Frustrating Day

Today was one of those frustrating days that you eagerly await the end of. This morning started with waking up, after coming home at midnight, to realize that the electricity and water has been shut off. I had to use bottled water to brush teeth and wash my face. Thankfully earlier in the week I went to Lulu (a huge supermarket that looks like a casino in the evening) and got huge bottles of water that you usually with office water coolers.

I was excited for work today because there is a new product that UK's HSBC wants us to start, and they have put me in charge of working on it. It was supposed to take me a while because it would involve initial market research and then quantifying the possible revenues and costs that it would involve. I started doing the market research although there was limited information about small businesses within Oman. I went to have a conference with UK and other countries to talk about questions and concerns that we have with it. The conference started smoothly and then one of the participants put the call on hold and loud elevator music started blasting into the phone. The meeting will have to be rescheduled. Except, as I further got into the research I realized how unprepared the market is for this product, which was further confirmed by my boss. I currently have 4 other projects that I'm supposed to be workign on. One is a credit review and analysis, where I have already been waiting 2 days to get the needed financial statements to finish this. A project where I need to prepare the monthly results and trends of performance for the department except I have to wait until the month ends to get the data on the month. Also, a fellow trainee is going to be leaving in a week or so and he has to pass me the project he is working on. The issue is that he doesn't know excel (format of the project) and he has to reformat it so that I can do analysis on the work. Finally, i went and spoke to the boss talling him about my issues with not having work to do. He decided to give me two projects that he thinks will take 3 weeks to finish...i am 40% finished on both after working on it 2 hours. In conclusion there are 2 main frustrating things about HSBC Oman...1) everything takes forever to receive and finalize 2) the network usually goes bonkers and decides to freeze for 30 mins at least once a day... so everyone just chats and goes on coffee breaks.

Yesterday I drove by myself around Oman for the first time and also received my first Omani parking ticket. Oman has a huge issue with road infrastructure...where as there are no real street names, not enough streets, streets not wide enough, and not enough parking. For work everyday we park parrallel to the street in a non-existant parking lot. Many people park on the side walk or in an expensive parkign lot that only houses around 30 cars. I guess one of the few parking attendants saw our car blocking one side of the street and gave us a warning (no penalty to pay).

I found out today that Priyanka, another intern in my department, lives literally 5 doors away from me. It should be nice to have someone close. The house itslef is interesting. It has 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 1 living room, a large office, and a room for the maid. The rooms are REALLY large and have REALLY high ceilings. The only downside of this place is that it has construction everyday and that it has mold. Gonu, a large cyclone, hit last year causing massive damage and even deaths. The house we're living in now had the first floor flooded and the second floor had to be taken down. We live on the first floor while the second floor is currently being built. I would assume the house wasn't completely dried because all of the rooms have at least some mold. Usually it's in the curtains although there is one bedroom that reeks of mold. The bedroom that I will be moving to doesn't smell of mold but supposedly has some in curtains. It should also be interesting in how the room situation will work out. There are four bedrooms, with one bedroom having two beds within it. Once the AIESEC staff moves out there will be only trainees living in the house. Except during this summer we are anticipating 3 more people. If you do the math right...we will be missing a bed for one of the interns.

Everyone that is currently here is super cool.

Brett & Suzy- The cute dating couple that are uber-duper cute together. With Suzy being a cute Colombian who is currently doing a traineeship here. Brett is in charge of incoming exchange and looks Arabic or Middle Eastern but is a plain American. It's always amusing to see how everyone just assumes that he's from somewhere close by when his ancestors are Eastern Europeans.

David- Curry chaser to the extreme. His love of Indian movies and actors is intense. Also, known for his zombie stares that he gets when he's tired.

Katy- a hot chicka who has a hottie of a bf coming to visit from Tunisia.

Lynn- A chill and relaxed guy who has the easiest time meeting new people. At a grocery store I looked away for a second only to come back to him chatting with an Omani, for 30 mins.

And the trainees- John (an incredibly tall guy who loves to talk about politics and should be avoided when he gets angry while he's driving), Celeste (a social butterfly who spends as much time as possible outside).