So here i am, as the year draws to a close, trying my bestest to create some written record of what the year has brought. This episode is the one spanning mid-June to late-Aug.
photos are at the end...
the musicals
i had an ambitious plan to watch as many musicals i could, but i achieved little. The first musical david and i watched was 'Wicked', with Amy and Adeline, though we didn't manage to sit together. It was fantastic, and set a high benchmark of musical standards for me. The 2nd was 'Les Miserables', which i loved but David didn't appreciate that much. and... sadly, that was all we watched together. The trouble was that student tickets only applied on weekdays, and I had to rush to Leicester Sq after work to try to get tickets. Unfortunately, i didn't get much further on my own either, though i did try to catch 'Mama Mia' and the 'Lion King' but was turned down because they were sold out by the time I got there. The only other thing i managed to catch was the world's longest running play, 'The MouseTrap' by Agatha Christie, an acclaimed 'Queen of Crime'. That was with Zhuang in a crummy tiny theatre with almost no ventilation. It was so old-fashioned and slow-moving that zhuang fell asleep. But i thought it was decent, if you appreciate a mystery.
the food (and drinks)
The work routine meant that the copenhagen lifestyle was broken. Breakfast was still mostly cereal and milk, or a 'reduced' pastry from Waitrose bought the evening before. I almost always had lunch at the office cafeteria (except sometimes when I wandered around Canary Wharf with some other pple, or once when I came home for instant noodles because I forgot to bring my passport to work). I got used to having 'the grill' for lunch (= a burger + sometimes chips), i also got used to being set back about S$10 every lunch.
Dinner was a homely affair, at least for the 1st half of my stint. Home-cooked food was the best and cheapest, and i was totally spoilt when David was around. He would cook most of the time. He even cooked me stew to last a few days before he left. and after that, it was downhill from there. Kelvin was still around for a couple of weeks, so sometimes he would offer to cook for me and vice versa, but after he left, i got rather lazy. my excuse is that Aug was when i had a lot of 'visitors' and I went out a lot to meet people for dinner. but other than that, I was also usually too lazy to cook even on weekends. I would skip lunch and dinner would be someting really simple. it's terrible cooking for 1 person. It was so much more fun in copenhagen.
drinking is another matter altoghether. it was almost a ritual for the English. Everyday after work, the place you head to is the pub. Well, at least it seemed that way for the interns. Also explains why I didn't make that many friends among the intern class. I just wasn't happening enough. too bad.
the house
Thank God for the provision of the apartment through Ling Li, my JC friend. The location was great, until the DLR station from which i could take the DLR to work closed for repairs till Spring 2009 a week after i moved in. Nonetheless, the 15 min walks to the next station was great exercise and going into the dodgy neighbourhood where the next station is was always interesting. (I refused to take the tube becuase of the horror stories I hear about the peak hour human squeeze). The location was also great because it was incredibly close to Sarah (David's sister) and James. It was also at the edge of Zone 1, which meant that going into the city wasn't a problem, and London Bridge was within a 15-min walking distance (a distance i found myself walking rather frequently to meet people)
More important than the location, my house-mate was great. Rather easy-going, very nice and helpful. We had some mutual friends so we always had things to talk about. His bizzare sleeping hours helped ensure I was never late for work (He wakes up at 5am, so I told him to bang on my door if i wasn't awake by 8am). Without him, I would have died getting to the airport to come home.
the church(es)
I attended about 3 churches while in London. The first of which was the Metropolitan Tabernacle, in which Charles Spurgeon preached to packed congregations in the 1800s. Today, Dr Peter Masters preaches to not-so-packed crowds, but the solemn style of worship was a welcome respite from church in Copenhagen, and closer to home. Also had a chance to attend some sessions of the 'school of theology' (similar to DVBS but for adults who come from all over the UK) and those trips proved to be rather scary considering that the church is situated in a not-too-good neighbourhood.
Also attended New Life BP Church twice. Saw some familiar faces like Josiah (tho i didn't recognise him immediately) and Nancy Too on the 2nd time. The congregation was really small (like 30 people) and mostly Singaporean. It was also very far away in the Northwest of London, far out in Zone 3, but i had to go check it out.
The last church i went to was an Anglican church, on my last Sunday before I left. Juline brought me (she was another highlight of my summer actually!). I was rather apprehensive, but after the denmark experience i thought it was not that bad. The preaching was sound and it was in the 'ok' part of the spectrum of the Anglican denomination, save the band. In fact, it didn't seem anglican at all, except for the building. There were no rituals that i always associate with the denomination. I told Juline that i thought that the church was quite decent and she said, 'of course la, that's why I attend it!'. haha.
