Laila's Blah Blog

Farewell, everything fab that’s DC!

Laila — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:29:00 GMT

I know I’m always going to look back on this summer and remember it as one of the happiest few weeks of my life (and most days of my life are categorized under “happy days” anyway!) but I’d point out they’re generally not in a consecutive order, so this is really something =)

And why was this summer so great? I’ll list three reasons. Yes, only three. But with sub-reasons of course :P

1. I had the world’s greatest roommate. My friends will tell you that I never have trouble striking up a conversation anytime about anything under the sky, but I’ll be honest, there are very few people with whom I’ve enjoyed sharing so many thoughts, opinions and random concerns as I did with this one person. If I had one thing to say, she’d have two, sometimes even more responses to offer – all profound, insightful and above all, honest words. I believe we’ve covered every topic ranging from Public Policy and Criminal Law to genetic v pyschological explanation for homosexuality to my Big Fat Caribbean Beach Wedding, all at 3AM! haha :P I cannot quantify the “growth” I’ve experienced in my perception and maturity just by being around her!

And so I can never say this enough : Thank you for the incredible experience, Roomie! =)

2. Washington DC. It’s a warm, wonderful city, full of just as many old people as there are young people (and just as many in between). I’d been here before, twice, and I liked it then, but I absolutely love it now. I love it because it has so much to offer, no matter what you’re in the mood for. It has a rhythmic yet adjustable pace – from crazy Saturday night parties to Monday afternoon Congressional hearings open to public to Tuesday night poetry slams to Friday evening romantic jazz in the middle of a garden of bizarre sculptures. And museums and galleries and memorials and exhibitions of course. And book readings. And just.so.much.more. I’d really, really like to live and work here some day.

*sun in my eyes!

My favorite spots/activities –

i) Café hopping in Dupont Circle, Adams Morgan, World Bank/Foggy Bottom, around the National Mall…yes, I checked out too many cafes I think. Great place to meet different people while (trying) to get some work done! Haha ;) I’ll definitely miss the political conversations that just never go out of style in DC.
I’d recommend – Kramerbooks & Afterwards in Dupont, Tryst in Adams Morgan, Little Corner Bakery in Foggy Bottom, and Busboys and Poets on U Street.

ii) Georgetown. All of it. M St, Wisc Ave.. everything. I’ll miss Ice Berry fro-yo, the big ass Barnes and Noble with the best deals ever, and Pottery Barn. And that little Obama-Pajama store haha. I finally eneded up buying a pair, and a “Geeks for Obama” pin for my bag! Whee! ;-)

iii) Museums, Galleries, Memorials. (This is a fairly obvious one). Lincoln memorial makes me cry for some reason. I feel so small and insignificant standing there, looking out on the Reflective Pond. Favorites – Nat’l Portraits Gallery, Nat’l Museum of American History, Nat’l Archives

*Lincoln signing the charter for Nat'l Academy of Sciences (NAS)

iv) Live Music – Kramerbooks, Sculpture garden, Kennedy Center (I went to a Moroccan tribal performance and ended up feeling so homesick. The beats and style was pretty much like that of Emirati/Khaleeji dances I grew up watching!)

*sculpture garden

v) Being a part of the 4^th of July Parade. Now that was quite the experience. Walking around Con Ave holding a huge flag (while carefully monitoring the horse ahead of us, which according to its rider, needed to ‘go’. Err yeah.)

*parade flag

vi) First baseball game. Okay that’s not a DC thing I guess, but the stadium was gorgeous and I had a great deal of fun so I had to mention it here! (The DC nationals are an awful, awful team)

vii) Living with the MIT-Washington program interns which meant interesting conversations with like-minded and sometimes not-so-like minded (read Repub, lol) people.

viii) Cheap Pakistan Food!!! I discovered this really authentic (together with the “Bhatti Saab” shout-outs) Pakistani restaurant on Penn Ave. Chappli Kababs, Biryani, Nehari and Karrhai Chicken, each for under $8 per (very generous) serving. Ahhh.

ix) Grocery Shopping! I made the switch to Trader Joe's. I think their produce had me sold. Good produce = Happy Laila :D

*happiness that money can buy

3. I know I mentioned this several times already, but here it is once again, just because I value it so much. Quality conversations. With friends and strangers alike.

