6.50am: Enters office only after someone else scans in. Interns never get full access to anything. I am an alien to the research desks. It reminds me of the time when I was interning last summer. However, I did get new hardware and internet access and email AND stationery on my very first day thanks to my awesome boss and a very very nice colleague.
7.00am: Boss comes in, smiling happily. He switches on the microphones, and I start taking notes. ABF striked me as really interesting. Although the retail industry in the UK is suffering now, I am of the opinion that whoever owns shares in ABF should hold them because it is a hugely diversified company. It owns both Primark and British Sugars besides some other bread and even pharmaceutical companies. In dire times, consumers will look to what is cheap. Boss pointed out to me that I should be aware of how Primark is hugely affected by rising cotton prices and due to such low pricing, will have to suffer from squeezed profit margins. How long will it last before prices are forced to rise? Good point indeed, but I am still strongly inclined towards holding shares in ABF. I compared the price graphs against M&S and Sainsburys and it seems that ABF is doing much better than those two. Also, other highlights were about Imperial Tobacco announcing a rise in cigarettes prices, the overall USA stock market doing well and something about new transportation regulations in Italy.
9.00am: Boss has a meeting with the Mid Cap Sales team and I get to tag along! Everyone is abuzz about Russia's new drinking law which will apply to beer, hence Carlsberg. Forecasts of tornados in the USA may adversely affect insurance companies. I learned later from my very very nice colleague (VVNC from now onwards) that the Russians drink mostly vodka. Good discovery. I also learned later at home that the Russian government has only just classified beer as alcohol recently and that the death rate from alcoholism is really high in the nation. Alcoholism has been labelled as a 'national disaster' by Kremlin.
10.00am: Boss realizes that I'm still confused about the role of our team. He asks VVNC to explain it to me later and takes me on an exciting tour of the building, 3rd floor. Amazing facilities! Place for investors to meet up with companies via conferences and meetings, presentations and such. Relationship building!! Coolness. I'm liking my boss more and more every minute.
10.30am: Boss is stressed about meeting his deadlines before he flies off to SA this Friday for a holiday with wife and kids. I try to help him find reported AUM values for institutional investors in 2 countries, and stay a bit past lunch just to make sure I didn't screw up his presentation. VVNC goes out for his lunch break, which according to him, was at a pub, and which according to boss, is not a joke. HAHA!
1.00pm: I head off to lunch. I was dying for a honey roast and egg sandwich but for the sake of being different, decided to go for a mexican chilli chicken. Bad choice. The sandwich sucked big time. Oh well..
2.00pm: I reach the office again. Met another intern with no access into the room. I knocked and boss let me in. VVNC joins shortly after. He wants to give me a lesson on our team and our project. I jumped up and went and during that session, I think I started to crush on him. He was such an excellent teacher! He used so many analogies to make me understand the role of our team. At times, I just stared into his eyes and beamed. He was so perfect, in every way, that I was slightly frustrated at myself for not realizing how much more awesome he was than I first perceived ( mind you, the first impression I got off him was already amazing). I felt like a stupid schoolgirl crushing on her tall and handsome maths guru. *slaps self*. I even wanted to take a picture of the diagram we drew together in the lesson but I guess it would have been too embarassing if I made a trip back to my seat just to take my handphone to snap that valuable memory. What if he realized I took my handphone without rubbing off everything from the board? Argh.. Anyways, another colleague admitted she had a crush on him today while I was there, and his reaction was hillarious! Curious bordering on amusement, but no self-conceit. What!
4.00pm: I start photocopying for the first time for my project. Some other colleague didn't want me to keep hold of the material I needed for too long hence the usual pitiful intern by the photocopier scenario. But I enjoyed it to the max. Read some report on Burberry while I was at it. It's cool to see how SWOT and Porter's 5 Forces model was used at the end of those reports. I must have taken too long at the machine that VVNC hops over just to check on me. Does such a nice person really exist? I'm speechless, it's just utterly unbelievable.
5.00pm: I head out with my team for a social. My boss knows so much about Malaysia and he's such an amazing, fantastic person with lots of views about this world. He's also very familial but knows when to administer freedom to his children. Purely amazing person! I also met another intern today, who is drop dead gorgeous and is quintessentially an English rose. I just can't believe how beautiful she is every time I see her.
7.30pm: I reach home, have dinner and commence with some readings. Then I decided to write this blog entry. Interesting day.
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