It’s not an adventure if you know what you are doing

As the weeks fly by, I realize that already the month of June has passed. Living day-by-day, my adventure as a Cansbridge Fellow continues with surprises every day that I would have not encountered anywhere else in Canada. Almost every weekend is spent traveling and exploring Malaysia or another country.

Living in a foreign country is one thing, but when you decide to go on a road trip in another foreign country where almost no one speaks English is another. We booked our trip at midnight and had to catch a plane at 6am the same morning. We were headed to Indonesia. My two travel companions were friends and coworkers. We wanted to rent a car and drive to the south of Indonesia, to the beach. Little did we know that since it was the end of Ramadan, Hari Raya, everyone would be going to the beach. After spending three hours in the airport trying to rent a car, in the end finding out that there is no rental car service in the airport, we headed to Jakarta to Avis, hoping that they would have cars left.

Arriving at a building that looked like it was abandoned years ago, we saw a small sign that said Avis. The gate was closed, but there was a man standing outside, and I asked him if Avis was here. To our luck it was, and after a few moments and convincing the rental car salesman that Canadian licenses are international licenses, we got our car, Avanza. She was our transport, and our home, for the next 3 nights.

Driving on left side of the road surprisingly didn’t take long to get used to, what was scarier were the swarms of people driving on mopeds that did not care if they hit you, or got hit themselves because they drove like they were unstoppable. Driving at high speeds didn’t last long unfortunately, as I have said before, everyone was going to the beach, so in total, in three days, I’m sure we spent more than 18 hours in a car, stuck in traffic.

Sleeping in the car proved to be fun only the first night, but I think it was because we were very tired, and just fell asleep. Waking up the next morning at dawn, our day was full of driving, eating, and swimming more than 300 meters in the ocean, because we thought we saw a water trampoline in the middle of the ocean, it turned out to be a net for catching crabs. On the second day, the car was already very smelly, but it was all part of the adventure. The next day climbing a volcano was not easy, especially since I have been out of shape for a while, but we made it. Indonesia was fun, but I wouldn’t recommend going during religious holidays.

Work is also an adventure. Everything is constantly changing and new and harder tasks come up every day. Our company decided to create a new lunchbox, and hearing that I had a little experience in 3D modeling, they asked me to create the first prototype. In 2 days I had a finished 3D model that was ready to be 3D printed, and in a few days, it was. Being an entrepreneur in residence means you should be up for any challenge, right?

Although the work is fun and challenging, the long hours can get to you. Coming in to the office around 9:30a.m I leave towards 8:00–9:00p.m everyday. It is nice that we get food at the office, so it takes away the need to cook and it makes up for the hours in a way. Work days can get pretty hectic though, some days I’m running back and forth from my desk to the customer service desk figuring out a bug that I probably caused with the latest feature that was released. But it is incredibly rewarding to see people using the tech that I build and having it cause an impact in their way of work.

Starting to miss home a little, but another month still remains, and I’m excited to see what other adventures lie ahead.

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