I think I’m leaving here more centered, more perceptive and definitely more aware of everything, including my own self. It’s oddly overwhelming.

On a side note, my research paper is coming along very well, thank you for asking :P

Boy I thought writing all this down a few hours before I leave would make me feel better and content, but I think I’m still saddened by the seemingly abrupt end of the summer. I can feel the bittersweet nostalgia creep in already. (I think I’ll blame the sad Coldplay song (the Scientist) playing in the background for my mood.)

Okay, back to packing then…followed by an 8 hour drive up to Cambridge!

Farewell, everything fab that’s DC!

Some rhymes from the past :)

Laila — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:02:00 GMT

I was digging through my hard drive looking for a file when I stumbled on a word document titled "my poems". I didn't even remember when I wrote them so I checked up on file properties and it appears the document was created in 2006 - my freshman year! Somehow over the years, the rhymes inside me seem to have lost their way in the infinite corridors at MIT.

Untold

Beneath the fair veneer

Meshed in dirty shadows

Lies a truth untold

About you and me.

This blind sense of incompletion

Lingers beyond reason;

Like a hollow dream locked inside

Raging, struggling to break free.

Compromises with monotony

Bear fruit of an aimless life

Like a lost howling voice

And the lies untold.

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A smile, a frown,

A frown, a smile

Trickle, tick

Loud raindrops.

Silent tears

Puddle, puddle

Loud muck

Silenced play.

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Moments

Hovering within my presence

are your soft kisses

Lying over my conscience

are your soft whispers

In these moments of rhyme

a candle flame flickers

Gently, as I say your name.

Quietly, as I lay beneath the covers.

Tugging at lost, blurred memories

Helpless, weak, and halved.

I think I need help. I'm addicted to grocery shopping.

Laila — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:08:00 GMT

So I just realized this evening (while debating canned soups at Safeway, a local grocery store) that I am totally addicted to grocery shopping. Face it, I've only been down here in DC for 8 days now and I have a good dozen receipts piled up on my desk. Oh and did I mention this Safeway store is inside the Watergate Complex? Yes, THE Watergate Complex with the infamous Nixon admin association. I didn't know much about the scandal so my roommate and I watched the movie "All the President's Men" last week to find out more (after consulting wikipedia of course). I thought the movie was really good. It's from the 70's and revolves around the two Washington Post journalists that helped uncover the scheme in 73. The story, as you can guess, made their careers...in the coming years they wrote books recounting their experience, did interviews and the whole schmear. Isn't it amazing when you just hit gold out of nowhere? Not to trivialize their hardwork and crazy hours they put into investigating the story, but how many hardworking and intelligent people out there really ever hit the jackpot? I pair up intelligence and hardwork because you can't get away without putting in the hours no matter how 'intelligent' you really are, a belief reinforced in me by Gladwell in his new book "Outliers" (which btw I think is this year's must read - I've been shamelessly publicizing the book to no end). Wow, I've rambled on quite a bit there.

So going back to smart, hardworking people and why they deserve success (and more often than not achieve success) over smart and lazy people. Gladwell presents some very strong examples from our world - from Bill Gates to famous writers and Nobel Laureates - almost every subject in his sample has put in roughly 10,000 hours (which he calls the ten thousand hour rule) into their work. These aren't just smart people, they are smart, dedicated, passionate people. I think it takes tremendous discipline to beat on tirelessly for days and weeks, especially if you're not seeing any positive signs of whether you're even going in the right direction! I know from personal experience how easy it is to lose heart in a situation like that...

