First Week of Internship

My semester break isn't so much about break. I'm currently undergoing my internship for 8 weeks starting last Monday (May 10) in Malaysian Tourism Promotional Board a.k.a Tourism Malaysia in Putra World Trade Center.

Thanks to my hommie, Jet for submitting my application. I got tired of applying around and getting different kinds of excuses on why they weren't hiring interns for only 2-month time. So, I'm settled with Tourism Malaysia, which is not that bad anyway.

Here's the breakdown on how my first week went:

Monday!

6am - Got up, bathed, dressed, performed prayer, had breakfast and bid goodbye to all living creatures in my house.

7.30 am - Waited for the Komuter. The first two trains were full and I'm not a big fan of squashing myself among people's asses, breasts and bellies. So I waited for the next train at 8.03am and thankfully it wasn't as packed as the previous two.

8.30am - Reached PWTC. Prepping myself up before heading to the 19th floor. I wore white Zara shirt with my grey Zara pants and black-and-white striped Banana Republic tie. Shoes are courtesy of Ayi's. Hihi.

10am - Gathered in the meeting room of the 19th floor, along with other 4 interns - Samuel, Asif, Yanti and Yati. Briefed by the assistant director of the departments. Then, one by one was called for a private interview to decide on our placement.

11am - My turn. They asked me what I think about 'tourism'. Thankfully my mind went back to the assignment I did two semesters ago regarding tourism and I dug every info and every data I could to answer the question. He seemed quite pleased by my response, amen.

They asked me what would I feel if they were to put me in the AERO division (America-Europe). I said, I wouldn't mind at all. Frankly, I have no idea about any of the division so, heck, just put me anywhere and let's get it over, I thought.

1pm - Lunch break. Asif and I went for lunch in The Mall across PWTC. Headed back by 2pm.

3pm - We got our flashcards ready and were separated according to our respective departments.

I headed to AERO, mingled around and put on my best game face when actually inside, I couldn't wait until the clock struck 5.

5pm - As soon as it was 5pm, I packed my stuff and made my way back. I was already asleep by 10pm that night.

Tuesday!

I was called by the assistant director of the department and she assigned me for some work. She told me they were doing a proposal to increase their budget allocation and needed my so-called 'expertise' (haha!) in economics to justify their reasons with solid figures, data and other relevant issues.

I later learnt that was the only excuse they used whenever they wanted me to do work - because I'm the only intern doing economics there. Whatever.

So I spent almost the entire day on the 24th floor a.k.a in the library for some research and preparing a short paperwork to support their proposal.

By 3pm, I headed down to hand my boss the result where she made few amendments and I had to redo it again. Then I noticed a new intern had reported himself into my department but yet to be assigned for any work or department.

4.45pm, I finished doing the whole thing and the boss approved it. I handed it to my colleague to include it in the proposal.

By 5pm, I said ta-ta to everyone and head home.

Wednesday!

Meeting at 9.30am for homestay roadshow-cum-seminar in Europe, Australia, Russia and America. The best thing about meeting is I could eat as much as I wanted and saved my wallet for lunch.

Meeting ended by 1pm and I headed for lunch with Yati, Yanti and their friend Zani in The Mall, but I just had a drink since I had eaten.

Back from lunch, I was called by a colleague to redo a budgeting account since the boss would 'prefer' it in another format - a much more detailed one. I headed up to the library again and as I was doing it, I was called back to the department for more changes. Big sigh.

By then, it was close to 5pm. I didn't care, I headed back and emailed the workload to my email account so I could do it at home.

I slept around midnight that day.

Thursday!

I had a rather sombre start without my iPod plugged on my ears as I boarded the morning train. No cellphone and now no iPod. I felt naked.

As soon as I had flashed my card, I headed upstairs to the library to print my work. Then I handed it to my colleague for her to check. Then I noticed Dato Mahathir Lokman in my department for a meeting with my boss. Didn't care much, lots of work to do, sorry.

9.15am, my colleague Kak Zah called me and said the boss changed her mind (again) and everything had to be overhauled. Some changes had been made and now the budget might not be as pretty as proposed.

Since another colleague was on leave, so I did my work in his cubicle the entire day. I had no time to get bored and as usual, I finished my work by 5pm and got outta there.

Friday!

I decided to drive today but surprisingly it was an easy-breezy drive from house to work. I reached PWTC by 7.15 (only 15 minutes drive) and parked at the Putra Bus Station. In the lobby, I bumped into Senator Dato' Jins Samsudin and I greeted him where he nodded with an approving smile.

I was greeted with more work by Kak Zah and Kak Oli (what a cute nick name). They needed all of the data in the 17-page proposal to be translated into a nice table by 10am. Shit, I was freaked out.

Thank God I didn't skipped those Excel classes in UM because at this point those skills really came in handy.

By 10.15am, I emailed them the tables with few corrections of their calculations. 10.30am, I had to print and photocopy 5 copies of the finished report and presentation for our meeting at 11am with the representative from KSU.

I was literally running from one end to the other end of the department, doing my job, getting the meeting room ready and refreshments to be served by then.

By 11.10am, I was in the meeting room with the rest of my colleagues including the big boss of my department. The presentation went well but we needed to further trim the budget to make it more 'attractive' for it to be passed.

The rest of the day went back to normal and I finally got to catch my breath.

Let's see what the second week has in store for me.