3 more days before my internship is over... it's been a heck of a ride, and right now i'm filled with, literally, hundreds of thoughts and a myriad of emotion -

Panic
Panic because I've been caught up - and not always willingly - in the work, and it's taken me too far away from the stuff I should be doing in school. While it's been an enjoyable ride - people-wise and not exactly work-wise - I find it difficult to remind myself that it's only for this moment, and not a career for the rest of my life. I've never been so under the water for a long time - and I dare say it's even worse than my 3rd year project - and I'm going to get absolutely screwed with my search for a 4th year supervisor and thesis proposal. But I won't swap it for anything.

Sadness
As I mentioned, work really can be downright sucky - sitting perspiring in a windowless office at 2/3am in the morning isn't my idea of fun (I'm not a workaholic, though some of you may not believe it) - but the people have been absolutely fabulous. My mentor / buddy has been a dear - sort of crazy caring sister type - and my colleagues are chio. I mean fun and thoughtful =p Of course even if I can carry on longer, it wouldn't make much of a difference - the training I've planned for is an annual event, and on Saturday the majority of them will be flying off to take up positions across the region, and even next year, it'll be a whole different batch coming in. So it's not just a one-off thing for me - it's going to be the last time everyone's going to meet everyone too.

Relief
While work is still there to be done - a whole stack came in yesterday - I've obviously begun to feel slightly relieved that this 3 months is going to be over soon. I remember how horrific the first 6 weeks were - I was literally in a daze - and when my buddy took leave to take her CFA exams - I was practically stressing myself to the ground. Of course as the end approaches, the sadness is beginning to outweight the relief...

Recollection
The interviews with my managers and buddy right before I got the job... the excitement when I actually *got* the offer... the state of panic when the realization of what I had gotten myself into sank in... slight apprehension as I met my fellow interns and had lunch with the COO... lunching with the interns slowly changing to lunching with colleagues as I began to get drawn into the work... zany on-line emails from colleagues all across Asia... late nights figuring out bank processes and the incredibly steep learning curve... jitters as the first flights touched into Singapore and making the initial calls... meeting the most diverse group of people I've had the good fortune to meet - Australian, HKers, Taiwanese, Japanese, Japanese-American, Chinese-Polish, Vietnamese-Australian, Taiwanese-Japanese, Singaporean, Irish, Korean, Indian, and loads in between - fantastic dinners and lunches with my colleagues at places I rarely go in a year - much less a month... tonnes of drinking... late nights / early mornings in the office as they worked on the case studies I wrote them... suppers I bought for everyone... the night we thrashed an apartment we rented for a party, and having boon tong kee chicken rice late night at river valley... team building weekend at batam just a few days back, spent navigating high ropes, team games in the jungle, paintball, beers in the pool, hamburgers for supper, and mosquito bites... taking up one row of tables at the brazilian restaurant in sixth avenue and getting a cake for a colleague as we brought the place to life. And now.

I won't forget the crap, and the nights where I left the office in a daze... but right now I won't swap it for anything, because everything else has been so good.