Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

The central bus stop at the little town of Marsalforn was inundated with a sense of impatience. The dozens of people gathering in the little square could not stop staring at the road leading to the bus stop, as if a more intense stare could get the bus to show up faster. On the mobile app of Malta Public Transport, the bus was shown as a mere 4 minutes away, but with one bus coming every 30 minutes or so, everyone was getting visibly jittery as to whether the small bus could fit everyone in the bumpy journey to the central bus terminal in Victoria, the capital of Gozo Island, only some 6km away. 

Neither a teacher nor a consultant is supposed to be picky about the clients they interact with. Business logic simply does not allow for it. As long as the client is willing to pay, adhere to legal regulations, and interact respectfully, there is little reason for the client to be refused service. Moreover, it is often not ethical to refuse service for reasons that are not knowledge, law, or business-related. In the case of students seeking knowledge, the refusal to provide can be interpreted as unfair discrimination, withholding of resources that they have the right to access without valid explanations.

The little community library in the Maltese town of Mosta was, well, little. But in a small room with perhaps five shelves, a service counter, and a table, every corner was filled with books, many of them quite worn out. The main focus, as is the case for libraries elsewhere , is books that children can read. Picture books, novels, and non-fiction imparting writing skills and knowledge on young adults make up, at a quick glance, more than half of the collection. As adults turn to the internet for their readings, it is clearly the kids without their own digital devices that still carry around paperbacks and hardcovers.

It was only when the taxi sped out of Malta International Airport that I realized the meaning of the word "development." I had just spent a weekend in Tunis, only a short one-hour flight in North Africa. Fascinating as the capital of Tunisia was, with its combination of colonial French and medieval architecture interspaced with the hustle and bustle of everyday life, the city was clearly rough on the edge. Streets were overrun with trash, watery sewage, and feral cats and dogs. The pavements, buildings, and markets were crumbling from the lack of repair and random touts following tourists for a quick "gift."

I often half-jokingly say that I am way past my peak at age 35. While it is a way to prevent others from setting too high of an expectation for how much further my career can go, it also reflects how I reflect how I see my career so far. As a mere 24-year-old, I was already a Vice President of Operations at Lazada , an e-commerce firm that became a major player in that industry in Southeast Asia. Overseeing more than 150 employees, some more than twice as old as I was at the time, made me realize that corporate management was frankly, not my cup of tea.

Walking the narrow streets of Malta, I cannot help but notice a distinct lack of the usual big names in retail. In place of the Walmarts and the FamilyMarts of the world are small no-name mom-and-pop shops specializing in one type of product or the other. From Paul's selling only stationery to the hole-in-the-wall household goods stores peddling towels and plastic baskets, the little towns of this island country remain dominated by small enterprises, the kind that have long been killed off in other countries by major retail chains selling everything from A to Z.

Every line of work ebbs and flows based on a calendar of deadlines. When no imminent projects are on the horizon, employees enjoy their downtime, taking vacations and going home early from the office. When clients call in with urgent requests, employees reluctantly do overtime, trying to get through all the tasks while their managers and customers breathe down their necks for constant updates. The deadlines vary greatly from industry to industry, with expectations being three months for management consultants to three minutes for the fry cook at McDonald's.

Home. It is a word that is often laden with so many emotions: a sense of belonging when there, longing when not, indifferent when ridden with conflict, joy-inducing when filled with loved ones. People say that what makes a physical place "home" is what is inside: the people, the neighbors, and that feeling of being safe from the elements and troubles brewing outside. For them, a home can be mobile and ever-shifting> As long as what one associated with the home can move together with the person, then the home can be anywhere, in any building.

One thing that this blog does not particularly do well is "specificity." Often, posts start with a concrete event that triggers a line of thinking, but then dive deeper and deeper into the philosophy and values behind the thinking, until the reader is left thinking, at the end of the post, what do the abstract thoughts developed across multiple paragraphs have anything to do with the event that triggered the post in the first place. And too frequently, I am inclined to agree with the readers: as a space to freely jot down my thoughts, the thoughts are prioritized over structure or narrative.

The short corridors to the recording studio are heaving with people, running back forth, looking for cast members, and talking to staff members about what's next on the busy schedule. On both sides of the corridor are a series of tatami-covered waiting rooms, each fronted with a lockable door and a nameplate to denote who is inside. Some of the names belong to well-known celebrities on Japanese TV, and others, like mine, belong to temporary guests not used to being there. Some are no doubt nervous, even if they've been on TV for years. Others are calm (like me), and nonchalant about the prospect of being recorded.

