face marred by dust, head filled with equations

So there is a week in every collegiate semester that makes all of the blood, sweat and tears shed over the previous four months worthwhile. Because during this last week our professors share precious gems of knowledge that they have acquired over their lives. Now, in contrast to the last two years of weed-out classes of about 800 students, my current courses are oh so personal. With about 15 students per classroom our professors know us well. very well. They've been willing to explain and reexplain as we tried our best to grasp these complicated financial concepts. They were patient with us even when we snuck a peak at our cell phones, and maybe even dozed off a few times during those morning hours. They sought to teach in a way that we could understand relating things like moral hazard and the barter economy to core principles of dating. They even may have let us take an midterm after the exam had closed... just because you got the dates mixed up. yeahhh I'm still in shock about that. 

Needless to say, over the semester we have become tight. 

This week has been especially meaningful for me as I'd venture to say that this semester was the most difficult, yet the most influential of my entire academic career. 

I struggled basically every day just to stay afloat. I battled with constant feelings of inadequacy with only occasional glimpses of sunlight. (I've come to the conclusion that anyone taking four finance classes after a 2-year sabbatical would probably have a somewhat similar experience.) 

But this week I have been able to ponder the semester holistically and now, even with finals looming in the near future, I feel an immense sense of gratitude for the things I was able to accomplish over the last four months. While I will openly admit that there is still a lot about this great big world that I do not understand. Not even a little bit. But I think there is something to be said about the fact that I was able to have a captivating conversation with my dad last week on the ski slopes based on... drum roll pleaseeee...  interest rates. Yeah shocking, I know. That would have been unimaginable back in September. 

So here's to us doing things that are really, really challenging. Here's to us making mistakes but finding the strength to get up just one more time. 

Specific "last lecture" notes to follow but for now, enjoy some good Roosevelt wisdom:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

                                                                             -Theodore Roosevelt