Monday, October 12, 2009

I Miss Mehico…

The one thing that I have really liked about my MBA course has been the summer internship program. I had the wonderful opportunity to work in Mexico. I should thank the MBA management for providing me that opportunity. We were a team of 3 MBAs and 1 graduate student. We worked with a scientific organization called CICY in the beautiful sea-side town of Merida which is very near to the famous tourist destination of Cancun Islands. Merida is a super green place with so many trees and bushes growing all over the place.

We worked with some great scientists who had made great innovations. We developed our feasibility study for their innovations and presented it to them which they liked it very much. This 3 month experience is very close to my heart as I found Mexico very similar to India. I have listed down some places in Merida which will always be dear to me.

1. Botanical Garden @ CICY – CICY had a beautiful 4 hectare botanical garden which hosted many different types of insects reptiles and birds. I always took a walk after my lunch into this piece of heaven. And whenever I walk inside the heavenly abode, I am reminded so much of my mother. She would have really liked place and its greenery.



2. Downtown CENTRO – Merida had a beautiful downtown Centro. On all Sundays and Mondays, the streets would be blocked off and people would dance there wearing their traditional dress. It was a pleasure watching even small kids dance. There were lots of shops in that place with lots of things to buy.



3. Progresso – This beautiful beach lay 20 miles off the north coast of Merida. I was absolutely stunned to see a pure white sand beach and the greenish blue sea. This is a must go destination for any person visiting this city. The big fish lunch at any one of the local restaurants is also not be missed. ;)



4. Uxmal – This is a beautiful pyramid built by Mayans 1000 years ago. It’s a marvelous piece of architecture and it resembled so much like the various temples that we have in India.



5. 500 – This was a karaoke club. I had great fun singing up there. ;)



I would also want to thank all the scientist and Gaby(PA to the Director general) who helped us a lot. Also I would like to mention the super efforts our Mexican team member, GINA, who took so much effort in helping us communicate with the scientist (as most of them spoke Spanish only). On the whole, it was one of my best experiences and I would cherish this for a long time to come.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Blonde Cut..

There have always been some differences between life in India and US of A. I am going through a process of getting used to this wonderful place though memories of India always linger with me all the time. But there are certain things that I have seen in US that I never could have imagined to happen to me in India and I experienced one of that quite recently.

I had gone a barber shop to get a hair-cut last week. The hair cut experience has always horrified me.. by just looking at the different styles of hair-cut my friends have here. I have heard of many stories where the barbers ask their customers 1, 2 or 3 and then style their hair accordingly which sometimes look like a well shaven tree. But the last week’s experience was a very good one! :)

I had a hair cut from a blonde gal!!! I could have never imagined that in my entire life that I could have had this experience ;) She did her job really well. It amazes me to see how many opportunities women have here compared to India. I hope one day I get my hair cut in India from a woman barber and that would only be the perfect way of having 33% proper reservation.