One of the most useful skills, in any industry and any line of job, is the ability to think on the spot. Some people can, right after listening to comments from others or even skimming through some dense text, immediately provide their feedback and critique. If the comments are relevant, insightful, and sharp-witted, they leave lasting impressions of being quick to think and capable of real-time communication. Having more meetings, like I do for my job , can be a good way to train the mind to react to information and reply more quickly.

Several years ago, this blog concluded in a post that the meaning of a doctorate is related to a particular career option, not a reflection of the Ph.D. holder's intellect. The time was my early days of coming back to academia, right after a couple years in the East African outback for an American non-profit. The idea of getting back into the books after two years in the maize fields still felt new and exciting. Being an academic was still a viable option, made worthy of consideration when thinking about the joy of doing fieldwork in countries around the world.

Walking down the street, having lunch by oneself, staring at the sky...life is full of moments that seem to be in between more important events. Yet, even as one physically takes a break in between those important events that require full concentration, one's mind never really does. The mind always wonders, for a purpose if needed, and aimlessly, when there is no particular urgent need. Some would define aimlessness as boredom, and try to find some aim to end the boredom. Scrolling through social media on the train, knitting a sweater at night, writing this blog...they can all constitute intentional attempts to be productive.

Distrust in the state and supposed professionals run deep in Russia. For an ordinary Russian, the need for "fixing things up yourself" is ingrained , as there is too great of a chance that unscrupulous individuals with fake licenses charge too much money for not much professional results. From fixing homes to administrating medicine, many Russians do it by themselves, assuming that their amateurism is still more efficient and less deadly than the risk of paying money to the wrong people and facing the deadly consequences of their falsified expertise.

The "Happy Birthday" posts on Facebook seem to be sparser than usual. As the average user of the social media platform becomes older, it has become more and more difficult to keep them engaged and communicating with their equally older friends. After all, older people are busier. They have children to attend to, subordinates to manage, and more responsibilities at work to ponder over. What is more, with more of a stake in work and private life, they are much more cautious about their public image, and try to avoid leaving digital footprints. So many of them have Facebook profiles that stay the same for years.

Strategic plans on Word documents, business analyses on spreadsheets, colorful PowerPoint presentations...my image of white-collar work, based on the various past jobs I've had, had always been associated with written materials. Plenty of internal and external communications, through phone calls and meetings, certainly did take place, but ultimately, the results were reflected in written form, to be submitted to the higher-ups as email attachments, easily digestible and transmittable to a wider audience both inside and outside the company.

"I'm gonna go to Harvard." It is almost every day that I come across a student with such ambitions in this job. Replace the name "Harvard" with some other top-ranked, well-known university in the US and the UK, and the sentiment practically describes every student I speak with. There are different reasons that students aspire to a spot in one of the world's elite educational institutions. Some are grounded in the cold, hard logic of high financial returns, while others are bound by the emotional belief of pride and prestige. Whatever the reason, the goal remains noble, motivating, and worthy of encouragement.

When my wife first showed me that Worcester sauce goes well on a meat bun, I was a bit skeptical. A classic sauce of England on a classic snack of the Orient. It sounds like too much of a clash of civilizations without hard evidence on the palate. But with the first bite, I was surprised. Yes, we know that Worcester sauce goes well on grilled meat, but even through a soggy steamed flour covering, the sauce can still evoke the satisfaction of a (thankfully much healthier) steak. Defying culinary categorization at the get-go, the combination transcends international boundaries of what tastes good.

I've never been a purveyor of novels. Their often made-up stories simply did not sit well with my interest in facts, expressed through news articles and research reports analyzing the ins and outs of contemporary affairs. Novels, and their focus on the emotions of individual protagonists, just felt so small, maybe even irrelevant, in the larger trends of our world, represented by wars, pandemics, climate change, and bold moves by executives at globally renowned multinationals. Average Joes and Janes, to me, simply mattered little, on their own, to those larger-than-life forces that shape human civilization.

Where does a white-collar worker get most of their work done? The answer these days might be obvious at first sight: somewhere with good internet connections, a reliable power outlet to charge electronic devices, as well as a comfy chair and desk that does not make hours of deskwork not stressful on the back and the hips. Logically, the more routine around this setup, the better. After all, what can be a better desk than one that has proven itself, day after day, that does not cause back pain. What is better than wireless internet that has a track record of not disconnecting spontaneously over weeks and months?