pretty sad Norway didn't make it through, but yeah England was strong.

btw
opening my own portfolio at Bloomberg so i can manage mine and my future husband's money lol.
no but okay jokes aside.

this week's oil story is honestly a pretty good crash course in why im even interested in this.
Iran hit a tanker near the strait of Hormuz on tuesday and the ceasefire that was already shaky got a lot shakier. brent jumped 3% to $74 a barrel, wti followed to $70. that strait alone carries about 1/5 of the world's oil.

but the thing is. this ripples way outside the middle east.
Russia's been dealing with its own fuel crisis since Ukraine started hammering its refineries with drones, over half of Russia's big refineries have taken damage since last year and gasoline output is down 17%. Moscow banned gasoline exports through the end of july and just tacked diesel onto that ban too.
so Kyrgyzstan, a country with basically zero oil of its own that's leaned on Russia for fuel forever, suddenly had to go scrambling to China and Belarus for supply. the new deals exist now but they're pricier and thinner than what Russia used to offer. Uzbekistan's managing it a bit better, still relying on Russia but working alternative supply lines and building up reserves so it doesn't get caught the same way.

that's the whole mechanism with energy. a drone over Ukraine or a tanker near Iran, it all moves further through refineries, then through countries with no oil at all, then into inflation numbers, then into what central banks do with rates, then into whatever's sitting in your portfolio whether you're watching or not.

which is why its fun to understand this stuff instead of just watching numbers go up and down lol.


@summernotes

wanna take up horse riding as a hobby now

does anyone know good places in Tashkent where they teach that?

went horse riding today, absolutely loved it ✨🙌🏻

my previous experience with horses before this was way back as kids, our neighbor used to let us ride his horses for a bit, then he’d slaughter them for norin. yeah. plus a few just-for-fun rides at ranchos more recently. still, i felt really comfortable with them today.

my instructor praised that i “felt” the horse and moved with it in one rhythm. «заметно что не боишься их, а наоборот, комфортно. это хорошо» she said. practiced trotting and the canter.

the handsome white one is Albus, 9 years old, the one i rode today.

i’m definitely having my own horse stable one day. maybe an Arabian. or, have you seen Friesians? bruh, gorgeous 😭


@summernotes

last week finished reading A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

“…you have to use your failures as stepping stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair. In the end it’s all a question of balance.”

i think this book came as close to portraying human suffering as it possibly could. how some end up throwing themselves into a pit of despair and let their own minds crush them, while others build a shell of ignorance which keeps pain at bay. you cannot be in pain forever. at some point it goes numb, and the more devastating the experience, the more people get immune to it.

the mid-1970s in India were a huge wave of chaos, unnecessary violence, ignorance and confusion. the Indian State of Emergency erased all the familiar norms and let human nature dictate how to be, with new arbitrary rules serving the upper classes.

it’s a miracle how people stayed sane through all this.

yet people always do. they always made it through.


@summernotes