Thursday, October 08, 2009

It's finally sinking in!

After months of anticipation and excitement, the day is almost there - in another 4 days & 4 hours, I leave for Beijing on my onwards journey to Chengdu for my Corporate Service Corps assignment.

As I inform my project and department teams about the away-time, I can sense their excitement. I am flooded with follow-up emails & ST's - how do we apply; do you know what you will do; do we get to choose a country; who are the other team members; Wow, you'll be involved in some of the earthquake reconstruction work; etc. As friends from outside work who are aware of the assignment also email me, I realize what a unique opportunity IBM has presented us with!

For now, my life revolves around checklists – and the entries are increasing by the day!

- Passport & Visa: Green
- Complete background reading on Chengdu & China: Yellow – you can never read enough about this vast and fascinating land, can you?
- Collect previous team experiences on my assignment: Yellow – again, so much information, so many different places.
- Plan travel in other parts of China: Almost Green :-) I just need to choose between Lijiang and Wuyi Mountain for the last leg of the journey, and make bookings accordingly.
- Shopping: Red. Guess I’ll save this for when I get to China.
- Scream from the rooftops that I’m off to work with a global, cross functional team on social and economic issues: Green, font 100

It’s difficult to stay focused when I can barely contain my excitement - 7 weeks - hurrray!!!

2 comments:

The Line of Beauty said...
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The Line of Beauty said...

Congratulationss...I feel so happy for you!!