Updates from Oksana

Hey AIESEC Queens:
Here is an update from Oksana in India:

Hi Varun,

Thanks for the email. I'm doing well. Now that the first week is over and I've had some time to adjust to things, things really are much easier. Work is great, there's enough to do and it's interesting, but at the same time I'm not stressed, which is good, considering it's summer. I couldn't ask for a better boss. He's really really nice to me and I have a lot of fun with him. He also makes an effort to make sure that I'm not bored and that I'm not doing mundane work that is below my level.

Honestly, the hardest thing to adjust to was our trainee apartment, that gave me the biggest shock. It's really messy and way below accomodation standards that I would expect (and this is after living in student ghetto before with 8 other people in Kingston, where our house was quite messy too and not all that nice, so it's not like my standards are all that high). The apartment here has paint that is peeling off, it's really crowded and my flatmates just leave things lying about wherever, so everywhere there are piles of clothing, books, papers and other stuff all mixed together..... I was quite upset about it last week, when I first moved into the trainee house, it really got my mood down for the first 2 days, but now I've settled in and had some time to get used to the way it is.

And the people everywhere around me are great - at work, the AIESEC people and my flatmates are good too, except one guy is a bit weird, but whatever, so this really helps, being the extravert that I am, it makes all the difference.

I had a great weekend, which was really the "up point" after my "down stage" of dealing with the shock caused by my new living arrangements and I've been doing really well since then. On Saturday my manager drove me shopping, as I needed to pick up a few things, which really is outside the realm of his responsibilities to me, so I was really touched by the effort he made to help me settle in here in India. In the evening we went to a small party with my flatmates at the other trainees' house, so I got to meet some of the other international interns.

Sunday there was an AIESEC event, so I had to make a presentation in front of a group of students and their parents that AIESEC Baroda invited to the event, and afterwards I had to even give an interview for the local newspaper. Once the event was over, I hung out with the local AIESEC people for the rest of the evening, we went out for dinner, it was really nice.

Heat has still been a problem at times, I got a heatstroke on Sunday after walking around in the sun for only 15 minutes. But yesterday it rained for the first time and today the temperature has been cooler.

Anyway, this email is getting really long, so I'm gonna get going before it starts turning into a novel.

Take care,

Oksana