Monday 3 March 2008

With a little help from my friends

My mum is an economist... How many times in your life do you need the knowledge of an economist? I don't know about you but I seem to need it at least once a month! I need it to understand some bank statements, for bolivares/dollars options, housing costs and options, loans and interests, taxes, and all those "fun" things we all have to deal with once in a while.

I was always able to get home and talk to her about it, and even after a while one of my best friends (yes, you, Juan Jose) learned so much about it that he was the one that helped me at work. Hey, he even talked with my mum sometimes ^^

After I came here I didn't really need her help with that kind of things because the opportunity was never there and I used to think that when the time came, I could always ask her over the phone or video conference. Well, the time was here, I got homework from my course (java programming) and it had to do with mortgages and interest rates! What did the teacher say about the formulas? Look in google!

So I was ready to start homework and started to google the formulas... nothing... nothing yet... hey, something! but I don't understand it :S... look some more... something else, same problem... Then I think, how can I ask my mum if these are Canadian interest rates and everything is in english? Translate everything? Too much work and without sure sucess. I'm hopeless... what happens if I fail the course? Nothing really, but I don't want to fail!! What should I do?

I'm seating in front of my monitor, trying to understand everything and little by little I start to understand a few things, but at this rate I won't be able to complete my homework in time. I open my messenger and look who is connected, ummm, one of my nice co-workers is there, does he know about this stuff? I ask him and can't believe the answer, he really knows! He even has a minor in economy, humm, what are the odds?

After work he helped me with the things I didn't understand so I could get home to start programming. After more than 11 hours programming (5 after work on friday, 6 on saturday) homework was ready :D So, what did I get from it? You can't replace family but you can always find great people that can help you and will do it gladly. Thank you Ryan!!, you were a big help in more ways that you can imagine ^^
ps: Yes, I'm a big Beatles fan :p

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So true! I've always been able to find help almost everywhere, sometimes from friends and sometimes from family. People are helpful if asked nicely ;-)

My mum is good with numbers too... love that!

Anonymous said...

Your welcome.
This goes both ways of course. She asks for help every once in a while but gives help just as often.
The other day she helped a co-worker construct a sponsorship letter to be sent to Canada Immigration. by the end of the day the co-worker sent it to the Canadian Embassy in Pakistan. I'm sure she'll write about it more in another post. Or maybe not, she might be too humble.

Aiglee said...

Thats so true Zhu! At least in general ^^

Thank you Ryan :$