Guest blog: Want to Go to a Hawker Center, Lah?

Editor's note: This post is by Maureen Gaj, a junior in JE who will also be guest-blogging from her semester abroad in the spring!

If you can handle 24 hours of traveling by plane, then Yale has some opportunities for you!

Well, okay, I lie. It could actually be less than 24 hours of plane torture, especially if you are some of the people who work in Brussels, London, Mexico, Montreal, and Madrid. (I don’t want to bore you with all 18 places, so for the whole list, you can check out HERE. But for the rest of the people jetting off to Ghana, China, Singapore, South Africa, and Uganda, I hope you remember a fully charged iPod, a travel pillow, and some really interesting books.

This summer, I applied for one of the International Bulldogs Programs. And suddenly, when people were asking where I would be for the summer, I was answering "Singapore!"

So Singapore (The land where food courts are hawker centers and everyone is a lah).

I had to double check where Singapore was, ensure that my lack of any language other than English would not land me into trouble, and explain to my mother that Singapore was malaria free, but it was worth all the preparations, because I think it is safe to say I had the best summer of my life.

Not only did I have the best job ever. But, I had a lifetime of experiences in ten weeks.

First, Yale found us great housing right in the middle of the Central Business District. Wicked awesome. I lived with three other girls in this cute little apartment. It was just like being all grown up, except that in ten weeks I’d be back at school, with cooked meals and bathrooms that magically clean themselves. The view from our room was amazing. I’ve included it below, because it still makes me smile.

So breathtaking. Karolina (my roommate) and I could climb out our window onto this small balcony and look out at the city at night.

There were twelve of us there in Singapore this summer, and we each found our own niche in the city. We went on trips and activities sponsored by the Yale Club in Singapore, many of which involved Devin, who is pretty much the best example of how awesome Yale alumni can be. We got to go to various events at his three different restaurants in Singapore: Brewerkz, Café Iguana, and Wine Garage. He took great care of us while we were there; he even took us on a tour of Brewerkz brewery!

Here we all are at Brewerkz with Devin (he’s the guy with the super sweet shirt and glasses on the left). Well almost all of us: Jie was on a business trip to Malaysia (she went to 5 different countries with her job!) and Betty left early, and I’m taking the photo. And we are missing Liz, our amazing coordinator.

We also did a ton of traveling. A bunch of us went to KL in Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), and I also went to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and Bangkok in Thailand. It was absolutely, positively, fantastically, amazing.

And what’s even better, is Yale also paid for us to go and work at an orphanage in Siam Reap, Cambodia. That was probably my most favorite part of my entire summer. We worked at Sunshine Village and really got to have a great time with the kids. It made me really appreciate what I’ve got at Yale and at home, and made me a little more conscientious about the world. It was also great to see my first Wonder of the World (on some lists): Angkor Wat. I can’t even find words to describe this. We climbed on ruins, walked through huge gates, and saw Buddhist monks. It was incredible.

Katie, Karolina and I (complete with paint from our morning at the orphanage), with a couple of boys who liked our warpaint and copied!

All of us in front of one of the Bayon faces: Gabe, me, Katie, Bernie, Betty, Mitchell, Khadija, Karolina, Jie, Dhruv, Diana and Derek!

When I wasn’t traveling, I worked for Schlumberger in their Subsea Division, running explosion and fire analysis. It was complicated stuff, but so cool and totally relevant to my Chemical Engineering degree. So all you science majors can definitely go abroad too! There are plenty of research opportunities abroad (I know because I just checked the database).

Anyways. This summer was amazing. There just aren’t words or room here to describe it all. But, it all happened because of Yale. The program, the activities, the internship were all set up by Yale. In fact, Yale even gave me some funding through a couple of grants. And you can even use this awesome thing called ISA, which basically provides funding (based on the percent of your financial aid) for one summer experience abroad.

As if Yale doesn’t have enough for me right here on campus, it has also found a ton of things for me to do abroad too. Its kinda like Christmas where each present is better than the last, except this time, Yale is outdoing each of my summer experiences. I can’t wait for Summer 2009!