During the time between after you take your qual and when you find out, you may over analyze things that you or your committee may have said. Here’s one example…I just derived rpi for a BJT and it is beta/gm.

Prof: Is beta a small signal parameter or a large signal parameter?
Me: Hmm, good question. Pause. I believe it is small signal.
Prof: But if it were small signal, doesn’t that mean that…I don’t remember what he said.
Me: Hmm. strange. Give me a few more seconds to think about it. Yeah, you are right, it is large signal.
Prof: What?!

Aw crud, is beta small signal?

Me: Okay okay hold on. Uh.
Prof: Nevermind. Next question.

You see, that was not good. Seriously, that kind of sucked. How could I not know if beta is a small signal parameter or a large signal parameter? Why did he say nevermind? Did he conclude that it’s game over for me and decided to move on? I shrugged it off. But when I went back to my office, I told my officemates what had happened and we debated it.

Me: So is beta small signal or large signal?
Grad student #1: It’s small signal, man.
Me: Oh, I guess I was right. He tricked me. But no, it can’t be small signal.
Grad student #2: No, it’s small signal.
Me: If beta is small signal, then what is the collector current if I know the base current? Isn’t it beta times Ib?
Grad student #2: I don’t know what it is, but I know that beta is small signal.
Me: No, that’s bogus, look here in this device physics textbook, beta = IC/IB. Capital letters. This thing is large signal.
Grad student #1: Look, what’s the gm of a MOS? It consists of large signal parameters but gm is a small signal parameter?
Me: Dude man, of course small signal parameters consist of large signal parameters. All of them are like that. But just because something consists of large signal parameters does not mean it is small signal.

Then all of a sudden it made sense why that prof said nevermind. Beta is both small signal and large signal, just as the small signal model of a resistor is the same as the large signal model of a resistor. That prof did not want to continue to press the question because it would only make him look like a fool.

As for wondering if I passed, I am fairly certain that I did, but for these kind of things, you just never know for sure. All I know is that I did not have any major missteps during my qual but ultimately the decision is not mine. I feel pretty good about it, but I am not celebrating yet. I will say that I’ve been sleeping well and I have very little doubt that I passed. Given what I know, I’d place my odds of failing at 9 to 1 against. Something crazy had to have happened in order for me to fail. Perhaps they hated my qual paper and thought it was trash. Or maybe I unknowingly pissed one of my committee members off.

Let’s say you are a professor on some qual committee. You listen to some lame grad student give a 30 minute talk. If you actually learn something from this lame grad student, I believe that you will not be too brutal with your questions.

In my case, I presented some background information from a perspective never seen before. I’m sure people who worked with this circuit for a long time understand this perspective, but there does not exist a paper on this topic that you can read in 5 minutes and understand how it works. If you have some circuit background and if I spent 5 minutes showing you my slides, I believe you would understand what is going on almost instantly. Either you are in the loop because you read many papers about this topic and were able to put the pieces of the puzzle together, or you just do not know. No one is going to publish a paper on this perspective, but it would be very helpful material in a textbook. There is one textbook author who thinks he understands what is going on. If you read his little section on the topic, you will believe that he explains it well and that everything makes sense. However, upon closer inspection, you just know it is flat out wrong. I will not name the author or else people will find it on Google.

You read it and it sounds nice. Two problems…

1. So Vx does not depend on the DC current that flows into node x through the RF choke? Why isn’t the RF choke shown?
2. The author seems to indicate that the circuit should be critically damped. It’s nonsense. The quality factor of the RLC network is definitely above 0.5 and is therefore underdamped by definition. What kind of fool would want to design an RF circuit with a quality factor of 0.5 and is critically damped?

It is a presentation remote and I got it for my qual presentation. It retails for $79.99, Amazon has it for $54.24, and when I bought it a month ago, there was also a $20 rebate. I threw about $14 worth of coins into a Coinstar machine for an Amazon gift certificate/card so I guess you can say I only paid $20 for this thing when it really isn’t quite true and I paid $34. There is no counting fee at Coinstar machines if you get a gift certificate instead of cash.

What’s really nice about this device is that the laser pointer button is right in between the next slide and previous slide buttons, there’s also an F5/esc button to start and stop a PowerPoint presentation, and the volume control actually works without drivers. I don’t know why people use the blank screen button but it’s there. The USB wireless adapter fits inside the device and it’s easy to store. To top it off, there is a timer built into the device and it will vibrate when there are 5 minutes remaining, 2 minutes remaining, and when time is up. The only downside of the timer is that it can only be set in 5 minute increments and that isn’t really a bad thing.

What I find really intersting about this device is that actually very similar to a mouse and it is probably dirt cheap to manuacture. Seriously, instead of having an LED or a laser to illuminate the mousing surface, it has a laser pointer. Instead of having mouse 1 and mouse 2 buttons, it has page up and page down. Instead of tactile feedback, it has a simple vibrator just to warn you of the time. There is no reason this thing should retail for $79.99.

This thing is immensely useful for a qual presentation. Better than a plain laser pointer and also better than a simple presentation remote. I also have to mention again that the timer is very useful for pacing.

