I survived my first week in the workforce after six months of bumming around. I must say I’m impressed with the new place, two things jumped out at me immediately. Firstly no-one has asked me where Sri Lanka is, I swear every time somebody asks me this question I want to pull my nostril hair out. It was excusable a couple of years ago, but after Tsunami entered the mainstream verbiage, not knowing the location of our little paradise isle is kind of sad. I find it very difficult to prevent my eyes from rolling into the back of my head when asked “so where is Sri Lanka?” I remember when I was eight I went to school in the US for a couple of years and a teacher asked me what state Sri Lanka was in. Needless to say my American school experience is not something I look back on with great nostalgia.

Digression bemoaning the geographical inadequacies of the people I have come across in my work aside, the other thing that really jumped out at me is that no one smells! Generally at a workplace you always get someone with dodgy hygiene, actually this ran true in college as well. Pretty much anytime you get a group of people over 20 in number there was bound to be at least one stinker…thankfully in this case I’m yet to come across such a person in this organization.

I’m still very much trying to come to terms with the mindset of the new organization I’m with coming from both a corporate money maker mindset and a scientific research academic background. I’ve always been a “save the world” kind of guy but not in a go getter kind of way, mainly because I haven’t really been sure how to go about it. I’m slowly getting a better understanding of the nuts and bolts of activism and how to really effect change. I have to say the passion people have what they have achieved and the opportunity for me to both contribute my skills and learn new ones is an exciting one. Exciting enough for me to forget the rather shitty pay I have to suffer while living in one of the most expensive cities on earth (well…almost).