I was going through my daily routine of waking up at 8 am – feeling tired as hell – and dragging myself out of bed to get ready for work, reaching work before 9 am, visiting WTO, IMF, World Bank and ALADI websites to get data and create excel tables, when I was overcome with a sudden urge to blog. So here is my summer vacation so far, in as chronological an order as I could manage:
- Internship at Nevow (leading internet-related software company)
May-Jun, 6 weeks. My job was to surf the net for information on the internet ad markets in Korea and China, so that marketing directors could assess whether there was an opportunity for market penetration. However most of the time there was nothing to do and just watched videos on tudou the whole day. I learnt that marketing dudes have a d.i.r.t.y. sense of humor and are sort of like the friendly office fraternity.
- Internship with MTI
Jun-present. Was not expecting much because the last internship was such a walk in the park. However was sorely mistaken and was immediately given the task of finding economic data (GDP, trade flow, FDI flow, etc.) for the Mercosur countries. I have spent the entire internship thus far looking for data and putting them into excel tables. There was a steep learning curve, so although everything was novel and challenging at first, work has now sort of plateau-ed off into mindless drivel.
- Diving at Pulau Tioman, Malaysia
16-17 Jul. A very welcome break from office tedium. We dived at Malang Rock, Tiger Reef, Bahara Rock and near the shoreline at Genting Jetty. I saw a sea turtle, porcupine fish, barracuda and a shoal of anchovies amidst the pretty coral reefs. I love how at one moment, you can be so caught up with the urgency of city life, and the next, you can regress into basking in the wonders of nature. The thing about short, idyllic trips is: after the trip has seduced you with the notion that life can be so fun, relaxing and simple, you are given no time to recover from the dream. The call of economic statistics waiting to be churned is unforgiving - I was back at work the very next day, mood having suffered a significant plunge.
- Experiences 2008
20 Jul. An annual US education fair, drawing partcipation from 30 over US universities and crowds 3000-strong, the organizing committee of which I am a part of this year. This was such an amazing experience. Although I didn’t do much of the event planning since I was treasurer, witnessing the co-chairs being all resourceful and capable was such a treat. Everything from logistics to publicity to liaising with partner organizers SPH and SSTA went well. Highlight was definitely the night before when we were frantically trying to pack as many goodie bags as we could before lights-out at 12 mn. :)
