Surfing and a trip North

Yesterday, I took a ferry ride from Darling Harbor to Manly beach to join our study abroad program for a surfing lesson.

It was an absolute blast and I was able to pick it up right away to enjoy the surfing experience. I definitely want to go surfing again before leaving and am thinking of getting in touch with another Australian friend who has surfboards to take him up on his offer to go surfing. I will also have to ask my other baseball friends if they are planning to go anytime soon.
Manly Beach

 Views from the Ferry Ride back to Darling Harbor

After the surf lesson, I met up with the Garret family (my host family over here) to go on a trip about 2 and half hours north of downtown Sydney to a city called Newcastle which is the 2nd most populous city in New South Wales. The population is around 288,000 which isn't too far off from Rochester (215,000). The city was an industrial powerhouse in its heyday and has quieted down since, being saved by the harbor it has which is home to large tugboats and remnants of industrial production.

One of the views from "Nobby's Head" Newcastle

The purpose of our trip was to see a musical performance by one of the other regulars at the weekly "Orphan Dinners" held by the Garret's; Rob McDougall. He sings with two other guys in a group which performs big band, blues, and jazz music with the act also featuring ballroom dancers and a live band providing the music. I was blown away by the performance which felt like something you would see on Broadway, which is where Rob hopes to continue his career.

I didn't realize just how extensive his singing background was, and he was recently selected to attend a 3 week workshop for singing at Julliard in NY. To give an idea of how good a singer Rob is, I have a Youtube clip below of an old solo performance he did since I wasn't able to upload a track off his cd.

Sightseeing in Sydney

After giving a presentation this morning for my Mergers and Acquisitions finance class, I took a walk into Sydney to check out the Botanical Gardens again. Since the gardens are so large, I saw a different part of them this time

view of the Harbor Bridge from the Gardens

These cockatiels are easily seen in the gardens and give off a loud, harsh yelp

Pyramid in the Botanical Gardens\

On the way back to the University, I stopped in at the Reserve Bank of Australia, which prints the currency in Australia, and checked out their museum and exhibit on the history of their currency which was fascinating. Apparently, next year marks the 100th year the country has printed its own currency, with rum being the country's first medium of exchange.

Highlights from last game

By Sam Goodwin                                                                                                                                                                                                         Sunday 21^st October, 2012

The Ryde Hawks remain second on the NSW State Baseball League ladder after salvaging a series split with the Canterbury Vikings in round five. Following a 16-6 defeat on Wednesday night, the Hawks got back to their winning ways with a 5-3 win on Saturday night.

The Hawks were comprehensively outplayed on Wednesday night as the Vikings piled on 16 runs on 20 hits. Ryde’s pitchers had a hard time keeping the Canterbury hitters off base all night, but Stephen Klosowski managed to provide some resistance, allowing just one run over two innings of relief.

Staring at a 16-0 defeat heading into the last inning, the Hawks showed some fight with six late runs. Chris LaGreca and Jake Wilkins provided two RBIs apiece but it was too little too late and the Hawks fell to just their second defeat of the season.

Looking to avoid back-to-back defeats, the Hawks bounced back on Saturday night with a hard-fought 5-3 win. Trailing 1-0 early on, American import Chris Davis tied the score with a home run in the bottom of the second and James Murphy put the Hawks in front with a sacrifice fly in bottom of the fourth.

Starting pitcher Wayne Lundgren limited the Vikings to just one run over the first five innings, but after making way for reliever Luke Wilkins, Canterbury managed to tie the score at 2-2 in the top of the sixth.

Their joy only lasted half an inning however, as Luke Parish (pictured) broke the tie with a two-run double in the bottom of the sixth. Celebrating his 20^th birthday, Parish had a perfect night at the plate with four hits in four at-bats.

After Matt O’Neill provided some insurance with an RBI single in the bottom of the seventh, Wilkins pitched around a Canterbury run in the top of the eighth to secure the victory and earn his sixth win of the season.

The win improves Ryde’s overall record to 7-2 as they prepare to face the first placed Baulkham Hills Kookaburras in round seven after a round six bye.

First Aussie Homerun

In yet another win for our team, extending our record to 8-2, I contributed my part by hitting my first homerun down under.

The team morale has helped add to the fun of the season, and I have enjoyed a role as our team cleanup hitter with half of my 12 hits being comprised of doubles through 27 at bats.

We will have the next week off since it is our bye week, however, and will only be practicing over that time.

The guys on my team feel like I bear a striking twin resemblance to one of their friends who plays ball for an opposing team. I'll let you decide for yourself.

One Month and a day left of School

Even though I wrapped up my internship last week, they offered to take me out to lunch this past Thursday and brought me to the Phoenix Restaurant-Sydney in the Westfield Tower building.Phoenix Restaurant

I got to try my hand at using chopsticks with some delicious Chinese food, but also chat a little about the American election with my intern coordinators who are very interested in the outcome.

They also left me with a book; Thinking Fast and Slow which challenges traditional rational behavior that is assumed in economics and is similar to Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink.

