A week's come and gone!

It’s been a week since I joined my first job in the United States and I’ve been having an amazing time so far. I guess it’s partly because I haven’t started working on my project yet. But for the most part, I guess it’s because I have come to love the place, the people, and the food and more importantly because I am getting paid to attend orientation and classroom training sessions unlike school, where I have to pay tuition to listen to the same lectures. The first day I came here, I was kind of nervous and scared to an extent. I guess it was because it’s because I was making a conscious effort not to make a fool out of myself. In fact, earlier in the morning, while getting ready to office, I checked, re-checked and triple checked to see if I had taken the price tag off my shirt and trouser (yes I had bought it just last weekend because I wanted to make a good ‘first’ impression)What’s even funnier is that, for as far back as I can remember, I haven’t woken up any time before 9AM in the morning and the welcome email from Valero mentioned that we had to report on Monday morning at 7.30AM. I had to literally setup 6 alarms between 5AM and 6.30AM so that I wouldn’t be late for my first day! I eventually managed to get out of bed at 6.30AM and rushed to the office to make it just on time at the 7.30AM mark.It’s been an interesting first week of sorts for me. I’ve managed to lose my way through the maze of cubicles and break rooms EVERY time, whether it is leaving the training room for a bathroom break or finding my way to the parking lot or going to the fitness center (now don’t laugh at me…I’m actually going here because I have become health-conscious). The people here at Valero have been kind enough to walk me back to my training room each and every time and hopefully, in a while, I would be able to guide people back to their desks. Hopefully soon.In the few days that I have been here, I’ve learnt so much. Not just about the work I am going to be doing but about the organization in general. Oh in case y’all didn’t know already, I’m going to be interning with the application support team of the I/S department at Valero Headquarters, San Antonio. Ours is a pretty small team of about 500 odd people (I guess because in all possibility, it could be lesser) and that means, I get to do a lot of work! It’s really exciting because I actually get to contribute to the company and more so important because this is going to be my first web development real time project.I’m from India and there is a lot of stuff I am learning about the American culture as well. I torture my buddies at work – Ido, Sam and Brian and make them explain all about really simple stuff like what a sorority, varsity, and fraternity means. I think I double torture Brian because he is my fitness coach and also my advisor on baseball, basketball and American football (none of which I had a clue before coming to country). Who am I kidding huh? I am from India and all that I know is Coffee, rich Indian food and cricket.From my one week at Valero, I realized a few things. For starters, I know it’s going to be one amazing summer. Second, I am going to be making a lot of money haha… that means I get to eat out more this fall term. Most importantly, I know I’ve made some very good friends here at work already! They just made the settling in a whole lot easier! Oh by the way, congratulation Brian on your ring! WHOOP! :)Gig'Em!