ST 2009-03-01 Grad trips still a must, but on a smaller budget?

Hhhmmmmpppphhh - this reminded me of my own final undergrad year.  Among some of us who were mugging away, there were many who were also booking for the post-exam holiday tours, some as long as 5 weeks in Europe.

I could only look on enviously as I did not have such means.  And not all my friends who did it were sponsored by parents - some had been saving for such a trip for years, from giving tuition, piano lessons and working during the holidays.  It's just that at that time, as a foreigner on student pass, I was not allowed to work.  The last semblance of an income I had was during my internship, and that was just enough for my transport and meals, and printing my FYP reports.

Incidentally, I also never knew there was such a thing as "grad trip" until the tour companies came round conducting fairs on campus.

Anyway, the day after my last paper, I had an entry test with a prospective employer, whose applicaiton form I filled in hurriedly the night before after coming home late from celebrating at a school friend's house.  I hadn't even gotten anyone to be my refereee, so I put "N/A" in those columns.  The week after was an interview with the company, and then almost four weeks of no news from them while I was busily scouring Classified Ads and sending out application letters by the dozens, blissfully unaware that the then recent postal rate revision meant many of my mails had insufficient postage.

As it happened, that first company must have had their acceptance of some candidates rejected, and they offered me, a second choice candidate, an opening to report for work on 27 May 1993.  (Serve them right too, the company rejected all applicants during the first round of recruitment drive in December, and that round had the best students applying!)   It gave me just about a week to make a quick visit to my grandmothers in Indonesia before starting work.

Well, finally, I thought, I would have the opportunity I'd always dreamed of to travel around the world.  My first job turns out to be with an airline with staff travel benefits/privileges.  At least, it gave me some consolation and something to look forward to when my pals who went on holidays came back with stories and photos of their trips.  This was in 1993 - before there was blogging, and internet was primarily in textual UI and only available through university computers or MNCs, even before there were cybercafes.

Well, as it turned out, not so fast, buster.

First, I also signed up to do postgrad courses which consumes almost all my annual leave.

Second, I also learned that the air-ticket is just a small part of the whole travel budget, especially for a novice traveller like me who did not want to join tour groups.

Third, my pals just weren't too keen to join me to jaunt off to distant destinations after we all started work - for those who had already gone, it's "been there, done that."  For the rest, they didn't have the advantage of working in an airline, needed more time to save for it or weren't ready to splurge.

Of course it would never be the same kind of fun as going with a big bunch of fellow schoolmates, but I'd still like to take that trip someday and travel around countryside of Europe.