Over the last week I've been continuing my work on change documentation. The models used to generate projected figures are complex and I need to be able to justify the movements of each variable before it can be signed off. I'm looking forward to getting on with some other, much easier tasks when this is completed!

Exam results are now looming, we've just had time to almost forget them, and suddenly it's come to that scary time of year! Once that's out of the way I'll be able to decide exactly which ones I'll be sitting in April and so will have no excuses not to fully concentrate on my study again.

I've recently joined the Actuarial Social committee and had my first meeting today discussing the Actuarial Christmas awards in which we choose from the nominations to remind people of those actuaries who've contributed that something extra over the year. For example, the "Stupid Actuary Award" - I'm not sure whether it sounds like a title worth fighting for!

Now I have had time to recover from my exams, it's approaching the time that I need to do some work on my learning log. This is a fairly controversial initiative from the institute of Actuaries meaning that new students need to keep a written record of their training and development. This requires (amongst other less time consuming components) writing four written answers each year to demonstrate the acquisition of various skills during my time as a student.

Work has been busy lately; I'm trying to iron out and explain all the differences from year end to mid year in the risk work that I'm doing. Some changes were made to the actuarial models over the first half year, so I need to make sure that movements arising from model changes are recorded adequately and are not confused with movements following changes to the data.

I'm looking forward to attending a tutorial tomorrow on Statistical Methods, an exam that I'm planning on sitting in April. Usually if I go on a course it's a revision course, although this time it's a taught course. Hopefully this will make my time spent studying much more effective - I'm quite excited about seeing whether this will be the case!