This week I've been analysing risk and trying to work out the proportion of responsibility that should be assigned to each parts of the company. The company is liable to several different types of risk but currently I am focussing on operational risk. This is roughly the cost of the risks involved with the day to day running of the company. For instance, the risk of the systems going down and how much that would cost, or the risk of not being adequately staffed and hence the unexpected costs arising from contractor's fees. It's been interesting seeing how each risk is allocated (and if there is not already an existing structure, thinking about how it should be allocated).

HBOS have also been spoiling us with social events recently. Last Tuesday, we were treated to drinks and canapés whilst being shown around the new Harbourside building in Bristol that I will be moving into next week - it's highlight for me is definitely the beautiful canal side views. Although the huge open plan working areas and plush meeting rooms are an added bonus.

On Wednesday we had a trip up to the local football ground to watch Actuarial play Accounts, we put up a good fight, but after a crazy number of injuries we conceded two goals in the last 10 minutes of play. We were a little disheartened, but a free dinner afterwards helped to ease the pain. Thursday and Friday were nights of more free food and drinks, the New Starters Buffet and the end of month drinks respectively.

Hopefully this week will be a little quieter - there's a lot of work on at the moment and I don't like staying out on too many school nights!

Over the last two weeks I've been doing work on the Individual Capital Adequacy Standards (ICAS) framework.

We are currently finalising the figures for the board, so I have been carrying out various checks on the figures to ensure that all the information being presented is accurate and can be explained.

The FSA have recently released a paper, "ICAS – Lessons learned and looking ahead to Solvency 2". I'll spend today reading through this document and summarising it. For me it's really good timing, a month ago the letters "ICA" were familiar, but I hadn't done any work linked to it. Being able to spend time reading a document about ICAS, the results and figures of other company's ICA work and the expected future developments has been an opportunity for me to develop a good understanding of the measure which will hopefully set me in good stead for future work.

Now my exams have finished I need to spend time thinking about which courses I would like to study with a view to sitting them in the April session. I also have to update my "learning log", a record of my development and training within the office. To do this I'll need to speak with my boss and decide on two relevant questions to answer.

My exams have now descended. I've sat two papers, with one more to go. I'll be on tenderhooks until results day, which is much too far away.

My first exam, Financial Economics, mostly involved using various methods to price derivatives. Derivatives are financial instruments whose value is derived from the value of something else. Eg. A European Call option, which is the right to buy a share at a set price and date in the future. It's hard to tell how the exam went, half of the exam was almost too easy to believe, and the other half incredibly tough. The pass marks are dependent on how everyone else did, so whilst I think I got a respectable mark, I imagine that there won't be many students scoring less than 60%, in which case, the pass mark gets higher.

In Contingencies, my second exam, I got my perfect paper. The paper was very unusual and concentrated on one topic, whilst ignoring most of the others. Luckily, this was my strongest area so hopefully I have a definite advantage there. Unfortunately I did make a couple of careless mistakes on the big questions so fingers crossed I won't be penalised too heavily for that.

My final paper, Economics is this Friday, so I'm counting down the days until freedom, whilst being fairly sure that I don't have time to count (This one's graphs not numbers!). Lots of people who have taken this before have found this exam okay, but I'm not convinced. It's 40% multiple choice which should be ok, apart from that it's 60% graphs and words. My forte is definitely in numbers and calculations so I'm not looking forward to it.

If these 3 exams go well, I'll have 8 down, and 7 to go, it would be amazing to be the right side of half way through them. However, with pass rates of around 50%, my chances of passing all three are fairly slim (12.5%). For the meantime, I'll be concentrating in getting back into work and reclaiming the social life that I have for 3 months of the 6 month sitting.