Thank God for church, it kept me sane, and ensured that Sunday wasnt another day of lazing around like Saturday. It was also nice to meet up with Sarah and James and then go for lunch after. They very kindly picked me up when we went to Met Tab so i didn't have to tube. Also met James Seow's (from SMU/GLCC) brother and sis-in-law @ Met Tab towards the end of my stint and they were very friendly as well, shame time didn't allow more interaction- perhaps next time.
the work
work was sufficiently enjoyable. everything gets boring at times i guess. there were good days and bad days. towards the end I started feeling quite sian too. maybe work just isn't for me :p But the nature of the work was what I feel I've always wanted. Easy enough in the sense that you really just need a lot of common sense and none of the cheem theories you learn in school, but challenging enough in that you need to be resourceful and you need common sense - i.e. you need to be able to think.
the people were nice and helpful too. my team was quite huge, about 10 people in all and i'm glad that i managed to work with all of them for something or other. My direct report was a rather strict German lady but i managed to impress her sufficiently within the 1st week (only by His grace) so we managed to work on very good terms. My director was a jolly 'old' man who had a quirky habit of wearing a polka-dotted tie with striped pants, making him look like a clown (sans suspenders). Interestingly, for an British company, the British were in the minority. No one was really foreign because almost everyone was. My buddy was Kenyan, but Indian and studied at Warwick. She was extremely pleasant and good-natured and we had good fun sitting side by side at work. It was a good thing that we are the same age too (except that she has a 2 year headstart at working!)
I knew full well that at the objective at the end of the internship was to get a job. the whole 10 weeks i prayed really hard for God to show me clearly if it was His will for me to work there. He's brought me thus far, and it was definitely not by my own strength that so many doors opened for me to be there in the first place, so I left it up to Him to decide whether to open the last door, or to slam it into my face. I was really ok with the latter, because all it meant was that I would go home, which sounded quite good to me too (before the whole catastrophe in the markets). God is sovereign. He knew that i wouldn't be able to find anything else in Singapore because He knew how crappy the job market would turn immediately after i finish my internship, so He provided. I know it is His will because almost all the circumstances were against me. i didn't come from a branded English school, neither was I the most eloquent person, or the quickest learner, I knew almost nothing about the Europena markets (heck i didn't even know what the 5 largest banks in the UK were); but He enabled, and helped my superiors to see me in a light that I would never view myself, and He gave me the job. So i guess it's simple from there, i just follow, trust and obey. The peace in my heart prevailed throughout. I didn't have to stress myself about performing throughout the 10 weeks, or about the outcome at the end.
AD (after-david)
after david left for Singapore/Australia, weekends were a rather lonely affair. Surprisingly, i found the time spent alone rather refreshing and interesting, considering I have constantly been around people the past x years of my life, and in particular, the last 7 months with friends. I never truly felt alone for prolonged periods of time until mid-July. i slept in on saturdays and spent many hours on the phone, calling home, talking to bren and david, and other random pple i called because the time difference didn't allow me to do so during the week.
i went shopping alone (the way i like it) - took my time at some shops and sped through the rest. Actually, i went shopping A LOT. sometimes after work I would wander around the shops @ Canary Wharf because the 'further reductions' signs looked rather inviting. I went to Hyde park intending to play frisbee but chose a particularly cold and windy day when the team wasn't playing. So i ended up strolling through the park, freezing in a sleeveless top but enjoying the peace. I walked to the Christian bookshop quite far away to look at DVDs and stuff; went to Borough and Portobello markets; watched Shakespear's 'King Lear' @ the globe one day after work, but again choosing a wrong day when it rained and it was wet and freezing in the open-air theatre.
I even did some touristy stuff. Went to Greenwich after CIP (which i've blogged about), and also decided to visit the Tower of London because my tube station was closed for the day and i lived at Tower Hill (and again chose a rainy day, sigh). It was a different sort of enjoyment i guess.
But no, i don't think i'm a true-blue hermit. I wasn't alone for that long. Then again i wasn't totally alone, there was Kelvin my house-mate, Sarah and James, whom i met almost every week for church and for some other random meals, and other people who dropped by like Zhuang, the rest of the ops team from Singapore, and SMU people who were arriving for their exchange.
Man is a gregarious creature.
Carol is man (as in, part of the human race).
Hence, Carol is a gregarious creature.
(Great Analytical Skills at work. Prof Ta.n Y.oo Gu.an would be so proud of me, I remember my stuff from Year 1 Sem 1)
Conclusion
All praise and thanks be to God for allowing me such an incredible summer experience- one i never ever dreamed of in my entire life, and that was to change its course forever.
Soli Deo Gloria.
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and here for a slice of british corporate life, but only the fun bits...
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