This week for the rest of spring break I got to see some hungry crocodiles, some revitalizing waterfalls, an island dazzling in seashells. We also ventured to palm cove beach, which felt like a desert island. Palm cove was so empty that I thought I could walk forever and come across no signs of civilization, which was an extremely pleasant thought. Me and the roomies (+ Alexa’s boyf) went to fancy restaurants every night and it truly felt like I was worlds away from the 9-5 lifestyle. The last day I felt so at peace, not even the thought of having to leave Australia would have disturbed me from my tranquility. Not even a horrendous cricket the size of an apricot in our room bothered me. It didn’t hit me until the next day on the flight that I became extremely distressed to be leaving the continent. More than anything I wanted to go back, but I have learned that putting myself out of my comfort zone is what puts un peu je ne sais quoi into life.
After trying to find groceries (while we facetime Sienna because she had some silly idea to go to New Zealand) and trying to decide on places to eat the first day in Singapore, I realized just how outside of my comfort zone this was. There are a million ways to get everywhere and a million places to go. While my brother Will had warned me of what I would discover, I was still surprised to find each mall five times the size of any normal mall I had been to, and hawker centres with a million little food stands–how do you choose! Since I’m terrible at making decisions, I see this as a great opportunity to practice and improve my decision-making skills.
After a great day at work learning about trading cryptocurrency and playing with numbers on excel, helping my boss’s boss compare data and what-not, another culture shock hit me at 10pm when I get a message from my boss. He was just making sure I had a good rest of my day since he had left early, but it shows how much work-life bleeds into home-life. Even though their hours are 10-6 (I LOVE sleeping in!!!), my coworkers are reachable pretty much anytime I have questions, and are dedicated to their jobs. On my first day they had me doing tasks I couldn’t even begin to explain as someone who doesn’t really understand Web3 or blockchain management at this point in time, but I was going through a journey trying to figure out etherscan. With my last internship I had a closed door office on the half empty floor of the largest privately owned building in DC, where I maybe saw a handful of people a day and was very secluded, 2 security scans away, from the city down below. This office is on the 3rd floor of an empty chinese restaurant where we sit at big tables and walk two feet across the room to discuss our work with a passion. Closing deals with a client can mean “life or death”, as I was told at lunch, and can happen anywhere from a club, a bar, a restaurant, or halfway across the world. Luckily the people I work with have a wonderful sense of humor, and while work is stressful, they also apparently have cooking contests, volleyball tournaments, go to boxing shows, and other fun stuff. Safe to say I will not be going as far as closing a high-stakes deal, but it is exciting to be able to witness and be exposed to everything that goes into one. While I need to work on my Singlish and my food ordering skills, I am excited to learn about a new culture and try out this new lifestyle.