Anyhoo. Moving on to a slightly less serious topic. I can't believe I'm in DC for the entire summer. And not just that, I'm actually living at a stone's throw from the White House and the National Mall. It's almost like I'm on vacation everyday! I'll explain further why. I'm not working 8-5 hours, I don't have a routine, I'm reading books I've had on my "must-read" list for years, and I have the world's greatest roomie (Hey Khalea! I know you're reading this because I tagged you lol). The most "stressful" part (and the "work" part) of my day involves reading academic papers in economic policy, taking elaborate notes, and then working on my own paper. That's what I'm down here for.. I'm writing a paper on SSDI (Soc. Security Disability Income) on a specific topic TBD within the next few days. Now granted, I could have stayed in Boston and written this paper but c'mmmoooon it's DC! How could I turn down the possibility of catching a glimpse of Obama walking the first dog in his yard? LOL (I'll bet he has people to do that). Oh and if anyone's keeping track, I've added US economic policy to my list of interests (refer to the historic election of 2008, please).

Ah. This is actually a liberating feeling. I haven't written a post in so long because during the semester I'd always have something gnawing at the back of my mind - some pset/email/midterm/reading/friend in distress/hunger pang/you get my point. And for some reason, that's not happening this summer. This summer looks so different from my previous experience..Last year around this time I was chilling at Merrill meeting some of the brightest people I know (read Deepti, Mia) and living it up in New York City. It's still my favorite city in the world. Some wise men argued London would provide competition, but it didn't quite happen - my spring break trip to London this year just proved how much I loved NYC! =)

Okay I think I'm running out of things to write now. Well, not really, but I'd hate to do an overkill. Will save some for next week!

Hope everyone's having a great summer!!! =)

it's been raining

Laila — Sat, 16 May 2009 07:37:00 GMT

it's been raining outside
for as long as i remember
but inside it's different
and i dont need to cover.
the sunshine that seeps into
my heart comes not
from the window
but from the presence
of your sweet thoughts
because it's been raining
for as long as i can remember.

Work

Laila — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:09:00 GMT

Then a ploughman said, "Speak to us of Work."

And he answered, saying:

You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.

For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.

Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.

But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,

And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,

And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret.

But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.

You have been told also life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.

And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,

And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,

And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,

And all work is empty save when there is love;

And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

And what is it to work with love?

It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.

It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.

It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.

It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,

And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.

Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil.

And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet."

But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;

And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.

Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.

And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.

And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

~Gibran (The Prophet : Work)

I know what I want on my birthday

Laila — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 05:16:00 GMT

Obama for president please? :D

You know it's funny how everybody is so tied up in evaluating the the candidates personalities and pay little attention to what they're actually saying they will be doing for the country/economy. So Mccain is a war hero..I respect that. But would I vote for him because he fought for the country? I don't think so.. I mean at the end of the day, he's a Republican. He has a set of Republican economic advisors..and he may be a maverick in the house but he doesn't understand what's going on on the street. So he's obviously going to rely on his advisors.. It's a shame I can't vote haha

Meh. Enough with the political talk already. I'm a senior..I need a big fat dose of motivation right now to get through the next few months ..my last months at MIT...

Back to books then! :)

Snowboarding is easier than skiing....seriously.

Laila — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 05:59:00 GMT

So my dorm McCormick organized a trip this past weekend to Wachusett Mountain - a ski resort right here in MA. I've only been skiing once, but I've never snowboarded, so I dragged my two good friends along and they have me to thank for an ammmazing weekend :D

little kiddies learning how to ski!!!!
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big kiddies with their snowboards....
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viksit wears women's gloves.... :P
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when a beaver meets the big apple...

Laila — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:39:00 GMT

I dont know what happens in that situation. All i know is that now if I have to tell someone about the best 4 weeks of my life, I know what I'll talk about :D

*dreamy look*

So anyway, the MIT Alumni Association organizes an IAP Externship Program in which students get to intern at firms all over the country (and Europe as well). I participated in the program and was placed in Merrill Lynch's Global Markets Analyst program. And that's how I ended up there. You know, I've been to New York several times before, mostly to apply for visas, renew my passport etc. So it's not like I hadn't seen the city...then what the hell happened? I'm still trying to find answers. So far, I've convinced myself that it's not the city, it's the experience that I am so in love with. I was living the typical city life...working in financial district, apartment in Tribeca, weekend shopping in SoHo, late night desserts at Cafe Figaro in the Village...and oh the gyro on 51st and 7th! That dude knows his stuff. Sigh, I had never seen this coming.

