Quarter-Life Crisis

I've been meaning to blog about the Quarter-Life Crisis, as I've been in this mode for the past 2 years. What better time to write about the quarter life crisis than 5AM on a Saturday morning right? I guess I'm not going to live to be particularly old, reaching quarter life crisis at 19... I guess some can claim that I'm not going through the same QLC as some late 20 year olds, but as far as I know, I meet most of the symptoms on wikipedia listed under quarter life crisis. Let's just say that I have all but ONE of the symptoms, and I won't say which one. The symptoms are as follows:

• feeling "not good enough" because one can't find a job that is at one's academic/intellectual level
  
• frustration with relationships, the working world, and finding a suitable job or career
• confusion of identity
• insecurity regarding the near future
• insecurity concerning long-term plans, life goals
• insecurity regarding present accomplishments
• re-evaluation of close interpersonal relationships
• disappointment with one's job
• nostalgia for university, college, high school or elementary school life
• tendency to hold stronger opinions
• boredom with social interactions
• loss of closeness to high school and college friends
• financially-rooted stress (overwhelming college loans, unanticipatedly high cost of living, etc.)
• loneliness
• desire to have children
• a sense that everyone is, somehow, doing better than you

So after some googling and personal experience, I have found practical ways to deal with the infamous quarter life crisis.

1. Grow up. I think this is what i mainly struggle with. I have to accept that I am old, and no longer a child. I have to accept the fact that I have responsibilities and am an adult. I can't get away with crying and fussing to get my way. No one really cares if I fuss and cry and surely will not change your your circumstances.
2. Acceptance of Reality. Stop being in denial! You are no longer a child. It will not change if you date younger people 10 years your junior to feel young, or if you date older people to feel younger relative to them. Stop lying about your age.
   
3. Interpersonal Relationships. According to The Happiness Trip, which I highly recommend, one part of the formula to reaching happiness is interpersonal relationships. Establish key friendships that are more than just people you can party with.
   
4. A search for something meaningful. For me it's religion, specifically Christianity. That's all I'll really say right now. i think religion helps me with my sense of identity. How I do pity the lonely atheists...
   
5. Finding your passion. By no way am I advocating to quit your day job and start your own band. I'm a cynic, I don't believe people LOVE their jobs, but that doesn't mean that you can have things you are passionate about. I love playing basketball and the guitar, and I work in finance, and am not a professional basketball player or a rockstar. I don't have a problem with that, as long as my job doesn't take over my leisure time in that I can't pursue what I want to do.
   
6. Random Acts of Kindness. Still remember my junior high teacher who championed "random acts of kindness." I think this is actually the most selfish thing you can do. Not only does it makes you feel better about yourself by helping others, it also brings positive karma. I recommend nycares.org for volunteer work in New York City.
   
7. Engage others. I guess this point is a combination of #3 and #7. Talk to random people you encounter! Compliment them. Strike up a random conversation. You will find out that you are not all that alone.
   
8. Love life. I think this is the most important point. I've been striving so hard towards certain goals that I don't have time to "stop and smell the roses." Just slow down and do things that make you happy. Do a little window shopping. Enjoy the sunset. Whatever it is, just slow down and appreciate the little things in life and just LOVE LIFE.
   

Don't know if this is helpful as I am struggling with this myself. Now excuse me while I kiss the sky.

Woman's Scorn.... Country vs. Hip Hop

Country Music..... featuring Carrie Underwood in Before He Cheats

Right now he's probably slow dancing
With a bleached-blond tramp
And she's probably getting frisky
Right now, he's probably buying
Her some fruity little drink
'Cause she can't shoot whiskey

Right now, he's probably up behind her
With a pool stick
Showing her how to shoot a combo
And he don't know

I dug my key into the side
Of his pretty little souped-up 4 wheel drive
Carved my name into his leather seat
I took a Louisville slugger to both head lights
Slashed a hole in all 4 tires
And maybe next time he'll think before he cheats


Representing Hip Hop, Jazmin Sullivan in Bust Your Windows

I bust the windows out ya car
And no it didn't mend my broken heart
I'll probably always have these ugly scars
But right now I don't care about that part

I bust the windows out ya car
After I saw you laying next to her
I didn't wanna but I took my turn
I'm glad I did it cause you had to learn...

I must admit it helped a little bit
To think of how you'd feel when you saw it
I didn't know that I had that much strength
But I'm glad you see what happens when...

You see can't just play with people's feelings
Tell them you love them and don't mean it
You'll probably say that it was juvenile
But I think that I deserve to smile

I bust the windows out ya car
You know I did it cause I left my mark
Wrote my initials with the crowbar
And then I drove off into the dark



Country wins, hands down. Carrie Underwood is gangsta. Would not want to mess with her! And how much do you love those lyrics, "right now, he's probably buying her a fruity little drink 'cause she can't shoot whiskey."

