Acceptance Form

Besides getting a phone call from John, this sheet is another highlight of my day:



Actually, the internship coordinator emailed me last Friday, but I emailed her back the acceptance form only today. As if I had to think about it more haha. But yeah, my mind's already made up. I want to go to US right after graduation and I'm trying my best to make it happen.

The projects are on-going year-round so they can give us the flexibility of when we want to start. I indicated my start date as 20th of July 2008, which is just a few days after my graduation. The maximum period of the internship is 6 months, and when I first applied I told them I'll be doing it until January 2009. But then...I want my internship to be over during the Christmas period so that hopefully I can go someplace else where there's snow, so I could experience a white Christmas for the very first time haha. Coz Florida got no snow mah..

Aaah so nice to think about it. =) I hope I could have the visa and stuff. Last time the consul at the US embassy was so stern, but I guess they're meant to be like that.

This is a very exciting time of my life.

Because of you. =)

PS
WHO IS TIRAMISU???

Lil prayer on a Saturday morning

Proverbs 19-20-21

Listen to advice and accept instruction, and in the end you will be wise. Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.

This is the verse of the day when I looked at the little box with daily Bible verses on the left hand side of my blog.

Lord, I hope my plans are also according to your will. You know the desires of my heart, but you also know what's best for me. I sincerely hope they are the same thing. I do not know what the future holds, but I know who holds my future. Let your will be done.

Bits and Pieces of Today

Today, I discovered that splashing ferrous aluminum sulfate in your eyes isn't painful, and touching concentrated sulfuric acid with your left index finger and with gloves on would make it look like the finger's going to wither away - but no worries, it won't. In addition, peeling off a bit of your skin due to errant jerking of the stupid door lock would only be painful for about a millisecond, then it would just mind its own business bleeding a bit, which you won't even notice because it won't register pain, unless you see with your acid-splashed eyes the red coming out of the tiny wound.

So, those are the little 'accidents' of my 10-hour session at the lab today. Moving on...

Yo dude-who-thinks-he's-so-cool, the next time you call me a slacker, I am going to shove to your face my weekly schedule so you'll know how ignorant and obnoxious you are.

On a happier note, I received this email which got me all excited I'm about to do cartwheels.



If all goes well, right after my graduation on July next year, I'll be doing a traineeship in the field of environmental engineering (something very similar to my final year project right now). And the best part is, I WOULD BE IN FLORIDA!!! In the USA again!!! Whoooopeeeeee!!! =) MK!!! haha=)

God I hope this goes well, with the visa and all. This time, I am going to do the paperwork on my own, I guess, because I searched for and contacted this US-based company myself. Last time I went, the agency did everything for the Work and Travel program and I'm impressed by how systematic they were in handling us. It was all a breeze for my part. This time, I would appreciate any help I could get. Hehe=)

Anyhoo. I am going to see Daphne and my Work n Travel newfound friends tomorrow! FINALLY!!!

P&G versus Citibank Career Talk, and then some.

I've only been to two career talks held on campus: the first one was by Citibank, and the next by P&G, which I wouldn't dare to miss. Actually the first one was supposed to be by DBS bank, but they turned me away because I wasn't dressed appropriately. That gave me an excuse to go to the mall on a weekday and splurge on appropriate clothes for such events.

The one by Citibank has turned me off and made me think I am unsuitable to be in the corporate world. It's like everything is stiff, you always have to put your best foot forward, and you'd always have to plaster a plastic smile on your face whenever you network with other people, which is an integral part of your career. At least that's what was impressed on my mind after attending their talk. I appreciate the effort of their bigwigs to come down and talk to us students who are eager to learn what's out there beyond the four corners of our school, but then...they were super boring, can. We are students, not your stockholders or CEO's of your client companies.They spoke about how great their company is and gave us charts after charts, figures after figures, dollar signs after dollar signs of their net revenues and anything else that would serve as evidence of their 'greatness'. At first I was, WOW...then eventually my reaction turned to ZZZ.

I went away feeling that this whole banking career thing is so not for me, thankyouverymuch. And it's just ironic because Citibank was just recently ranked as employer of choice by graduates in Singapore. Well, to each his own.

But for P&G, it's different. Their people came in wearing nice corporate clothes and all, but they were all very casual in the way they gave their presentation- and they were very engaging. I found myself on the edge of my seat, hanging on to every word of whoever's speaking, yearning to learn more about this great company. They all made it seem like it's such a nice, fun company to work for, without compromising the fact that they are all smart people who could deliver. They are not intimidating, and they do not alienate newbies.

I've been to the P&G Roundtable discussion last year, and I've had similar reviews even back then. Every one of those who spoke were full of energy (as opposed to the Citibank representatives who seemed bored even of themselves), and everything they said made sense.

Oh by the way, one of P&G's representatives tonight was a Filipino and I'm kind of proud of him because when he spoke, everyone in the lecture theatre gave him his/her utmost attention. He exuded this certain charm, that even if he's already a bigwig in the company, he doesn't make a fuss out of it and he spoke to us like we're his buddies. Of course, I approached him after their presentation and I introduced myself, and I even asked him if he knew my aunt who also works for P&G. Then he said 'Dina? I HIRED HER'. Hah! Jackpot!!!It was so nice of him to give me his email address and told me to email him if I have any questions, and he'd help me clarify my doubts

Maybe I can't really directly compare a bank with a company that deals with fast-moving consumer products such as P&G because each deals with different things. And maybe it's unfair to judge a company based on their campus recruitment talk representatives. But in the viewpoint of a penultimate year student looking for my options of what's next after school, the fun/dynamic/casual workplace factor is a big part of my decision-making process, because I am still young and young people usually gravitate towards these things. When almost all the speakers are boring, it makes me think 'So these are the people I'm gonna work with at the office...heh no thanks.' And it makes you wonder why it seems that the dementors from Azkaban in the Harry Potter series came and sucked the life and happiness away from these fellows.

Back to P&G. It has been my dream company even in highschool. I dug up archives (Daydreaming, P&G part deux) from my old blog to remind me why, as well as this post of why I thought I'm not cut-out to be a civil engineer .

Hmm, but recently I have come to appreciate what I've been doing for my FYP (related to environmental engineering-I'll blog about it some other time), and I was thinking maybe I finally found my niche in this world. BUT after attending the P&G talk, all those feelings of excitement and whatnot from the mere utterance of the name P&G came rushing back to me.

God, where do I go from here???