Quick run up over $116

Stop loss at $115.95

Sold 30 TWM at $115.94

+28 cents on 30 shares = $8.40

Total round-trip commission = $10

Loss = $1.60

Man, that was a cheap thrill. On these kind of trades, you just have to put a short leash on it. The moment it starts going against you, you HAVE TO yank the leash and pull the trade. If you don’t, you’ll get your head cut off.

Yep, I took money from the market and gave it to my broker.

Well at least it is a whole lot better than a $300 instant blowup back in January.

I am so risk adverse right now it’s not even funny. Even a $50 loss in my trading account in a day is no longer acceptable. Right now I’m making about $10/day sitting on two calendar spreads, and a short straddle with a long OTM call and put to put a cap on unlimited losses.

It is pretty much it is a short straddle with an OTM call and OTM put to prevent the possibliity of unlimited losses.

I can’t believe I am going to sit on another theta decay trade. These trades are so painful to sit on because they are so boring, but it’s probably the best way to make money when the VIX is high. You can’t buy puts with the VIX this high, you’d have to be either crazy or stupid.

Thinkorswim’s commission of $2.95 no longer seems so cheap when I do complex options spreads. They are cheap but they don’t feel as cheap. One way trade with 4 contracts is $11.80.

The P/L curve for this trade is shown below. I need DIA to be near $90 for December op ex for max profit.

Max profit is extremely limited, but I am taking my qual this month and I don’t want anything high risk. Trading and research are like drinking and driving, the two just don’t mix. I’d rather just do a low risk theta decay kind of trade. This is definitely better than collecting interest on cash and the theta decay on this trade is about $4 per day. That is, as long as the price stays where it is, I should make about $4 a day. Next month, I think I will put on a bigger calendar spread position, one with the theta of $20.

Going into the final two weeks before expiration, I feel very comfortable with my double calendar spread. IWM closed at $49.59 today and looking at the P/L curve, my profit peaks are at $45 and $55. If IWM stays where it is, I will have a certain profit on 11/22. If it breaks one way or the other, as long as it is not more than 10%, I will make even more.

You know you are an options trader when pay day is the 3rd Friday of each month and the first day of each month starts on the Monday afterwards.

Monday
Me: Hey, um, do you know when my qual is by any chance?
Advisor: No, I don’t know.
Me: What?! (If any professor has inside info on this matter, it would be my advisor.)
Advisor: I forgot. I was too busy with something else.

Tuesday
Me: This morning I was looking at Oracle Calendar…
Advisor: Nod
Me: …and I noticed that professors B, D, and E all have the same 3 hour time block reserved on November 17th.
Advisor: Well you really have no idea because professors D and E can be in completely different quals.
Me: I couldn’t find any time blocks on professor A’s calendar.
Advisor: That’s because he doesn’t show his calendar to anyone. He makes everything private.
Me: So, um, professors B, D, and E on November 17th?
Advisor: Says nothing and has a smile on his face. Claims ignorance.
Me: You know, deep down, you really know exactly who is on my committee and when it is. And you are probably laughing at my conjecturing and speculation, and especially at the fact that I took a peek at Oracle Calendar this morning to try to figure out when my qual is and who is on my committee.
Advisor: I really don’t know. I told you, I forgot, I was too busy. But given that no one else is having a circuits qual, I’m sure you’ll get professors A and B. There’s no way you wouldn’t. But I do know that you probably do not have professor C because there were too many people who wanted professor C. Smiles.

That guy knew, man, but just would not tell me. Turns out my qual will be on November 17th but with professors A, B, and E. That guy was right, professors D and E are on different quals. But for me, the most important thing was not who was on my qual, but when my qual is. It could have been as early as November 10th in which case I’d be extremely pressed for time, especially after flushing half a week of time down the toilet because of a conference.

Now you want to hear something strange? This is strange. About a month ago I had the following dream…

I see my advisor in the hallway

Me: Did I pass?!?!
Advisor: 17.
Me: YEESSSSS!

I remember I woke up that morning and I felt pretty good but I wasn’t sure why. As soon as I went to the bathroom and sat on the toilet to take my morning dump, I realized that I hadn’t passed my qual because my qual was still a month away and that my dream made no sense because in the dream my advisor did not tell me if I had passed. Well, my qual is on November 17th. Very strange.

UPDATE: After finding out that my qual is on November 17th, my productivity has gone straight down the toilet.

Advisor: How’s it going?
Me: The dude at the TI table told me to talk to the guy in the white shirt standing behind you.

10 minutes later…

Advisor: Did you talk to him yet?
Me: Nope, he looks occupied.

30 minutes later over dinner…

Advisor: So did you get to talk to the guy at TI?
Me: No. But I snagged a free wireless mouse from Novellus.

I don’t really care about TI, especially not after some other company I will not name expressed a lot of interest in me.

Dude at company I will not name when he sees my resume: Hmm…

He flips through the list of conference attendees. He has notes for some people. He as a note for me.

Dude: Did you talk to this guy?
Me: Who?
Dude (to dude 2): Hey, come here…
Dude 2: What’s up?
Dude: Why does it say here that…
Dude 2: Because blah blah blah
Dude (to me): Oh so you’re that guy.
Me: Uh, yeah, I’m that guy.
Dude: Wow, okay, uh, you have to talk to that lady over there.