Valuations for Dummies Part 3

So I'm super pissed off that Morgan Stanley blocked blogger (what am I going to do at work now since they already blocked facebook earlier?!?!?!), and super pissed off that I got an A- on Equity Valuation. Like wtf, reallly? Was really counting on getting an A for the class. Probably going to ask the professor how he arrived at the grade considering I got A on both midterms, so I assume I didn't do as well on the final. The class was really fucked up as I had to do the valuation project all by my self in a 6 people group. Took me 5 days at work to complete. Ok enough about me..

Anyways, today I'm going to go into the Cash Flows in the Valuations.

So I've talked about the WACC as a discount rate to use in discounting your cash flows from the business. But how exactly do you arrive at the cash flows? Intuitively, it makes sense. The value of the company is simply the cash flows that are paid out to the investors or debt holders, and the company's value lies in these cash flows. Now, the cash flow we are concerned with is the Cash Flow to Firm, which encompasses the cash flow to equity holders as well as debt holders.

First you need the revenues of the firm. Any firm generates revenue... it's bascially the sales of goods or services. From your revenues you need to subtract the expenses to get a profit, or what we call earnings. This is known as the operating earnings, since it is the earnings from the main function of the firm, not taking into taxes or interest. We also call this the Earnings Before Interest and Taxes, or the EBIT. This is what the IRS looks at and taxes, so therefore, if the marginal corporate tax rate is 40%, what the company ends up retaining is 60%. So therefore, we take EBIT(1-Tax Rate) to arrive one step closer to our cash flow to firm.

It's important to know that we are not finished here! There are many charges that are not CASH outflows or inflows, just accounting measures so we need to adjust for them. We need to add back depreciation and amortization since they are taken out of the earnings, yet no cash was paid for these expenses. We need to subtract capital expenditures since accountants feel like capital expenditures add value back to the firm, so they are not subtracted out of earnings, yet cash was paid for these investments. Lastly, we need to subtract the change in net working capital. Any increases in net working capital ties up cash to the company, and we need to subtract it out of our after-tax operating earnings.

Therefore, our formula should be as follows: Free Cash Flow to Firm = EBIT(1-Marginal Tax Rate) + depreciation and amortization - capital expenditures - change in net working capital.

Our company valuation will be the sum of all the Free Cash Flow to Firm (FCFF) from year 1 to year infinity (since the company will be assumed to be existence forever), but discounted properly by the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC).

Mathematically, the value of the company works out to be the FCFF / (WACC - growth rate of the company). Keep in mind that since we are using the FCFF and the WACC (as opposed to the Free Cash Flow to Equity, and the Cost of Equity), this is the value of the company as a whole, not only to equity holders but also to debt holders.

All this may seem dry and boring, but there are real life applications to this! For example, http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/32/nba08_NBA-Team-Valuations_Rank.html is an article by Forbes about the Valuations of different NBA Teams, with the New York Knicks valued at $613 million. I can count on it that Forbes used the same method to arrive at these valuations!

Guilty Pleasure...

I LOVE ALY & AJ. They are 2 sisters from California, one 20 and one 18. I am obsessed with their song Potential Breakup Song. The beginning of the song goes as follows:

It took too long
It took too long
It took to long for you to call back
And normally I would just forget that
Except for the fact it was my birthday
My stupid birthday

AHHH I love it... story of my life.. haha

And plus I love their style!!! Pop-rock princess... I LOVE IT!! SUPER CUTE! Just googled a place where I can find their outfits! http://www.michalkastyle.org

It also makes me feel shitty that they are both younger than me! :(

Sales Going On.. Spring 2009

Just got really awesome clothes at Club Monaco. 1 beautiful lilac dress with ruffles, 1 lilac python skinny belt, 1 long grey cardigan, and 1 blue and black floral full skirt. Everything I got was already marked down (except the belt), plus you get an additional Student Discount of 20% off at Club Monaco, if you just show them your Student ID! It's the first time I got clothes at Club Monaco and I LOVE IT! I will be returning.

Also got the YSL Volume Effet Faux Cils Mascara (French for Volume Effect Fake Lashes, I suppose?) and the YSL Touche Eclat. I know the Mascara is definitely awesome, I've tried it and all of my friends rave about it. I've heard good things about the Touche Eclat, which is apparently the #1 selling cosmetic item in all of Bloomingdales. Also got the Mac Liquid Eyeliner.. because I've been using the Mac Fluid Line, but I feel like it's just not dramatic enough.

Anyway, enough about myself and my purchases... I wanted to tell you all of the sales going on now!

