Days 3, 4 and 5

Day 3
Happy Monday!  Happy first day of work to me!  I didn't think the heat was so bad until I had to commute to work with my laptop bag -- oy.  Imagine my horror when I walked in the bathroom and this was the first stall I walked into...

First one I've seen in SG.  Boy, do I loathe the squatty potty.  Pee splatters, people.  Also, in places like China where western toilets are much less available, where do people puke when they're hungover?  Thankfully, there were western toilets in the other stalls or else I may have had to quit :)

Work is great.  I have so much to learn, but I also have an awesome boss who is so willing to teach.  He also treated me to both coffee and lunch on my first day.  My work days will be long, but I'm learning that's pretty typical for SG.  People also typically do later mornings and later evenings.  The commute is busy and I'm still figuring out exactly what works best, but it should be about 25 min no matter what.  The office is 1.25 miles from home and I'd love to walk it if it weren't for the HEAT.

 This is a large green space next to my condo building with the sun starting to set. 

 My condo building!

 Sunset from our kitchen window.  10 cranes are in there.  10!  And I thought Denver was booming...

Day 4
Tuesday.  I was on my own for lunch today and found this in the nearby mall.  It's so weird to always be going to malls.

 So delicious and only $5.80SGD

I pass this on the way to the office.  It cracks me up every time because I feel like every woman's feet feel the same as this little sidewalk garden. 

Hi!  Here I am in the office elevator returning from lunch very shiny.  In the mornings, there is always an open elevator waiting for you and the elevator says, "Good morning!"  Also, the close door button really works!!!!

Tonight I went to trivia with my flatmates and their friends.  It was an Australian restaurant and my one beer, mediocre chicken BLT and pitching for 2 shared apps was was $50SGD - yikes.  It was pretty fun and good to meet people.  However, I remembered how hard it is to socialize at trivia and how serious some people take it.  I'll try, try again :)

Day 5
I had a later morning start because I finally got to FaceTime with Dad -- hadn't talked to him since I left, so that was great!  I'm thinking of looking into a "work schedule" that starts at 9am here, so I have time in the morning to catch up with the US.  Nights are harder since I'll hopefully have a social life at some point and I'll be working later than I did before and I just like my sleep.

Today I experienced my first SG rain!  I just watched it from the office -- it wasn't the crazy thunderstorms I've heard of, but it was nice to see some weather -- now it can go back to being sunny :)  We have a little sandwich/soup/salad joint in the lobby and I did that for lunch today.  It totally tasted like home and made me so happy :)  It was a bit more expensive than yesterday's at 7.40 SGD, but I really don't think I could make/bring lunch for much cheaper and we don't have the large kitchen set up like my US office.

Vegetarian sammie and minestrone soup.  Have I mentioned that the office is super cold?!

Really cool and interesting things are happening at work.  I'm not actually working on them yet because I'm dumb, but just getting to sit in on the meetings has been fascinating!  Working in International M&A was always THE dream, but everyone told me I would have to work in investment banking to do that, so I resigned myself to never doing it.  Again, I'm not actually doing anything right now besides training and learning the markets, and when I do start contributing I won't be working front ends of deals, BUT we work very closely with the transactions team to understand their models so that we team can track them once they close and start hitting our books.  We also work with them on upcoming deals so we can build them into forecasts.  Additionally, deals are occasionally restructured and we work with them on that.  Soooo cool!  I'm really energized by the work and little pieces are starting to make sense.  We will see what happens once I actually have to start pulling numbers and creating reports...

We closed our first deal of 2015 today and a few of us went to Champagne happy hour (okay, Prosecco) at Halia in the Raffles Hotel to celebrate.  Only $8/glass, people.  It was fun to celebrate the accomplishment and to spend time outside of work with my teammates.

....

Adjustment has still been hard, but Brandon gave me some good advice in the comment section of "Advice" (here).  I've been putting so much pressure on myself to see and do everything.  A - that's not realistic B - it's not me and C - i'm living here now, so there's no real rush to run through a checklist of sights and restaurants.  I need to get settled at home and focus on work and the rest will come.  I guess I have two life coaches :)