I'd have to give credit to people on my desk for a huuuuge part of the experience. They were the nicest bunch of people I've met, and they made sure I saw the 'real' city...from having authentic new york pizza, to getting my first manicure/pedicure in the city. I'd wake up in the morning with a smile on my face, looking forward to going to work...how many people get to do that? I was never a morning person myself! And I always tried to stay away from Sales and Trading - I had heard not-so-good stuff. Stuff like loud working environment (i LOVED that!), the whole early hours thing...(wasn't a problem at all!), having to follow the markets every second (hey it keeps you on your toes!), etc etc. What's not to like? On a serious note, if anybody (if people read this blog lol) is considering S&T and would like to talk to someone, I'd be more than happy to share my experience. =)

I can't say I'm not disappointed in myself. You know, I always thought of myself as an academic. Applying to grad school and all (which I am going to, no matter what) but I hadn't expected myself to enjoy this life so much. Maybe I liked it so much because it was temporary...and so different. I like change (which also explains my room switch every semester). It's funny because I'm feeling a little guilty about having so much fun in this 'sinful' life. Maybe it's all the MIT masochism in me speaking, you know, pain is heaven and pleasure is sin? Lol. I have GOT to stop analyzing my feelings.

Enough writing. Time for some pictures! I know some people have been waiting for them, so here you go! ;)

* Lobby - World Financial Center

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* 4 World Financial Center, Merrill Lynch HQ

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* View outside the North Tower...

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* Apartment - sadly, I spent little time in there, there was SO much to do in the city!! =)

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* I actually ironed my clothes the night before... *good girl* haha.

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* They had an outdoor pool! It was too freaking cold to go anywhere near it though :(

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* Saying hello to the beavers at the Museum of National History...

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* At a Rangers game, Madison Square Garden! =)

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* This never gets old... =)

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* My favorite picture from the set. At the Brooklyn Bridge..

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* More Brooklyn Bridge..

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* On the Staten Island Ferry...(it's free. Lol)

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* Empire State building, the view from observatory was breathtaking!

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So yeah, school feels pretty dull after all this. And the term is picking up rrreeeal fast. I'm a rising senior now! The flu had me down for over a week but I'm feeling a lot better now.. hence the much belated blog entry. I'm taking some really interesting classes this term, so hopefully I'll get back on track soon.

That's all for now...Oh I moved into a new room. Will post pictures of that once I have all my I <3 NYC posters up. Lol.

Laterrrr!!!

interesting article on your friendly neighborhood nerd.

Laila — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 16:32:00 GMT

http://discovermagazine.com/2005/jun/mit-nerds/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=

U.A.E. May Revalue Its Currency

Laila — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:29:00 GMT

By Matthew Brown

Nov. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The United Arab Emirates may revalue its currency against the dollar as early as Dec. 2, ArabianBusiness.com reported today, citing a person close to the Central Bank of the U.A.E.

There is a plan to revalue the dirham by between 3 percent and 5 percent when the banks are closed for U.A.E. National Day on Dec. 2 or during the Eid holidays later in December, the business news Web site cited the unidentified person as saying.

-----

After 30 years of the peg, I think this might be a crucial step going forward for the UAE. As is it, the Fed is expected to lower rates by a quarter to half points at their next meeting (Dec 11)..which obviously implies a further decline in the dollar, unless oil prices offset the effect. But if this measure causes the dirham to appreciate, the country's dollar reserves are going to lose value in real terms...

In any case, I think it might be safe to consider pegging to a currency basket like Kuwait (even though 70% of their basket is still the dollar, bundled with some European currencies). Let's see how it goes. Interesting times!

U.A.E.'s Drive for Emirati-Run Economy Is Thwarted by Handouts

Laila — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 11:15:00 GMT

By Matthew Brown

Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, envisions his country as a world-class financial hub run by Emiratis. Government financial support is undermining that goal.

All 800,000 Emirati citizens get free education and health care, and subsidized utilities. Emirati men can claim free land and no-interest loans to build homes. Other benefits include a $19,000 payment toward wedding costs.

