This week really has been jam packed full of stories and adventures to tell when I arrive back home in September!
The weekend ended last week with a trip to the Singapore Science Centre where my friend Iris was caged up and had bolts of electricity sent directly through the cage; she lived though so don't worry! It was pretty much like the Glasgow Centre with a few extra's such as a beautiful eco-garden outside and some electrifying shows with insects and lightening - not together!
During the week I have completed quite a lot of my current projects. I finally attended not one but two conference calls with countries across APAC and it was great! I didn't really know what to expect from these calls and for those of you who haven't experienced them yet it’s worth asking your mentor to do! After attending these, I think I will go back to University with a whole new perspective on group work & can't wait to exercise my new ideas on the whole dance! What was discussed in the calls is unfortunately highly confidential so can't say much but even though I am not directly involved with the issues, my mentor is keeping me up to date with all the progress as they are really interesting! It has shown me the types of issues companies face and also what departments are called upon to tackle them.
After completing my definition analysis I have now set up a meeting with finance tomorrow to discuss the implementation plan which I am really excited about! My mentor will be joining me for moral support & guidance on the right questions to ask & the stuff we should be aware of. The whole project has been a great learning curve for me and I can't wait to see it in action before I leave!
The head of HR in APAC has personally assigned me a specific project she would like me to complete for her. It is a bit different to the stuff I have been doing as its less analysis but more research and report compilation which suits me fine! I have to research all the countries in APAC and put together a basic summary comparison of how they differ. Singapore is of course the main one I will be looking at as the aim is to illustrate how different Singapore actually is to Asia. Main things I will look at are; cost of living, average salary, cost of buying a reasonably priced car (all I could think of was Top Gear when I heard this) and the basic photographic comparisons such as clothing, people etc. My mentor has said I can be as creative as I like so I can't wait to get my teeth in to it and do something really impressive for them! My colleague from BD and Marketing heard of the project and said she wants to see it when I am finished so that she can add some of the stuff to her PowerPoint’s for customers and new starts!
After all the excitement during the week the weekend didn't go any other way!
Friday night saw Maryanne and I head out for our usual Friday routine of food, wine and fun. Unfortunately I felt like death warmed up this week as I got food poisoning from some Tangy Tomato soup (I suspect) so we had to cut our evening short.
Saturday I was back on my feet and raring to go! There was no way any illness could have stopped me going to the Bird Park & on the famous Night Safari! We headed over and it was a long journey but an amazing day full of adventures! The bird park saw two shows of Birds of Prey and of random birds running and flying on stage at the Birds and Buddies show - it was great! We then went to the Birds of Paradise aviary where I was attacked by them as soon as I bought a food cup! They were gorgeous birds and I got a few good snaps to show everyone back home!
Afterward we headed over to the Night Safari next to Singapore Zoo where we saw the Creatures of the Night show; it had wolves, hyenas and servils all on one stage! They then brought out a huge Boa Constrictor named 'Maggie' which took 6 men to hold and they threw it over one poor man in the audience! Needless to say he struggled with the weight and sheer size of the thing! We then took the tram round the safari and saw amazing animals up close like hyenas, tigers, rhinos, deer, foxes, lions & elephants to name a few! After the ride we darted over to catch the last tribal show performed with fire, oil and crazy acrobatics! It was a brilliant night and we were all shattered by the end of it!
Today was gorgeous; the perfect weather for a water park so indeed that is where we went! Wild Wild Wet was about an hour away and it wasn't that huge but it was so much fun! We perched ourselves on a suitable sun lounger then raced round to try out all the slides! It was such a great day and a great end to a fantastic week so I feel the urge to ask..."please sir, may I have some more?!"