Getting Some Volume In

Hey guys,
I've been getting some good volume in recently. I think I've played ~350ish games in the first week of July so that's pretty solid. I've been mixing in more 12/45s and less 2/180s so there's more variance (higher buyin + lower absolute roi). I was kinda pussing out before because it's nice to just learn one game and not have to be super concerned about bubble factors but I'm on a stake, I get more rake this way, and like Manhat says, "30% of $12 > 100% of $2." We'll see if I'm 30%...my guess is that I'm more like 15-20% tho it's really hard to tell. The play in 12/45s is pretty bad but I'm significantly worse at them than I am at 180s.

Work with Shen has really started to pay off and my HH's have had less and less mistakes. I'm still making some, to be sure, but far less than I was initially. Now, if only the results would follow...I think I'm breakeven over the last 900 or so games which is sorta frustrating. I think downswings/BE stretches force people to respond in one of two ways: Group 1 gets motivated by a downswing and grinds harder (think Lipo's marathon sessions when down). Group 2 gets a bit disenchanted and takes it easy poker-wise. I think I'm definitely more a part of group 1, but I can't totally commit to grinding b/c I have other stuff going on.

It'd be nice if I had a two week+ period where I could just grind and see how many games I get in and how much $ I make. This may happen at the end of the summer, after my research/job is over.

On a different front, I've thought more and more about next summer and have realized that I at least want to check out banking/finance firms. I know it's a long way away but I have to basically start getting my stuff together in the fall and plan for the interviews and all that they entail. To that end, I think I'll take at least Probability (if not, another math class in addition) so I can market myself as a math major instead of a phil major. It's sort of weird in that the difference is one math class but on paper, which looks better to a prospective employer?:

Yodaddy
Good Uni
Major: Mathematics
GPA: 3.9

or

Yodaddy
Good Uni
Major: Phil
GPA: 4.0

I'm sure all of these firms would take the math guy with a much lower gpa (as low as 3.5 I'm guessing) any day. Even though I think philosophy can be v. rigorous, the public conception of it is that it's a lot of bs'ing and dicking around. So even though I'm not sure that I want to be a math guy, I'll stick with it for at least one more class to set myself up for the summer.

The economy has obv. hurt a lot of investment firms but they offer a ridic high percentage of interns full time positions upon graduation and the internship compensation is pretty nice (someone I know is getting 11k from a top firm). I'm not saying I'm committed to this route, just that I'd like to check it out and it's nice to know that if I do a good job and like it, I can probably land something nice. It'd also be interesting to see math applied in the real world. The further along I go in math, the weirder and less applied it seems to become. Linear Algebra was really like this and I've heard it becomes more so in other classes later on. It's pretty cool (although I'm not particularly good at this kind of math) and it really makes me feel like I understand a proof/problem when I finally get through with it. I think a lot of disciplines spoon-feed students answers/ways to go about problems but math is one of the few that bucks this trend. It's like:

Econ 101:

Set Marginal Cost = Marginal Benefit
Find equilibrium
Repeat as many times as professor wants

Often the student doesn't have to really understand what's going on to do this sort of calculation; he's just being told what to do and following the prescribed algorithm.

Having said all this, I don't want to ditch phil just because of how it would effect my job prospects/resume.

I read a quote the other day that said "Make sure that every step you take on the ladder of life is one you enjoy." It went on but the point was that if you follow this, you won't find yourself in a situation you don't like. But it seems sort of simplistic to say "Just do what you like, that's all that matters." I can think of loads of scenarios where I do something I don't want to do for something that I'll REALLY enjoy down the line (or, to put it in more economic terms, where Marginal Cost > Marginal Benefit for a while and then MB>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>MC). It's a sort of complicated issue but I guess it can't be that wrong to just follow your interests.

Thoughts?

Thanks for reading,
Yodaddy