The Little Intern

My mornings usually start off with my mind screaming, "Wake up! You have terrible horrible emails in your inbox!" So then I roll out of bed, stretch, shower, and tell good ol' helper what I'd like for breakfast. It's usually a cheese sandwich and yogurt and banana with my staple milk tea, but yesterday I knew that lunch would be impossible so I told her I wanted my leftover beef from yesterday, and some rice and dahl. It was 8:45 am. When I told her I would need this food by 9:30, she was all, "OMG no can do!" (I'm paraphrasing here). But long story short, I got to gulp down my breakfast in plenty of time, because my Dhaka-boss was late.

Here's my lunch. Everyday at the office, a peon (hehe, makes me think of Warcraft II) comes 'round and delivers tea and some sort of baked good to everyone. So since my baked good was full of potatoes and onions, I figured I'd call it lunch instead of snack. I was glued to my screen all day, with only a minor break to report to Dhaka-boss about the progress of a tiny task. I met a couple of new people at the office -- one of them had just come back from East Timor and was off again soon to Thailand -- and wrangled my way into riding to a book launching ceremony with the head of admin, who had been regaling me with tales of how she never wears saris because she wore one once and it almost unraveled on her. I don't even own a sari, but I did bring my baro't saya in case I need it. Baro't saya: it's a travel must!

So Dhaka-boss was going to go home at 8 pm again, and I told her, gee, maybe I'll head on back by myself. So I did! I am very proud to say that I went home all by myself, like a big girl. Yes, yes, I know I'm almost thirty. Hush. My heart is very young. Anyway, I stood on the curbside for five minutes getting feasted upon by mosquitoes before I got a passing CNG. The picture here is what it looks like being in a speeding green cage with all the pretty light decorations for the cricket world cup. I admit I spent most of the ride fretting because I didn't recognize the roads the driver was taking, and there was a point when we got stuck in a traffic jam where I was pretty sure that I was a one-minute walk away from the entrance of my residential area, but not quite sure enough to get off the CNG. I turned out to be right, but my main concern was getting out before the meter hit Tk100 (Taka is the currency here), and I got out at Tk94 or something. I swear I'm not being cheap; it's just that I only had one Tk100 bill on me since I hadn't gotten my living allowance yet. (I did when I got home -- whew!)

Despite not having lunch, I was too exhausted to have dinner, so I just polished off a thing of yogurt and an orange. It might have been a clementine, I don't know. Now, I imagine normal people crawl into bed or the couch to watch TV, but I had to check my email again, and yep, there were "URGENT NEED THIS NOW!" emails in the inbox. Damn you, communications technology, damn youuuuuuuu