Teaching?! - Finance 2000 with Mr. McMullin

One of my dreams in life has been to teach. Though, I've always wanted to make more money than what teachers normally make. So my idea was to go out into the world, hopefully make money in business, and then transition into teaching. This fall, my dream arrive early...

As a third-year law student, I had applied for a TA position for business law. With my application, I included my resume and outlined my business background as well as my love for finance. The reply to my email was totally unexpected. While the business law TA position was mine if I wanted it, the instructor they were planning on teaching a section of Finance 2000 had fallen through at the last moment, the e-mail asked if I would be interested in teaching the class. My answer: absolutely!


Though I was very excited about this unique opportunity to teach finance to business minors, I was also nervous. Here was an opportunity that I had dreamed about. Yet in my dreams, it always happened when I was older, with more experience, and a proven track record. Here I was young, poor, and for the most part unproven. I was scared that I would fail - that I would either not like teaching or even worse, not be good at it. 


A month in, here's my take. It's harder than it looks. Especially teaching a class for the first time. It takes a lot of time to prepare for three classes each week. Especially as a rookie, it is impossible to wing it. Yet it is very rewarding. I like having an audience. I like being able to share what I have learned. I like how in preparing lessons and teaching the material to others, I learn. And perhaps my favorite part is seeing the light bulbs go on.... There is a lot of that in finance. For most of their lives they have heard about assets and liabilities, stocks and bonds, and now they finally know what those words mean.


Based on my experience so far, I would love to continue teaching part-time in the future. If anyone has thoughts on how to make that happen, please share them with me.

NYC - Summer 2011 - The Recap

Some decisions in life just aren't very hard. Such as when my mom calls asking if Daniela and I would be interested in going to New York City with them. Umm.... Absolutely!

We stayed just north of Times Square. The location was excellent. Walk a few blocks north and you arrived at Central Park. A few blocks south and you were in the theater district. And right there in the theater district is my new favorite restaurant in NYC - Carmine's Italian Restaurant. The portions were huge and the food was delicious! 

McMullin clan at Carmine's

Walking to the Metropolitan Museum turned out to be more of a hike than we expected. Though with the help of street vendors selling popsicles, Daniela and I made the trek. Pictured below, the beautiful Daniela with a coffin that I am sure my nephews would have loved to see. 

Our last day in NYC, was the day that the U.S. Women's soccer team was scheduled to play Japan in the finals. A few hours before the game, we began searching a for a good place to watch it. We found what might have been the best place to watch it. ESPN was hosting a watch party in Times Square. We grabbed a seat and joined the thousands of people who stopped to watch the game on ESPN's outside jumbotron. It was a blast!

We were totally not dressed to set out in the sun for hours. Luckily, there were more than a few vendors willing to sell us  " I Love New York" shirts to help us cool off.

Lake of the Ozarks - Summer 2011 - The Recap

This school year, I am serving as vice-president of the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys (MATA) at Mizzou. One perk of that position is that MATA allowed the president (Josh Sumner) and I attend their annual conference at the Lake of the Ozarks. The organization, like the MATA members I know, was very generous. We got to set in on CLEs, attend dinners, see the Governor, and eat some delicious deserts (picture below). 

Also while at the lake, one of the partners (Scott Nutter) from Shamberg, Johnson, & Bergman was kind enough to treat Daniela and I to dinner at the Blue Heron. It was a memorable evening that we will long remember. Daniela also scored major points with me for overcoming (seemingly with little effort) her fear of heights to go parasailing. Many people warned us not to expect parasailing to be super exciting. While not an intense excitement like skydiving, parasailing was fun and we're glad we had the chance to do it.

Maybe someday we'll be super wealthy and willing to pay the high prices they charge to get a picture of us up in the sky. Until then, we'll stick to the pictures we can take for free. 

As for the Lake of the Ozarks, I'm glad to say that I've been there. It is just one of those things that being from Missouri I felt like I needed to visit someday. Still left on the Missouri to-do list, going up in the St. Louis Arch. 

Kansas City - Summer 2011 - The Recap

Daniela and I both enjoy reading the blogs of our siblings and friends and finding out what is going on in your lives. Yet over the summer we haven't taken the time to update you as to what is going on in our lives. Here is a brief recap of our summer...

Kansas City

Daniela and I both fell in love with Kansas City. Though located right in the middle of flyover country, Kansas City has many things going for it. First, the city is a great size - big enough to have an airport and professional sports teams yet small enough that one can easily get from point A to point B. Second, the city embraces the arts. The city hosts First Fridays, the first Friday of every month, when thousands of people flock to the art galleries in the crossroads district. Second, the city is home to the Nelson-Atkins museum. The museum has beautiful grounds and gardens, the building itself is magnificent, and inside is a collection of top-notch art. It simply was fantastic to live just blocks away from such a great museum. 

The outside of the Nelson-Atkins Museum.

The court-yard within the museum. I loved the architecture!!! Each time we visited, I found myself telling Daniela that my dream house would borrow heavily from this style. 

To me, architecture and sculpture are the greatest arts. Above is my favorite piece of art in the museum.

Finally, we chose to live near an area known as the Country Club Plaza. According to Wikipedia, it is debatable whether it was the first shopping center designed for automobile. What is beyond debate is that it is beautiful. The developer modeled the Plaza after Seville, Spain. I found myself falling in love with the style of the buildings, the use of fountains, the whole ambiance of the area. Once again, we were surprised by the style of Kansas City!

Several times a week we would take walks around the Plaza. Not since Irvine / Newport Beach, California have I loved an area so much.