Book review: CONFESSIONS OF AN ACTUARIAL TUTOR (John Lee)

As part of my job, I have to sit actuarial exams in tandem to working. I sat CM1 and CS1 in April, and CS2 in September (the M stands for Maths and S stands for Statistics). I have had the good fortune of having passed all three exams I sat this year (hence the rather extravagant Christmas present I got myself), but luck was only a small factor in why I was successful. John Lee, who’s expert tutelage I received for the two Statistics modules, played a huge part.

That's not him btw.

His new book, Confessions of an Actuarial Tutor, is a compendium of amusing things that happened to him in his ~20 years of teaching actuarial students. For anyone who’s ever met John, he writes as he speaks: a mixture of gallows humour, self-deprecatory banter, nerdy mathematical jokes and a sprinkle of that unique John Lee eccentricity.

Happiness is the same price as red bottoms.

In a happy sequel to me getting my Gal Gadot piercing, I passed the exam I sat in my September sitting. As I've developed a tendency to treat myself for exam passes (and the substantial toil I put myself through to pass them), I also got myself something for being successful this time. 

Except, whereas a cartilage piercing only costs £30, I levelled up substantially this time, with £495 Louboutins:

Those red soles ❤️

For my next exam pass, I won't be splurging on something quite as extravagant (I'll probably get another ear piercing!), but I just had to get these heels this time. 

I've heard Louboutins, or 'red bottoms', name-dropped in many of my favourite hip-hop or pop songs (whether it be from Iggy Azalea, Cardi B, J-Lo, Ariana Grande or Lizzo), so there's always been a cachet around them. 

My two personal favourite references to Loubies in music is Ariana Grande trilling 'happiness is the same price as red bottoms' in 7 Things, and Jennifer Lopez (who I will be rooting for to win Best Supporting Actress next year for her fierce performance in Hustlers)'s song Louboutins.

And now I finally have a pair of red bottoms to call my own. ❤️

My 10 favourite films of 2018 [5-3]

Part 1 of the blog was here! As I've written longer mini-reviews for the top five this year, but don't intend on writing a full review of the first-placed film (like I did last year with Dunkirk #twinksonabeach), I'm going to divide coverage of the top 5 as a 3:2 split!

05. The Favourite

Yorgos Lanthimos made my personal top 5 of 2017 for his deliciously wicked take on the Greek tragedy, The Killing of the Sacred Deer, and he does the business again with another amoral morality tale, although of a very different flavour.