If you take more than your fair share of objectives, you will get more than your fair share of objectives to take.
P3 is over and done, my Singapore adventure draws to an end, and I experience nothing more dramatic than a strangely detached feeling about the whole thing, as if looking in on the experience from the outside. I didn’t manage to get close to Singapore as a city, and my INSEAD experience abroad struck me as no more exotic (barring the abominable humidity and the cheap food and taxis) than a move to, say, a neighboring office building might seem.
On my last day on campus, trying to wrap up an M&A project and generally loafing about while trying to decide whether to do some last-minute sightseeing or relax a bit, one of my colleagues approached me in the courtyard. We discussed careers (he had just signed a job offer) and finances, and when I reiterated for the umpteenth time my overall unease and nervousness at the prospect of not succeeding in my job hunt, he, in his usual matter of fact tone, said something that stuck with me. “Don’t be so negative. At this point, 90% of people don’t have anything. Try to enjoy yourself.” Maybe he’s right.
Side note, it’s a strange feeling moving from a structured “learn X by date Y” environment, spending each day with the same people, through an increasingly variable and dynamic schedule that will inevitably end with everyone dispersing to to all directions of the compass. Our academic focus has already moved strongly from an exam-based system to one relying more on group projects, including some due after many people have left for break. It’s been a bit adventurous, trying to coordinate groups over multiple sections; I think the people who stayed in the same group across their electives (assuming everyone was in the same classes) had an easier time of it than those of us who tried to schedule with different people between three or four different classes.
Anyway, it’s a vaguely melancholic inevitability we are all aware of. Many of us have become closer in Singapore — we had a great dinner at Oosh on Dempsey Road last Monday before stumbling, fumblingly drunk, to bar of the week (inevitably ending up at Insomnia at 3 a.m.) The quality of the company, and of our conversation, brought home again how much I want to stay in touch with this crowd when we’re all gone. I suppose that one good point of the Singapore stay was that I’ve had a chance to spend more one-on-one time with many of my friends from Fonty.
Oddly enough, the “decentralization” of both academics (a result of moving into P3) and social life (probably more due to being in Singapore) seems to have not gone over terribly well with some people. I’ve heard several tales of growing cliquishness having a negative impact on some of my friends’ ability to mingle. I had drinks with a friend recently who felt tremendously put off by a group seemingly brushing off him and a colleague at a party. Maybe I’m oblivious to this sort of thing (I rather suspect because I’m either (a) dense or (b) willing to walk away from anyone who isn’t friendly back to me) but if it’s true, it’s a disturbing undertone to our interactions.
It’s not that Singapore wasn’t a blast (more of a low-key ramp down from the insidious pressure of the last few months combined with the possibility of poolside studying), it’s just not really my scene, if that makes any sense. I’ve tried to garner my colleagues’ opinions and interpretations of Singapore as a city, the changing nature of relations, as well as everything from academics and finances to job search on the Singapore campus. There seem to be two pretty distinct camps — those who love it and those who’re itching to go back. Whether it’s the weather, the different nature of relationships on the Fonty campus (one gentleman suggested we were much closer there because we had to be…feh), or I-don’t-know-what, I think the Singapore experience is pretty binary. Either you love it or you’re pretty solidly, uncompromisingly ambivalent about the whole thing.
One thing is for sure — I’m looking forward to not being drenched in sweat the moment I step outside my apartment, and maybe to going jogging in the forest, and nice cheese and wine..mmh. As a last hurrah, I join a group of colleagues (it never fails to amaze me what a cosmopolitan, intelligent, and attractive group of people I get to hang out with) for a fun and delicious dinner in tropical surroundings (sadly cut short by the need to cab it to Changi for my flight.) It’s the latest in a series of enjoyable get-togethers in small intimate groups that make me wish the whole experience was so relaxing. It’s a good send-off from Singapore.
Later, from seat 65A of Quantas 304 Singapore-Heathrow, surrounded by tanned, plump English vacationers returning from a week in Australia (as I discover later during the connecting LHR-CDG flight, I vastly prefer the tourists to the business drones on their morning commute to Paris — disrespectful, pushy, stressed bunch that), I can see the suburban wastelands of greater London unfold beneath us like an unending blanket of illuminated sameness. At least 2 hours to go before everyone wakes up, and I’m already waxing poetic about the end of yet another episode. At the risk of sounding blasé, I’ve moved around so much recently that I no longer really feel any excitement at the prospect of yet another international relocation, I’ll just be happy to get out of this damn plane. Karin awaits, challenge awaits, job search awaits, INSEAD awaits, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.
