My Valentine's Day Present

我是一個愛的牧羊人　尋找一個愛我的人

- 愛的牧羊人 (伍思凱)

So I've been pulling my hair out over my dissertation lately. 

My gripe: the professor with whom I've been attached to seem to think that I'm some super student. He expects me to have read all the papers he has written over his 15-year long professorship. He expects me to be able to interpret the results of all his advanced econometric models (lagged correlations, multi-variate regression, durbins-watson, granger casuality, and what not). When I pointed out to him that our school does not have any public computers with the requisite software installed, he expects me to get it, by hook or by crook. And he expects me to learn to the software from scratch, by myself. Besides fumbling with this econometrics software, I've also have had to learn how to navigate the Thomson Datastream financial database. Alone. It is a steep learning curve.

When I reported my results to him, which unfortunately was statistically insignificant, he suggested I scrap the rather sizeable section and embark on a totally new sub-topic. He made the suggestion in a off-handed and nonchalant kind of manner, as if it's perfectly natural that one should pour weeks of effort down the drain . As of today, I have spent many a man-hour poring through the balance sheets of some 120 Singapore and Hong Kong property companies, classifying them into his requested categories. I have also written and re-written, organized and re-organized my dissertation umpteen times.

He is a hard task master, one I thought will never be satisfied. Which was why it was so awesome when a fellow student mentioned earlier that the professor casually revealed to him/her during one of their meetings, that "Jansen is very hardworking". Win. On the exterior, I didn't bat an eyelid, but inside, my heart was set aflutter.

Today, I think I fell in love.