Internationally Domestic

151: Domesticated Diva, International Lola

Cornstarch. Why does this house not have cornstarch? Oh yeah, because I'm doing the groceries now and no longer my mom. Mental note: get cornstarch. Asian homes need to have cornstarch. But hey, I'm proud to say that even without it, I'm cooking our dinners. Plus doing laundry, washing dishes, the whole household managing thing... Goodness. Who would've thought I would get domesticated? (Even my mom had given up hope.)

So today is the 5th day of B-School. And while everyone is promising hellish workloads over the next 18 months, someone made sure that our first week was all about spoiling and feeding us truckloads of free food. (Reminds me of the practice of feeding an animal the best stuff just before slaughter.) We got our course materials today and I was pretty much pleased that I didn't break my back carrying them from the releasing office to the locker. (I could've gotten paralyzed across the 4 meters that I had to cross. But then that would've been better than the torturous lawn bowling experience I had to go through today.)

As part of the "socializing/getting-to-know-you" drive, the school organized a Lawn Bowling activity for all MBA students (a large majority of which had not encountered Lawn Bowling before.) It should've been okay. I was wearing the only rubber shoes I was able to bring, along with the only hardcore sportshirt I had... only to be told that to do Lawn Bowling, you had to take off your shoes (yes, and walk barefoot across the wet lawn) and forget about your shirt because Lawn Bowling actually goes on even under pneumonia-inducing rain.

I hated the game. One, because I can't get it right. Two, because there was no time to create a system to get it right. I remember one of the exercises in our Six Sigma Training which involved getting a golfball straight into this cup to accumulate a group score of 500. The farther you are from the cup, the lesser the points. A hole-in-one gets you 20 points or so. Anyway, the trick in that game is to practice, practice, practice until you develop a personal system for getting it right - or at least close. Our trainer called it, "Eliminating variances." I ended up with the highest number of points, hence pulling the group score up. "And you know why Gladys got the highest score? Because she was the one who kept on having a go at it... not giving up until she found a system to achieve precision..." Ah yes. That's probably the trainer's technical way of saying, "She practically hogged the good golf club and crossed over to fanaticism." I guess he was pretty proud of himself to have been a very good Six Sigma trainer.

So the day ends with me chucking - not just the lawn bowling ball - but the whole concept of the evil game itself. (Okay, it's not evil. I just don't like it.) I can't really tell if this is a good Friday or not. There are just days which you can't classify outright as being good or bad.

The whole week however was fabulous. There's nothing like having tea with someone from Ireland, Indonesia, Japan, India and Lebanon, then sitting down for lunch with people from France, Belgium, Germany, Canada, Switzerland, Tonga, Sri Lanka, Malaysia. (Without getting intimidated, mind you. I mean, I practically surprised myself. Why is this so much easier than my orientation week in another environment a year ago?) I'm loving it. When I gave my introduction before the whole class, I think I was able to do it in true vivaglam way (good balance of seriousness and goofiness. Sorry, I really can't take the goofiness out). The Dean made a positive comment on it over lunch. The program coordinator tagged me as the class's Glamour Girl after that session for reasons that confused me. Talk about recall.

Talk as well about the exhilarating experience of turning domestic and International at the same time. Have I already said I'm loving it?