 I have the found book extremely interesting so far and look forward to continuing it.

Today, I submitted three major assignments; an essay for Law and Economics, a group project for Mergers and Acquisitions, and an excel investments report which involved running regressions on a financial model on stocks returns proposed by famed University of Chicago economists Fama and French.

Only about a month away from being completely done with classes after finals.

Saturday Baseball

I am definitely disappointed with how tough it is to find a way to watch the postseason baseball games over here, but am certainly happy to see the Yankees move onto the ALCS.

After getting some more work done today, of which I have quite a bit due over the course of the coming week, I headed off to baseball where we picked up another win in Campbelltown, a good hour drive from where I am in Sydney.

I helped our team along by providing 3 hits in 4 at bats including a double, bringing us to 7-1 on the year.

Final Day of Intership

Today I wrapped up my internship in downtown Sydney and am now onto concentrating on 3 projects all due on next Friday.

While heading to the bus stop I noticed that there was a whole exhibit and petting area set up to attract people to adopt kittens. A reminder of the animals back at home. The website is http://getakitten.com.au/.

Last night I was able to attend a guest lecture given by two Commonwealth Bank guys in the sales and trading departments. I especially enjoyed the first segment by the trader which discussed trading in an environment of inflation and low interest rates. Commonwealth Bank is a banking and financial services company and one of the largest in Australia.

We had some wet and less than stellar weather today, but after it stopped, I did sprints and other conditioning to take advantage of what sun we did have.

Post Baseball Practice

I just got back in late from finishing up baseball practice and afterwards enjoying some awesome Chinese food which two older guys on my team treated me to.

Got to try some squid in addition to some pippies which look like clams and taste amazing.

pippies

Hedge Fund Shadowing

I once again got to enjoy shadowing in "The Rocks" part of Sydney. I really enjoyed getting to see the traders bounce ideas off each other, determining how they want to structure macroeconomic themes into trading positions. It is as much an intellectual exercise as anything else, with the added need for discipline and control of one's emotions.

Will be headed off to baseball practice later after class.



The RocksWharf of The Rocks

Day 196

It is hard to believe I have been in Australia for nearly 200 days. Weather keeps on getting nicer and I enjoyed the whole day outside, practicing, training, and doing a little reading.

Went to the "Orphan Dinner" once again since today is Sunday and as always enjoyed the company of the Garret's who also offered me a home after I get booted out of my current living area after all finals are done on November 24. Even though finals are about a month away, classes conclude at the end of this month. It looks like I will also be winding down my internship (the unpaid portion at least) this week. If they have enough work to keep me on, I may be able to get paid which will help to potentially fund a trip to New Zealand in late November.

practicing some t-work using the on-campus cricket facilities

Fun day of Baseball

Despite a wet and lightly rainy day, I was able to enjoy the day.

After putting in some work on one my assignments, I caught a bus over to our home baseball field in Ryde where I got to help out by running the bbq while some of the younger teams for our club were playing.

We got started for our night game, and despite having a rain shortened game, I contributed with the bat and was smoking the ball. I finished up by collecting another rbi as well as adding my 4th double of our season through the 5 games I have been able to play in.

We have extended our winning streak and are 6-0 on the year, the first time their club has ever gotten that kind of start.




Some shots of our home field (ELS)

Presidential Debate

While at my internship today, I and another one of the guys I work was were listening to the presidential debate between Obama and Romney. Romney reminds me somewhat of Reagan in his talking style and seemed to exude much better body language than Obama. With two of the head guys in the office on a business trip in Europe, it has been a little quieter lately. Nonetheless, my supervisor is always very interested in my opinions.

In the office lately, I have been doing more macroeconomic-focused research; gathering and making sense of whatever data I want to form views for economy. I have used all sorts of data- some more traditional, while other sets of data are more unconventional. This means breaking down US GDP into its components of government spending, net exports, investment, and consumer spending or using the bloomberg terminal to import data on the number of UPS boxes shipped to get a sense of consumer confidence. I even came across some other data sets which involve looking at the amount of mens underwear sold or even the number of lottery tickets purchased to get a sense for how much spare change consumers have in their pockets.

Later tonight I am headed to practice under the lights with another ball player from Atlanta area. Should be a fun workout.

Weather today has been hot; low to mid-90s so a night practice will still be warm but certainly better than being out in the sun.

Baseball

Have been real busy between schoolwork, internship (headed there in the morning), and baseball but am enjoying it all.

I have to make sure that I stay on top of some major assignments for different classes which are all due on the same day.

I had another baseball game today and we were able to escape with a 1-0 win which brings our team to 5-0 on the summer season. Will be right back at it again this weekend.

The weather has continued to be outstanding and was in the high 80s today with a lot of sun.

University of Sydney buildings

Baseball

I was able to get a few guys together to get in a quality baseball practice. We got in hitting using the cricket cages and then walked over to the "oval" usually used for cricket games to throw and field. We wrapped it up with sprints. 

I was glad we were able to take advantage of yet another beautiful sunny day in Sydney and I was also able to get going on an essay and a group project for a couple classes.