The handouts, based on traditions of royal patronage dating back centuries to Bedouin society, now discourage citizens from working, academics say. Expatriates outnumber Emiratis and dominate fields such as banking, law and technology. The quandary for Sheikh Mohammed is how to reduce the culture of dependence without alienating his people.

``The relationship between work and income is broken,'' says Kenneth Wilson, Dubai-based director of the Economic and Policy Research Unit at Zayed University, a school for Emirati women that opened in 1998. ``That's unlikely to change until the government starts trying to give incentives to work in the private or corporate sector.''

Thanks largely to the country's oil-fueled economic boom, the average male Emirati receives benefits worth about 204,000 dirhams ($55,500) a year, according to the university's research.

Khalid Saeed, 30, is building a villa on a 15,000 square- foot plot of land he received free from the government.

Saeed, who has a bachelor's degree from U.A.E. University and a master's from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, is living with his parents until his villa is built. Their house sits on a 40,000-square-foot plot, and has enough room for Saeed, his wife and three daughters, as well as his brother and his wife. Rooms at the back are rented out to Asian workers.

Full story here.

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If you're remotely interested in the middle east, you've got to read the article (check out the pictures too). I've been meaning to write about this issue, but never got around doing it. As much as I love the Emirates, their policies are seriously flawed when it comes to treatment of citizens v/s expatriates. Okay, need to get back to psetting.

i need my cup 'o joe!

Laila — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 13:00:00 GMT

I didn't realize how addictive coffee is until I stopped having it (I had only started having a cup a day about 2 weeks back). But then I experienced some side effects (pimples, burning sensation in the stomach etc..) and I googled it (lifesaver!) and found THIS.

Coffee i) raises your blood pressure ii) burns your stomach iii) raises cholestrol iv) may cause acne v) causes headaches!!!

You know, even for a light coffee consumer like myself this is pretty scary :-/

Alright, moving on. I can't believe I haven't blogged in soooo long. I haven't blogged about our Brass Rat ceremony...about sophomore year (skipped it completely!) and about how I actually have a social life now(hello, it's a real achievement at mit. kindly refer to picture below :p ). And whatever happened to that "econ blog"? Hopefully, this year will be a lot more productive (blogging-wise, can't promise anything else!).

Oooh. Long weekend coming up! Thank You Columbus! =)

good stuff.

Laila — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 01:03:00 GMT

So a friend forwarded this link on MIT entrance exams in the 1869. I think I found it rather amusing...here it goes.

MIT Institute Archives & Special Collections

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Entrance Examination, 1869-70

In its formative years MIT circulated an announcement stating the requirements for admission as it readied itself for registering the first class of students in 1865. No formal entrance examinations were required at that time for admission as a first year student, although proper preparation was expected. Robert Hallowell Richards, a member of MIT’s first class (and later a noted professor of mining and metallurgy), had been struggling at preparatory school before being inspired by the practical approaches to learning that MIT seemed to represent. “I was a complete failure at Exeter,” he recalled in his autobiography. “Perhaps if I had stayed on I might have been admitted to Harvard, eventually, . . . but in spite of my efforts I was always at the foot of my class. . . . I could not adapt myself to the method of education which revolved around learning dead languages by heart. . . . William Barton Rogers was just starting the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston and [Mother] thought that this new school might satisfy my needs better. . .”(1) He seemed surprised by the lack of formality when he was approved for admission in February 1865, the sixth to register of fifteen original students.

[To take the test, click on the subject below]

[Check your answers]

Please note that the questions have been answered by 20th century persons and won't always match those that might have been given by 19th century applicants (or 21st century applicants). You are invited to send comments and refutations to mithistory@mit.edu.

The MIT Corporation minutes for 1865 charged the faculty with “prescrib[ing] the age and degree of preparation requisite for admission.”(2) The “conditions for admission” section of MIT’s catalogue for 1865-66 indicates that candidates for admission as first year students must be at least sixteen years old and must give satisfactory evidence “by examination or otherwise” of a competent training in arithmetic, geometry, English grammar, geography, and the “rudiments of French.” Rapid and legible handwriting was also stressed as being “particularly important.”(3) By 1869 the handwriting requirement and French had been dropped, but algebra had been added and students needed to pass a qualifying exam in the required subject areas.(4)

Class of 1873

Those below who entered as freshmen probably took the exam.