Macy's Friends and Family Sale



Bloomingdales is having a presale for all regular priced shoes: Buy 2 pairs and get 20% percent off!

Bloomies is also having a handbag event, with all already discounted bags for an extra 40% off. I saw this really cool Lambskin Leather Lilac Coach bag at the SOHO Bloomies for only $150. I don't love Coach so I didn't get it. There's a lot of other cool Coach stuff, some Botkier, some Felix Rey actually.




Lastly, Bloomies is doing $25 off for every $100 online, with code SAVE25 good through May 10, 2009. It's supposed to be a mother's day promotion, so get something for your mommies!!

SAKS is supposedly having this legendary sale... some are calling it Sale of the Century. You sign up for more details at http://Saks.com/areyouin. Supposedly, it will start at 40% off, and then go up to 70% off. I'll definitely keep this on my radar and update this as I find out more information. I do think it will feature Chanel, YSL, Christian Louboutin, and other high end lines which NEVER go on sale.

BCBG is having 20% off all full-priced items, online with code BCBGSTYLE09, and in store with a copy of People Style Watch May 2009. There's also other random places with sales in the People Style Watch May 2009 issue, but I don't find any of the stores super nice or anything.

Valuations for Dummies Part 2

This post is continued from Valuation for Dummies

So in the first entry, I basically explained how to value a project, the value of a firm, the value of equity, or the value of a stock (which is just equity per share). I will go into more details in this entry about the WEIGHTED AVERAGE COST OF CAPITAL (WACC), or simply the Cost of Capital.

Companies need to raise money to undertake different projects or for plans of expansion. They can accomplish that through 2 main financial instruments: Equity and Debt. The capital they raise of course come at a cost, as no one will lend out money for free. That cost, which is an interest rate (which would be a percent) is the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC).

The WACC, or the Cost of Capital, is the average of the (1) THE COST OF EQUITY, and (2) THE COST OF DEBT. It is a percent at which you are discounting all the cash flows by, because it is how much it will cost for the firm (or the project) to get capital. Basically, an interest rate for the company. To think of it, you can think of the credit card APR for a company. Obviously, it will be a lot lower than our individual APR we get on our American Express card, because banks and investors believe that a company can pay back its debt better than individuals. The more likely you are able to pay back your debt, the lower the interest on capital is. For you and me, we have our credit score.

For corporations, there is something called Beta, which reflects how risky the company is. The lower the Beta, or the less risky the company is, the lower rate they will have. This is reflected in the COST OF EQUITY.

Corporations also have a rating, given by a rating agency (which can be Moody's, S&P). It is very similar to our individual credit score, except they are rated on different scales. For example, investment grade S&P ratings range from AAA to BBB. Depending on what rating the company has, it will have a different cost of debt. Each rating has a corresponding spread, that you add to the risk free debt (which is usually the 10-year U.S. Government bond), to get an interst rate for the COST OF DEBT.

Using the Cost of Equity and Cost of Debt, you can get the Weighted Average Cost of Capital by take the weight of equity times the cost of equity, plus the weight of debt times the cost of debt. Sounds complicated, but it's simply just the weighted average. Once you get your WACC, you can discount your cashflows by this interest rate! Next, I'll probably go into how to get your free cash flows.

ACL Update

Ok so my MRI results came back... Completely tore my ACL, partially tore my MCL, and tore my LCL. WTF, didn't even know there was a LCL. I hate my life. I want to die. I wished I had the swine flu so I could die.

This is probably the worst thing that happened to me... I mean nothing horrible has ever happened to me and this is definitely the worst. I was watching some videos on ACL reconstructive surgery and it's gross. They basically graft muscle from your shin, meaning they cut up your shin, cut out the muscle, sew it back, and use that as the graft for an artifical ACL. To get the ACL into the knee, they drill through the bone, and the screw it in on both sides of the knee. It's seriously the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life.

I'm so scared I can't stop crying. People say it's the most painful thing they have ever gone through. I guess I can deal with the pain, but I don't think I can deal with the inconvienence, and not being able to do what I want to do. Crutches suck, and I live in a 3rd floor walk up. How the hell am I supposed to get home? I can't deal with the fact that I won't be able to go to school or go to work for a few weeks. It's like my life completely on standby for a few weeks. And after that, it takes 6 months to recover, so it's like half a year out of my life for nothing.

Looked into non-surgical methods, but that still means that I can't run or play basketball ever in my life. I don't have a lot of vices or hobbies or whatever, and basketball is one of them, and I can't even do that. Not to mention I'm getting fat sitting on my ass not getting cardio from running, which I used to do everyday. There's this thing called PRP, which most likely will not work, especially on a completely torn ACL, which isn't even covered by my insurance.

Again, i reiterate.. I want to die..