Bamboo treat for the elephant
- Name - Marjam Vaher
- Current location - Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur
- Internship description - project manager in MindValley, an internet marketing company on personal development (www.mindvalley.com)
- Date of birth - 8th of September 1983
- Graduation data - Tartu Universitiy, political science and journalism, 2008
- Crazy things ever done in the life - falling in love with a 4 years younger guy - but quite a guy he was :)
- Life quote - “Follow your bliss. The heroic life is living the individual adventure.” Joseph Campbell
- Personal blog addrs - marjam.blogspot.com
I've been now living in Kuala Lumpur for 2 months and finally start to realize what they mean by saying: "Internship is all about getting to know yourself."
My personal development has never been that fast
In the beginning starting your life in a new country is just an exciting adventure -- new food, new places, parties, people, work, shopping. Especially as Malaysia is full of diversity, the climate is hot and you can end up in a total adventure just by going to China Town or driving 30 min out of the city -- in the beginning you're just too full of new impressions to even realize what you're experiencing.
Then after a while you feel more settled in your new environment to understand what's going on and what it really means for you.
I moved to Malaysia with my 5-year old son -- but apart from this my whole social network stayed to Estonia. When you start all over in a new country you suddenly have a world of opportunities -- creating new networks, finding your place in the company where you're working, forming opinion about things you've never even thought about before etc etc.
Estonians community in Kuala Lumpur is growing rapidly
Has made me stretch more than any other experience in my life so far
This truly brings out the best and worst in you -- I've never felt so closely connected with my own strengths and weaknesses. Your borders become really clear, as you have no-one to count on -- just yourself and your "two bare hands".
This is what I really value about having moved so far away from home to a world-class internet marketing company - it has made me stretched more than any other experience in my life so far. My good qualities have been tested -- some proved to be deeply integrated to my nature, others only illusions.
Traditional dish at Chinese New Years dinner -- allegedly brings prosperity for everyone who eats it
New useful habits
In the beginning I worked a lot to establish a new routine for myself -- just to have some stable things to hold on to. I started to wake up early, went swimming every day, read regularly internet marketing books to be updated for my job, took a more conscious approach to my sons learning and much more. I wanted to do most of these things already in Estonia, but was never compelled enough to really took action.
In a foreign country doing all of this is quite often the only way to truly enjoy life. You have to work with yourself to succeed -- and the need for this is so much stronger than your internal laziness, so the speed of your personal development just skyrockets (at least was so for me).
I guess there can be different reasons for going on an internship, but in the end the result will still surprise you. My professional goal was to learn about internet marketing to become an entrepreneur and personal one to follow my adventure (a long time dream to move to an exotic country), but in reality you get much more. Honestly - you never quite know what awaits for you when you take off from Tallinn airport, but be it good or bad - your bound to become a stronger, more confident and much more self aware person.
As I haven't been really talking about my job and Malaysia, so here's a list of a few highlights of my internship so far:
- I was made responsible for $ 500 000 business from the beginning of my internship and start making a documentary next month
- there's a pool in the building I'm living in -- WTF???
- I'm working together with muslims, Christians, atheists and just some wacky spiritual people coming from more than 10 different countries -- a mind blowing team experience
- partying in a nightclub as the only white girl is quite a strange experience :)
- you can buy brands that cost a fortune in Europe 3 times cheaper here (or about 100 times cheaper when going to the local market...)
- fruits here are just FANTASTIC
- here are some biggest shopping malls I've ever seen - people are just so INTO shopping
- I got robbed in the night by some teens on motorbikes - don't tell my mother, she would freak out :)
Surely there's much more - such as how it is to live in a Muslim country, have equator too close to be ignored and lizards wondering around in your living room, celebrating CHinese New Year for a week in a row, eating roti and other local wonders etc.
But as the posting is already long, then -- till next time, or even better -- just follow your own bliss. Surely there's more to gain when lose, especially with the guarantees you get with AIESEC. Though, honestly, there's no better guarantee than trusting your own better judgement, but getting an interns community as an extra bonus and being able to choose your own job in more than 100 countries is quite a benefit, still.
No comments:
Post a Comment