A literary woman
The second term consisted of elective subjects and entrepreneurial projects. I mostly took finance-related classes, including Corporate Governance, Innovative Investment, Derivatives, and Managerial Accounting. The sense of inferiority kept agonizing me among the experienced financiers. And the untreated trauma from Germany had sedimented at the bottom of the psyche, blocking the entry of hope.
Stuart stopped playing video games as much as before because I’d complain about the noise and distraction. He started reading books instead, which surprised me, as I had never seen him read. One of the books was by Gabriel García Márquez, which he couldn’t have picked himself. He also went to a pub with his colleagues more often. The Friday drink at a pub had become routine for him, while I also kept my Friday release. Once, I decided to spend Friday evening with him and joined him and his colleagues at a pub. I met two of his colleagues; one was a new staff member, and the other was Nikki. I met her when I visited the now-closed office a couple of years before. She was an administrative assistant transferred to Stuart’s office when her office closed. She said she went to grad school in the evenings to study literature, which explained Stuart’s reading habit. It had been over a decade since I stopped reading literature for pleasure, so my heart ached with longing for words and stories and jealousy for her literary-nourished mind. Literature will always be her source of profound joy and happiness. On the other hand, Stuart would stop reading as soon as he could again play video games to his heart’s contentment.