ADB

I spent most of last week at ADB.

The building was a massive fortress, with an intricate maze of offices which kept me going round in circles. It succeeded in making me feel completely lost and out of place.

It was an intimidating time for me. The meetings were very taxing as I was kept on my toes by ADB officers most of whom were equipped with at least a PhD and 10 years of experience in developing countries under their belt. I felt totally ill-equipped. As i shared with a friend- I sometimes still feel like a young undergraduate with no or little responsibilities, and to be taken seriously as a subject matter expert and international consultant, was a responsibility that made me question my abilities and capabilities every step of the way.

It didn't help that my brown bag presentation was at the end of the trip, so each meeting made me review my slides, and rethink my position, question my hypothesis and ponder endlessly on the questions that would result. It was like preparing for my honours thesis presentation all over again.

An interesting incident was when I came into a meeting late, shook the hands of an ADB officer, and he said ," We've met before". My mind raced, trying to locate this person in my history. Looking at him hard, i remembered that I had a professor who looked very much like him, my eyes searched for his name ID and I realised it was Dr Bhatta- first semester NUS Undergrad, Introduction to Political Science. That was in 1998. Almost 10 years ago. He taught me for a semester and left right after for NZ. Who'd have thought I'd meeting him almost 10 years later. And who'd have thought he would have remembered me!

The rest of the meeting was terribly frigtening and challenging. I felt that he was scrutinising my performance, pouring over my every word assessing whether 'this one' had made the cut- whether I was a good product or a disaster from the system.

It was a harrowing time. But also a comletely exhilirating one.

Btw, I nailed my presentation. And was able to field the questions reasonably well, enough for me to say that I was pleased with myself.

June 2007- ADB Brown Bag Presentation and Meetings- one more major milestone for me!