painted-bird.livejournal.com]

Argh.

I want a top first.

But there was beer... And more beer... And now 2 and a half years have passed with barely a book perused... :(

[fluffymark]

Don't mix books and beer!!! The books get very soggy, and smell for weeks after they have dried out. Bad idea I tell you!

[fluffymark]

Never even heard of tarot (as a game) - I'll investigate it. I've not played Bridge in years though. I suspect there are many Bridge players on my friends list - 4 of us must get together sometime and fix a game. Or something.

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

Taro, I think, rather than tarot.

[fluffymark]

Aha! That would make more sense. Tarot just made me think of Tarot cards and the like. Still have no idea what Taro is, mind you. Must investigate. I bought a very pretty set of Mucha playing cards while in Berlin which I want to play with! :)

[liv]

I've played taro(t), though never very well. I believe it can be played with a mixture of tarot and standard cards, so the idea is, IIRC, that you have something like 15 to a suit instead of 12. The person who taught me the game didn't really know what she was doing, so it ended up being more like hearts than bridge. But I could see the potential for bridge-like extensions; there's an interesting partnership structure and a complicated scoring system based on how the tricks you actually make compare to the tricks you claim you're going to make.

[fluffymark]

Mmmmmmm. Sounds very interesting. :) :) :)

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

#2 Did you get any offers?

#6 Does falling in lust count? Climbed all the way up there with a mad Russian, in an after-midnight unguided tour of Old Paris (trippy, there's a guy walking out of a solid cliff face and, er, *stops before the TMA Event Horizon*.

Clarification

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

#2 Did you get any offers of employment?

[fluffymark]

#2 Oh certainly not! They all blatently exclaimed upon seeing me that they didn't discriminate upon apperarance but they certainly did.

#6 May have been lust rather than love - hard to be sure now, but I think it was lust for the other person who is probably reading this so I wouldn't be the only one if it was, if you see what I mean. Or something. You know. She'll shout at me now, I'm sure. ;)

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Ironically, you are even more an object of lust - financially - for the bankers now that you have a D.Phil in astrophysics. I could get you into *medium continental bank* now if you're prepared spend an hour reading the Financial Times' Mastering Credit Derivatives before the interview. For a starting salary that's a multiple of my consultancy rate, and your career progression is either senior risk quant or derivatives trader, for a multiple of your departmental budget.

Hair colouring permitting.

But if you wanted that, I guess you'd you'd already be doing that. And I wonder whether, in a few years' time, you'd actually thank me for arranging that. Perhaps not, and rightly so.

oh, and there's a couple of items on your list that i m p r e s s me. Bloody well done!

[fluffymark]

I've devoured two whole textbooks on derivatives and other options. Quite boring, but if there is an *interesting* job ever going in that direction, I could be interested. Right now I'm happy being a video compression geek. They don't mind how I look - banks seem to be a bit more fussy.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Goodness, I never realised you were that clever (looking at a few of those). You must have The Knack. In degree terms I'd settle for a mid 2:1 at this point (or as my fingers want to say, a mid 2:!, possibly a representation of "well, the knowledge is there, but the handwriting is illegible").

[fluffymark]

I pretend not to be a genius most of the time for self preservation purposes. People don't seem to like me when I admit how clever I really am. Pretending to be stupid is useful on many occasions.

[ixwin.livejournal.com]

awwww

*huggles*

I promise I won't stop liking you if you're clever at me. I might not understand everything, but I shan't dislike you for it.

[fluffymark]

*smallsmile* thankyou. :)

[karen2205]

*pouts*, why is it that people always arrange gatherings like this when I'm out of London?
Yes, I still hate revision.

[fluffymark]

Am missing seeing you. Lots.

When are you next free? Am sadly not free on tuesday....again!!! :(

[karen2205]

Me too:-(

See my most recent post:) - I'm fairly free for the next couple of weeks and I now have Mondays completely free 'cos my LPC classes are Wednesdays and Thursdays!

[erming.livejournal.com]

People are hopefully doing beer on Sat if your interested....

[fluffymark]

*nods* hopefully, although it is currently looking like I'll be there tomorrow.

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

#9 I've given up chocolate for a year, I was getting bad migraines at the time.

#5 Ooh, clever you. I knew a guy who got the top marks they'd ever had in his department, which was maths at Bath and he got an average of 93%. Yuck. I'm curious to know where I am in mine; probably nothing that spectacular, but I gather a row of straight As for Honours is fairly unusual, so I'm guessing that I'm in the top five or ten. I intend to improve upon this, naturally...

[fluffymark]

#9 Oh damn, I thought nobody else would be so foolish!

#5 It wasn't a high mark at all - I only got about 70%. It was just a stupidly hard set of exams and nobody else got over 60%! Ask them if you want to know your position, they should tell you.

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

Oh, well I've certainly got over 70%, but I won't be the only one. Context is all, as they say.

I might well ask them, I could do with the ego boost, though I don't know if they'll have done a ranking for third year. Especially considering that my degree is likely to end up unclassified as a result of my finishing it a year early, even though had I been in England this very same amount and type of work would have amounted to a first class Honours. Humph. I'm not too bothered, it sounds like the Open University will let me in for postgrad anyway, in which case I'm about to sign myself up for lots of scary challenging and rewarding books that I will probably hate books that are of major importance in the Western canon. In other words, this will teach me to have skimped over Modernism in my second year. Nah, should be fab really.