Yesterday was my 22nd birthday and I tried to enjoy myself. After waking early and going to my 10 o'clock econometrics lecture I went to the pier on a birthday walk to get some sea air (slightly hungover after Wednesday but nowhere near as badly as the majority) and took a few nice photos that I've posted. Then had a birthday trip to the post office to despatch a load of parcels followed by a takeaway Pizza Express and some birthday cake. Had hockey in the evening (happy birthday was sung; embarassing) and a takeaway curry for dinner. Unfortunately because of Wednesday's nights shenanigans, nobody really wanted to socialise in the evening so went for one drink (lager shandy) with some friends and an early bed. My birthdays in St Andrews have been quite mixed - 1st year was on a Sunday so played some golf on the Balgove and had a Sunday roast in the evening, 2nd year I had an exam the day after and went for a dinner at the West Port, 3rd year (21st) went to the Old Course for dinner and some cocktails and this year not a lot! Birthdays are generally a bit of an anticlimax - although for the first time in many years I am having a birthday party of sorts next Wednesday with a Mexican theme which should be amusing.
Term is in full swing now with many events taking place and flyposting present outside the library for various themed parties/balls and other such things. The time is flying by with hockey dominating most of my time - if someone was to ask me whether I was making the most of my final year, the answer would have to be no simply because all I've done is play hockey which is rather tedious. My econometrics lecturer happens to be a keen table tennis player and after a chat with him today I think we may have a game sometime which could be quite good fun. Unfortunately econometrics isn't giving me much of a headache at the moment. On the other hand, Economic Analysis has given me a massive headache - I sat down today and looked at our tutorial for next week for a good 2 hours and even with notes and textbook couldn't answer a question. So with no hockey on Sunday it is going to be a case of trying to make some sense of the questions. With a class mean last year of 12.9/20 it definitely isn't an easy course but having attended every lecture, done some reading and made good notes one would hope to be able to answer at least one question.
Most fourth year people seem to be doing job applications or having interviews at the moment which is good for them. I have sort of taken the attitude that my degree should take priority over such things and with my degree classification being borderline that would make sense. I am still in two minds over the Masters debate having learnt that simply doing a Masters in Economics is a silly idea because it offers no added value so the only real option would be to do a pHD. Does this appeal to me? Yes, a lot as I have a passion for economics that has only just returned from my school days. What would I write my dissertation on? No idea. Where would I go? No idea. So whilst it sounds good in principle it is a huge commitment (5 years) and a few people have commented that it is just my way of deferring entry into the job market which has some truth - now is a terrible time to be looking to enter the job market. I have very strong feelings about joing a big company on a graduate scheme and the only thing that offers mass appeal is being an entrepeneur but again this is a gamble...
Have attached some photos which aren't particularly nice. Next post I'm going to talk more about entrepeneurial stuff and eBay etc.
J
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