Yep, I’m still alive. Thank you for all your concern. For all of you who have been with me during these trying moments, I’m truly grateful. It’s friends like you all that make the difference. It’s been heck of a day though.
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I’ve recently started investing money in the stock market. I made my first real trade February 19th of this year and have been fiddling around since. There’s not too much to say at this point, except that even with all its risk, I’ve still managed to earn a lot more in stocks than any bank savings account ever could. I don’t have a great huge sum invested, but it’s certainly (a few thousand dollars) sizable.

Now if you’ll look at the crummy (I could’ve made a shiny one, but I feel this gives it that “homey” touch.) graph I drew, you’ll see my progress marked every 15 days or so. While this doesn’t paint you the complete picture of how well or bad I’ve been doing, you should be able to see that I’ve certainly done well for myself. The S&P 500 is an index of companies which supposedly paints the most accurate picture of the status of United States’ stock market. For those of you who’ve been keeping up with the news, you should know that right now is not a happy time for the US economy/stocks. The housing bubble exploded around October/November, and its effects have had widespread negative effect throughout all the areas of the US economy.

What was I thinking, investing at a time like this? I saw a great opportunity, that’s what. About 22% in a month and a half. Not bad, eh? It would’ve been around 40% if I hadn’t made an angry trade yesterday, but that’s water under the bridge. I’ve made more in a month or so than I would have earned with a savings account for a couple years. I’ve been meaning to invest into stocks for a long time, but external factors kept me from doing so. My boss’ own trading activities piqued my interest, and that along with my disposable income thats been sitting, I figured I should give it a try myself.

Now that I’m a veteran of a month and a half, (laff) I’ll try to share what I’ve learned in a later post. Until then, I hope to become very rich. Wish me luck.

Played some Racquetball for an hour this past Thursday. During the latter part of the hour, I must’ve been filled with rage at my close loss the previous game, because I actually managed to break a ball. Didn’t think that they could actually split like that. I expected racquetballs to be sturdier than tennis balls, considering they’re made to be hit against walls (and other players). I’ve never seen a tennis ball break, so I was quite surprised when one of these blue balls burst like that. Next time I won’t underestimate my awesomeness. I initially bought them in a set of three, so I still have two left I can break another day.

For those of you who haven’t heard much of Racquetball before, think of it as Tennis. But funner. Both parties of players play on the same side of the “court” and instead of a net, you have a wall. In tennis, your goal is to make a hit past the net before the ball bounces twice on the ground. For racquetball, you want to hit the front wall before the ball bounces a second time. So while it’s essentially a game of tennis where you play on the same side as your challenger, being in a closed environment makes for much more interesting game play. Firstly, there’s the other fellow. He takes up floor space and obstructs part of your view. Then there are the walls. I’ve already bashed against the walls many aching times trying to make the hit. The back wall also makes for some interesting play. You can actually hit the ball backwards against the rear wall and still have it reach the front. Nifty, no?

I do have two qualms about Racquetball. First, its a rubber ball with no covering, so it makes your hands smell like angry each time you serve. Second, Racquetball is spelled with cq rather than a k. Pfft. That’s nonsense.

But regardless its definitely a fun sport. I’d play more impromptu games if there were more courts available. Lousy UIUC won’t finish the extra courts, so right now the entire campus is working off of just three.