[Click on picture for larger image.]

Photograph courtesy of the MIT Museum

An ancillary effect was to protect unqualified students from disappointment and professors from wasting their time. In 1867 the faculty requested the parents of “some incompetent and inattentive students to withdraw them from the school, wishing to spare them the mortification of an examination which it was certain they could not pass.”(5) But there is also some suggestion in the early records of the Corporation that the degree of difficulty of entrance exams had some relationship to the fledgling school’s financial solvency. A Corporation member noted in the minutes for 1873 that “when the . . . financial prospects for the school were brighter . . . admission would be made so difficult that students who entered would find no difficulty” with their schoolwork. In 1873 freshmen paid $200 per year tuition--a hefty increase from the original $100 charged in 1865.(6)

MIT catalogues going back to 1865, examinations (including entrance exams) from the nineteenth century and later (collection #AC 93), and a variety of historical materials relating to students, professors, courses and other subjects are available for use in the MIT Institute Archives and Special Collections, 14N-118.

Want to try another 19th century entrance exam?

Notes:

(1) Robert H. Richards, Robert Hallowell Richards: His Mark (Boston: Little, Brown, 1936), pp. 34-35.

(2) MIT Office of the Vice President and Secretary of the Corporation (AC 278), Series I, Minutes, 1862-1995, box 1, vol. I p. 246.

(3) MIT Catalogue, 1865-1866, pp. 10-11.

(4) Ibid., pp. 14-15.

(5) MIT Corporation, Executive Committee, Minutes (AC 272), box 1, vol. I, p. 46.

(6) Ibid., p. 89.

Object of the Month: September 2004; September 2007

Publication Policy
MIT History
MIT Institute Archives Home

_uacct = "UA-1760176-1"; urchinTracker();

HSBC Is First to Get U.A.E. Share Brokerage License

Laila — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 13:19:00 GMT

Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- HSBC Holdings Plc is the first international bank to get a license to trade shares on the United Arab Emirates' two domestic stock exchanges as it seeks to expand in the second-biggest Arab economy.

``The Middle East is high on the radar of institutional investors around the world,'' Neil Foster, the London-based bank's head of global markets for the Middle East, said in a statement distributed to reporters in Dubai today.

HSBC Middle East Securities will start buying and selling shares on the Abu Dhabi Securities Market and the Dubai Financial Market this year, it said in the statement. It will trade for institutional clients before adding services for retail customers next year.

At $161 billion, the U.A.E.'s two domestic exchanges have a combined market value bigger than Ireland as the federation's economy expands by about 10 percent a year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Regulators allow companies including Emaar Properties PJSC, the Middle East's biggest developer, to sell combined stakes of as much as 49 percent to international investors.

Full story here.

Nasdaq to Sell LSE Stake to Dubai in Return for OMX

Laila — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 13:10:00 GMT

Sept. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. and Borse Dubai, competing to buy Nordic exchange operator OMX AB, agreed to give Nasdaq control of OMX, while Dubai gets a stake in the U.S. bourse and a holding in London Stock Exchange Group Plc.

Nasdaq will also make an investment in the Dubai International Financial Exchange, Nasdaq said in a statement today. Dubai will in return get a 19.99 percent stake in Nasdaq, restricted to 5 percent of voting rights, as well as a 28 percent of the London Stock Exchange from Nasdaq.

This is really amazing stuff. DIFX has been growing at tremendous pace, and although its future is still a little unpredictable, I'm really excited about going back and being a part of the whole action.

(Like I wasn't missing home enough, now they're making it even harder for me to stay away! Damn!)

In other news, I'm a junior now! I've been debating grad school/working in Dubai for a while now, and I can't seem to make up my mind. Definitely keeping both options open, but that only means a TON load of work. Good work though. Loving it :)

[To take the test, click on the subject below]


[Check your answers] Please note that the questions have been answered by 20th century persons and won't always match those that might have been given by 19th century applicants (or 21st century applicants). You are invited to send comments and refutations to mithistory@mit.edu.