Week 2 in KL

It's the second week since I've started work, and everything is going smoothly. Unfortunately, since I'm living and working in the city, the traffic gets horrendous during peak hours in the morning and evening (especially the evening.) The building I work at is connected to the biggest mall in KL, I'll try to upload pictures in another post. I live in Bangsar now, the same area as the office and within walking distance (40 mins walking...so I walk to the LRT station and take the shuttle bus.) The train service here is bipolar: one is excellent, the other is terrible. The LRT stands for Light Rail Transport, and is similar to the LRT/MRT system in Singapore and the BTS system in Thailand. It's very convenient, but I don't need to take that to work anymore.

The place I moved into at Bangsar's not the nicest place, but it's a place to stay. Over the weekends I join my friend Ping (also from UM, doing Chemical Engineering). I still haven't had the chance to go around to tour KL much, though I am making plans to visit Genting Highlands in about 2 weeks, and to visit the big shopping malls and districts (usually non-airconned districts).

At work, I'm still doing Accounts Payable, which is an accounting job pretty much. Finance in a firm like this generally means accounting. I've been helping out with entries in Hong Kong and Malaysia, since the office in KL is a Global Shared Service center, it handles and reconsolidates all entries and invoices from/to all of Asia. The next couple of days I'll be helping out in the updating of their accounting program using the Fixed Asset Module, which is pretty interesting since this is something new for both the employees here and me. I'll also be doing General Ledgers, consolidating all entries of transactions and preparing the report to be consolidated in the US, which in turn is published for shareholders to see. I'm going through the protocols of how the information of the web comes to be, and what steps are involved. At the start of the internship I asked for one thing: maximum exposure. So they've done a great job giving me a variety of work. And I always ask for more, and they're usually happy to give, until the point that they run out, then they let go online (like right now) and on facebook/msn and stuff. It's a great experience for me, and I'm trying to take advantage of this opportunity to travel and enjoy Malaysia.

Back to Business!

Things are going fabulously! Turkey is an amazing country. The people, culture, and transportation systems make this city unique. I'm definitely enjoying my time here.

My internship at Girisim has also gotten a lot better. I've been entering checks and invoices into the database. It's fairly tedious, but difficult because of the language shift - the database language is Turkish. I'm learning a lot about the bank and business world, and I'm learning it half way between languages.

I haven't done too much sightseeing since the first weekend I got here. I was sick for about a week with a head cold. This next weekend I plan on doing some more sightseeing around Istanbul. Here are some pictures from my travels thus far:

 

In front of the Hagia Sophia

 

Mosque on the bosphorus

 

Park Plaza, my office building

 

Joy and I ate a local restaurant

Eating döner. Yummmm!

View from the walkway at Beşiktaş

Entry 5: Week 4 at Bilkent

Hello,
This past week at Bilkent has been alright. The work I am doing right now is not very engaging. I have not yet started research since the professor asked me to input the written comments on the students peer evaluations, which is taking me some time. On the bright side, I am staying busy with that. I also have not been able to help the MBA coordinator with admissions because we are still awaiting approval that I am actually allowed to assist (because of the confidentiality of the paperwork). However, this past week has been great because I did indeed start Turkish classes. There is only 1 other student in the class, a girl aroung my age from Russia so we hung out this weekend which was nice. A phd student who has an office near mine also introduced herself to me and we went to lunch. She introduced me to an American girl who works in higher education in Ankara. I enjoyed meeting her because I could relate to her and she had alot to share about her experiences through her work higher education. I am very happy I was able to make some friends this past week and to begin improving my turkish. Besides that, I had a fun and relaxing weekend despite the fact that the weather wasnt always so pleasant.

1st time in Turkey

I arrived at Istanbul 5 in the morning and I couldn't find a person,who was going to pick me up. Then half an hour later, I realized that my flight was one hour early. After all the confusion, Anjariita picked me up at the airport and we went to the dorm together. After taking a rest for 1 hour at the dorm, Jason took me to tour around the city. I find it very difficult because I can't remember any road names since the pronunciation is so different. He took me to brunch with his Turkish friends. One thing I learned was that Turkish drinks lots of tea and their tea had a very strong taste. The city itself is really nice and unique.

Then first day of work...I was placed in factoring company called Fiba Factoring. I also have a manager there as my mentor. Her name is Asli. She is a very nice lady and well rounded. She helped me with everything.

There are many departments in this company such as credit, operation, international, and ect. I am now in credit department for 2 weeks and then they will have me try other department in the company.

People in the office are very nice and helpful. Some can speak english and some don't. They also taught me Turkish. So I know some basic stuff. It is a great experience to be here

View from where I stay:theres a park across the street

Week 1 in KL

Hi all. I arrived in KL last Saturday, and a friend whom I'm staying with for the time being picked me up from the airport. KL is just like Bangkok, except that Bangkok is in worse shape now. It was a pretty quick ride home, cruising way past the speed limit to Petaling Jaya. Home was 45 minutes away from the airport, but with the light traffic and the speed at which we were going, we got there in less than 30 minutes.

First week of work was alright, except that I got food poisoning. I think it was the food I had on Tuesday, but I ended up having bad stomach aches and nausea 2 days later. I started feeling it at work, but thought it was just because I didn't sleep well. Turns out I didn't sleep well due to the food poisoning. So yesterday I took a day off work, went to the doctor to get some medication, and here I am, sitting at the office now. The person whom I usually get work from is not in the office yet, so I have free time until then. (About 15 minutes) Other than this fiasco, work is pretty typical. I have to keep asking for work. The work I'm doing now is accouting, using a program called SAP. Currently I'm helping out with Accounts Payable (AP) in the Asia Pacific region. At the start of the week I was in AP North America, doing some vendor reconciliation. Work is time consuming and exhausting, since it's all about looking at numbers, keying them into the system, and making sure the numbers match. Today I'll have to take it easy, I wouldn't want a relapse of the headache and nausea.

Work has started

I arrived in Istanbul last Thursday. It is HUGE. I come from a very small city, so this is extremely different from home. There are so many people!

I began work on June 7, so I had the weekend to recover from any jet-lag and to tour the city. I went to the old part of the city, as well as some of the newer shops. It was good to get a feel for the city before working. My favorite spots so far have been in Kadiköy and the old part of the city. On Saturday, I met up with Peter, another CIBE intern, and we toured some of the old monuments together.

Yesterday was my first day of work at Girisim Faktoring. Unfortunately, I don't have much to say about work because I haven't had any assignments yet. There is some difficulty with language that is preventing me from doing certain tasks around the office. I know basic Turkish, but it is very hard to communicate with people. Also, not many people in the office speak English which makes that end of the deal complicated as well. The office has been very kind and welcoming, which I am grateful for. They are determined that I will learn Turkish soon. In the meantime, they are looking for work that I will be able to understand.