Tschuss GM..

I finally have the time to sit in front of the computer and blog! I sincerely apologize to all those who have been visiting my blog, only to see nothing new. My internship is over and I now I've got all the time in the world to blog, apart from writing a report for NUS and german classes at night.

The last few weeks have been crazy, preparing for my final presentation and tying up all the loose ends for work. Then came the actual presentation which was kind of a "sweaty palms" event for me. Despite doing it in English and having another fellow intern who was presenting on his work, I was nervous as hell! It probably had to do with the fact that I did not recognise half the people in the room and to make matters worse, there were two other colleagues on net-conference from US and Sweden. My boss really had an extensive invite list for us. Thankfully, I was not fielded as many questions as my poor fellow intern who is German by the way. He had it worse because he too had to present in English and answer questions in English. On the whole, it was really a test of confidence, public speaking and an introduction to corporate bullshitting.


Apart from work, we had a couple of fun activities organised during my last 2 weeks at GM. One of it was the department soccer match. Interestingly called "Kartoffeln vs Fruity", it was a game of Germans vs foreigners. Kartoffeln means potato and it refers to the Germans. I was amazed at the response for a soccer game as about 20 guys turned up to play at a really cool indoor grass court in Mainz. Unfortunately for the Germans, my team - Fruity, had many more players and thus there was always a fresh pair of lungs and legs to come in. No surprise, we won but I admire the Germans drive, enthusiasm and they fought really hard. I guess it was a really good bonding experience for the company and it always important for collegues to go out and have fun after work. I wonder if engineers back in Singapore have such stuff...

The other activity was a bowling night for my group. This was more of a family affair as spouses and children came along. Unfortunately, they cannot bowl as well as they play soccer.


A group photo of us at the alley. Dunno why everyone's so gloomy.. prob because this is the 5th attempt by the waitress to take a photo without shaking the camera.


Fussball after bowling.. To my right is Stefan, the other intern who presented with me. He did a really good job despite it being in English.