Peter’s Blog V2

It’s a well known fact that actuaries are dull people, so the term “actuarial drama” is nearly as much an oxymoron as “business ethics”.  Well, guess what?  We’ve got one.

Bruce Schobel, arguably one of the most well-known and respected senior actuaries in the circle, had recently been removed as the president-elect from the American Academy of Actuaries, as a result of a felony he commited 30 years ago.

Bruce was a past president of the Society of Actuaries, and had highly engaged himself in public policy, professional promotion, and education reform for this profession.  At the same time, he’s constantly on online forums to provide information to actuaries and to help students study for exams.  To the junior exam takers and those without powerful top connections, he was somebody who really cared.  As the president of the SOA, he had signed and delivered over 1,000 FSA certificates, including mine: 

Now, it’s a shocker to hear about his ugly history, and it’s reasonable for a profession to expect high integrity in its members and leaders… but for a mistake taken place 30 years ago, are we really gonna lose one of the best individuals out there?  How much should a wrongdoing haunt down its doer long after the laws might have expunged it?

All I know is that somebody with a criminal record can still become the president or congressman of the United States.

Earlier this summer, the German publisher VDM Verlag contacted me about publishing my masters thesis.  Um, okay, I had no idea why they would want to or who they’d intend to sell it to.  But after some research on the gossip-filled online forums, I concluded that it was a legitmate deal and I had nothing to lose.  Weeks later, I got what was likely to be the only copy of this ISBN to be ever printed:

Among many other people’s thesis “books”, mine is printed and sold on demand.  You can buy it (or I can just email you the PDF) on this website:

The big question is, who in the right mind who pay 49 Euros for a copy of my 86-page book?  I thought it might sell better at 4.90 Euro…

Sitting in a classroom all day with a pen, a stack of paper, and a MetLife Snoopy doll can produce surprising results.  Here I present to you: Life of Snoopy:

‘Tis the tax season and my notorious analytical habit couldn’t sleep.  Here I present to you my 2008 gross earnings breakdown:

Apparently, in this past calendar year I worked nights and days:

• Through April 12th (just in time!) to pay my taxes – to feed the poor, the old, the super rich, and the countries we destroy
• Then through end of June to save up for the far distant future (if I hadn’t done this, I would’ve been working through May just to feed more poor and the super rich)
• Then the entire summer through September 9th so I wouldn’t be homeless
• Another week so I could pay for the company-subsidized healthcare and shitty Subway rides
• Just as the weather started to get cold, I could finally start to think about feeding and clothing myself, buy a PS3 or otherwise have a life

What a depressing view of the reality?!  Technically I haven’t worked enough this year to cover my 2009 income taxes yet!  Let’s not even mention the $$$ that went into and disappeared right from my 401(k).

Hurray!

I have the awesomest advisees.  Alison and David dropped by today with two bags of Christmas (or Holiday, if we shall stay p.c.) presents.  One was a box of Godiva truffles.  The other was – cracking me up for the longest time – a Wall-E toy.  To be exact, a “Dance N’ Tap Wall-E with Wacky Actions”.

Sure we chat about all sorts of random stuff at work, and I have no trouble admitting my love for Disney/Pixar cartoons.  But getting this “ages 4+” posable action figure from people that I supervise is still hilarious.  Meh, well, it’s great.  Others are pretty jealous that I have such thoughtful advisees.

Gift from the people at work:

This thing is sure taking up a lot of space in my cubicle!

Exactly four days from four years ago, I took my first step onto the actuarial career track.  Today, I’m done.

Memory is still vivid of the warm, sunny morning on September 21, 2004.  Hesitating to study for GRE and applying to PhD programs, I printed out the application for SOA Course 1 from my office in McBryde, hiked all the way across campus to the Post Office on Main, and sent it out via express because it was literally two days before the registration deadline.  Still unhappy about the $13.65 shipping charge, but had I second guessed myself then, I would’ve never started on the exam track and wouldn’t be here today.

At the time, I didn’t care much about either PhD or FSA.  All I had in mind was to move to New York to be close to Hong.  The career path became crystal clear as I found out how good math programs in NYC had unaffordably high academic requirements, and then my classmate Westin mentioned “there are a lot of actuarial jobs in New York.”  Bang!  No more math research.  No more software development.  I became an actuarial student, then an ASA, then a “real” actuary.  A guy could be a very simple-minded animal, huh?

Done!  What a beautiful word to finally say!  Four years (minus four days) of torture seemed way way way too long, and this breaking free feeling isn’t something money can buy.  Not sure how some of my “classmates” were able to endure the pain for 20 years… but hey, they got their letters before retirement.  Big thumbs up for the amazing persistency.

Here we go… FSA as of September 17, 2008!

Getting my diploma from the SOA president Bruce Schobel:

Great support team (and a whole lot of drinkwares on the table):

A lot of actuaries:

The FAC was a very humbling experience… here’s me with the two youngest FSAs among the 183 – Wendy and Itt.  At ages 23 and 24, they made everyone else re-think about being smart:

And the following section will show you how (fob) actuaries have fun:

DONE!

The second of our three interns ended her summer yesterday.  She and the last guy bought me a bag of Godiva assortments:

I’m not a huge chocolate person but it was nonetheless a very sweet and heart warming gift.  I’m going to enjoy a lighter load of responsibilities after my supervisees leave, but it’s still kind of sad.

For the second year in a row, I attended the Monster DLP as a sponsor.

It was an extremely exhausting, but fun and rewarding weekend.  We lead a group of 46 college students on the Mercer team, did various activities from spontaneous dancing to career preparation.  Our students created a Mercer chant and screamed it out of the top of their lungs.  The team bounding energy made me so proud of my company, that, I was embarrassed to return to the office and say that I was so proud of my company.  The high spirit at the event topped every football game I’ve been to.  Seriously.

Growing up in America is about tons and tons of self discovery lessons, leadership workshops, and team building activities.  However, I haven’t seen any teacher or camp leader able to carry it out and get the audience to buy in as much as DLP.  It was awesome being able to lead, follow, teach, learn, and play at the same time.

The cool (math, actuarial science, accounting, finance) kids

The cooler (and just slightly older) kids

Mercer and Mercer scholarship recipients

The only drawback to Monster DLP was, that it was 25+ hours of physically demanding work over one weekend, following an entire work week, followed by another 15-hour work day on Monday… gosh I need some sleep…

Two years ago I posted one of these pictures on my old blog.  It’s now time to finish the collection.

2004-2005

• Course 1
• Exam FM

[Not Pictured]
[Imagine a random stack of paper]

2005-2006

• Exam M
• VEE – Microeconomics
• VEE – Macroeconomics
• VEE – Regression Analysis
• VEE – Time Series
• Exam C

2006-2007

• FAP Modules 1~5
• FAP Exam 1
• Associateship Professionalism Course
• FAP Modules 6~8
• FAP Final Assessment
• Exam CSP-GH (failed…)

2007-2008

• Exam DP-GH
• FSA Module – Healthcare System Overview
• Exam CSP-GH
• FSA Module – Pricing Reserving Forecasting
• FSA Captone Module – DMAC
• Fellowship Admission Course

Sit-down exams… about 40 hours excluding the re-take…
# of pages of papers… 98…

Things are always better when you look retrospectively